552 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 18^8. 



The Japanese formerly used the simple drill ; a few are yet preserved 

 in the temples. Under the name of " Sacred fire drill '' it is described* 

 as a board 1 foot wide, 1 foot 4 inches long, 1 inch thick, and with a 

 step 1 inch wide or over on one edge. It has holes and grooves like 

 the Eskimo hearth. The drill is a stick twirled between the hands. 

 The parts are of the hi-no-M, or fire tree, Chamceocyparis ohtusa. Tlie 

 drill is called hi-Mri-usu, or fire drilling mortar. It was and perhaps is 

 yet used for the purpose of drilling fire at the four corners of the temple 

 inclosure to ward off the calamity of fire. They are said also to have 

 used the roJcuro, or pump-drill. It is interesting to note that the Jap- 

 anese carpenter's drill with the iron point is rotated between the palms. 

 They are still in use. The one figured is in the Tokio Museum. 



Prof. Romyn Hitchcock has kindly allowed a drawing to be made of 

 a photograph which he x^rocured of a sacred fire drill j)reserved in the 

 temple called Oyashiro, at Idzumo, .lapau (fig. 18). The hearth of 



Fig. 18. 

 Sacked Firk Drill. 



From photogrrtph ofaperimen in Tokio Museum, Lent liy Romyn Hitchcock. 



this set is made of hinoTii wood and the drill of the Ut-su-gi, Deutzia 

 scabra. 

 Professor Hitchcock says : 



The fire drill is used at the festivals of the Oyashiro to produce fire fonise in cook- 

 ing the food offered to the gods. Until the temple was examined officially in 1872, 

 the bead priest used it for preparing his private meals at all times. Since theu it 

 has been used only at festivals and in the head priest's house on the eve of festivals, 

 when be purifies himself for their celebration in the Imbidous, or room for preparing 

 boly fire, where be makes the fire and prepares the food. 



The art of fire making by sticks of wood bj the method of rotation is, 

 or has been, as far as we know, universal on the African continent as 

 it was in the two Americas at the time of the discovery. There is not 

 a clue as to how the ancient Egyptians generated fire. 



The Somalis are a pastoral people of Arab extraction, inhabiting a 

 large maritime country south of the Gulf of Aden. Their fire-sticks 

 (fig. 19) are pieces of branches of brownish wood of equal texture, in 

 fact the hearth has formerly been used as a drill, as may be seen by its 

 regularly-formed and charred end. This is another proof that it is not 

 necessary that the sticks should be of different degrees of hardness. 

 The grain of the wood, that of the drill being against and the hearth 



* Trans. Asiat. Soc. Japan. 1878, vi. Pt. ii, p. 223. 



