548 KEPOKT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1888. 



apparatus that lie made use of was four sticks placed end to end to form 

 a square cross. This was oriented, and at the juuctioji of the sticks 

 new fire was made by friction.* 



The Choctaws (also Muskogean) of Mississippi, Mr. M. F. Berry 

 writes, make fire in the following way: One stick of dry wood that 

 has a hole in it, with a smaller hole at the bottom going through, is 

 placed between the feet. Another piece made round and about 3 feet 

 long is made to revolve rapidly back and forth between the hands in 

 the hole, and the fire drops through the small hole below. When new 

 fire was wanted for the Green Corn Dance, or other purposes, three men 

 would place themselves so that each in turn could keep the stick re- 

 volving without a stop, until fire would drop down through the hole, 

 which was nursed with dry material into a flame. 



This form of the fire hearth is not represented in the collections of 

 the Museum ; the only other description of a process closely like it was 

 given by Mr. Thomas C. Battey, who observed it among the Kiowas. 

 It was shown him at that time as a revival of the ancient method (p. 543). 

 The pierced fire hearth is somewhat impracticable, except in the Malay 

 sawing method. In the rotary drill the small hole would come over tlie 

 axis of least friction and heat. Unless provision was made for the dust 

 to fall freely underneath by a double cone perforation worked from 

 both sides the dust is likely to become obstructed and smother the 

 fire. It will be seen, too, that it departs very much from the simplicity 

 of the usual fire drill in the fact that a hole must be made through the 

 piece of wood, a matter of some difliculty before the introduction of iron 

 awls. 



The Seminoles of Florida, the most Southern Muskoki, have neglected 

 the art of fire making by simple friction, unless at the starting of the 

 sacred fire for the Green Corn Dance, says Mr. Clay MacCauley.t A 

 tire is now kindled either by the common matches, ma-tci, or by steel 

 and flint. 



Thus it is seen that wherever in the earlier period of the exploration 

 in this country the observation has been made, the Indian, almost with 

 out exception, was found to be using the friction apparatus, consisting 

 of two sticks of wood. Some tribes had improved on the working of 

 the invention, while a very few others had perhaps arrived at the use 

 of the higher invention of the flint and pyrites. 



Returning to the tribes of the wide central plains of our country, we 



find that the flint and steel soon displaced the fire-sticks, except for 



religious purposes. The Mandans, of the great Siouan stock, were using 



flint and steel at the time of Mr. Catliu's visit in 1832.| 



There seems to be a great misapprehension among some of the writers 



'^ Benj. Hawkius' Sketch of the Creek Country. 1798-'9<). 68-72, cited in Pickett's 

 History of Alabama, i, p. 108. 



t Fiflh Auniial Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. 1883-'84, p. 518. 



j: The George Catliu ludiU'Q (jaller^y. Suiiihsoiiiap Keport. 1885, ii, p. 456, 



