ilKE -Making apparatus. 



569 



II. -FIRE-MAKING BY SAWING. 



Prof. Alfred Russel Wallace has noted the method by sawing in his 

 work entitled " The Malay Archipelago," p. 33i3: Two pieces of bamboo 

 are used ; a sharp edge piece like a knife is rubbed across a convex piece 

 in which a notch is cut, nearly severing the bamboo (fig. 42); after sawing 

 across for awhile the bamboo is pierced, and the 

 heated particles fall below and ignite. The Ternate 

 Malays and the Tungaras of British Korth Borneo* 

 have improv^ed upon this by striking a piece of china 

 with tinder held with it against the outside of a 

 piece of bamboo, the siliceous coating of the latter 

 yielding a spark like Hint. Both of the methods 

 mentioned are in use at different points in the area 

 affected by Malay influence. 



The Chittagong hill tribes, on the eastern frontier 

 of British India, use sand ou the sawing knife to 

 increase the friction. t 



The Karens of Burma, Dr. II. M. Luther informs 

 the writer, hollow out a branch of the Dip fe roc firpus 

 tree like the lower pie(;e of bamboo spoken of, cut a 

 transverse notch, and saw across in it with a rubber 

 of iron-wood. The wood libers ground off form the 

 tinder; the coal is wrapped up in a dry leaf and 

 swung around the head till it blazes. It takes only 

 two or three minutes to get a blaze this way. 



Bearing upon the origin of this method of sawing 

 in these localities, nature is alleged to suggest the 

 way and to repeat the process that would giv^e to 

 fireless man the hint. Mr. W. T. Hornaday relates 

 that many fires are started in the jungle by bamboo 

 rubbing together in a high wind-storm. The creak- 

 ing is indescribable; the noise of the rasping and 

 grinding of tlie horny stems is almost unendurable. 



In many tribes it is found that often there is more 

 than one method of fire making practiced. For in- 

 stance, in Borneo, as we have seen, the Tungaras 

 use the sawing method, the Saribus Dyaks the 

 hesiapi, or fire syringe, a most interesting fact,| 

 other Dyaks the rotary drill,§ while the Rev. Dr. 

 Taylor says that the Dyaks are acquainted with the use of the bow and 

 string and the upright stick and cord (pump drill). In connection with 

 all these methods probably flint and steel were used. 



Fig. 42. 

 Malay Fire Sticks 



(Cat. No. 1297ra, U. S. N. 

 Models in b:ii 

 HoURh after 



Archipelago, p. 332.) 



by Mr. 



VVal- 



■riie Miihiy 



» D. D. Daly.— Proc. Roy. Geog. Soc. 1888. p. 10. 



t Capt. T. H. Lewis.— Hill tribes of Chittagong. Calcutta, 1869. p. 83. 

 t The American Anthropologist. Washington, 1888. i, No. 3, p. '294. 

 § J. G. Wood.— The Natural History of Man. ii, p. 502. 



