570 



EEPOET OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1888. 



So iu Australia, while the rotary drill is the usual way, some tribes 

 have acquired the art of producing- fire with knife or rubber, that is, 

 the sawing method presumably under foreign influence.* 



III.— FIRE-MAKING BY PLOWING. 



One of the most marked of fire making methods in its distribution is 

 that pursued by the Pacific Islanders, confined almost entirely to the 

 Polynesian cultural area. It has spread to other 

 islands, however, being met with among the Negritos 

 of New Britain: 



They rub a sliarpened piece of hard stick against the inside 



of a piece of dried split bamboo. This has a natural dust that 



.| n„ . soon ignites. They use soft wood wheu no bamboo can be pro- 



^•^^ cured, but it takes longer to ignite. The flame is fed with 



grass, t 



There is a close connection between the Malay saw- 

 ing method and this, as there is a decided Malay pre- 

 ponderance iu the make-up of the population of the 

 Islands. 



The fire-sticks shown (fig. 43) were procured by Mr. 

 Harold M. Sewall, at Samoa, and deposited in the 

 museum by him. 



The wood is a light corky variety, probably of the 

 Hibiscus tiliacus, which is used for this purpose at 

 Tahiti, or perhaps it is of the paper mulberry. The 

 rubber may be of some hard wood, although fire may 

 be made by means of a rubber of the same kind of wood 

 as that of the hearth, though no doubt it requires a 

 longer time to make fire if this is done. In the Sand- 

 wich Islands, Mr. Franklin Hale Austin, secretary of 

 the King, states that the rubber is of koh or ohia, 

 that is, hard wood and the hearth of hon, or soft wood, 

 and the friction is always in soft woods; this is true, 

 1 believe, everywhere this method is practiced, iu 

 spite of the fact that a soft rubber on hard wood will 

 answer as well. 



Lieut. William I. Moore, TJ. S. Navy, gave the writer 

 a complete description of the manipulation of the Sa- 

 moan fire-getting apparatus. 



The blunt pointed stick is taken between the clasped hands, somewhat 

 as oue takes a pen, and projected forward from the body along the groove 

 at the greatest frictional angle consistent with the forward motion which 

 has been found to be from 40 to 45 degrees. Kneeling on the stick the 

 mau forces the rubber forward, slowly at first, with a range of perhaps 



Fig. 43. 



rnjE- MAKING Sticks 

 (o Showing Groove). 



(Cat. No. 13067iJ, U. S. N. M. 

 Samoa. Oppositeil by Hiirolil 

 M. Sewall. ) 



*R. Brough Smith. — The Aborigines of Victoria. Londou, l.-i;8. 

 t W. Powell.— Wauderings iu a Wild Country, p. 206. 



I, p. 393. 



