FIREj COOKINGj AND VESSELS. 235 



quaintance with Europeans. They got it first from the sky, 

 and preserved it by carrying firebrands about with them, and 

 if these went out, they looked for the smoke of the fire of some 

 other party, or for smouldering remains of a lately-abandoned 

 fire of their own.^ This curious account fits with the Tas- 

 manian myth recorded by Mr. MUligan, which tells how fire 

 was thrown down like a star by two black-fellows, who are 

 now in the sky, the twin stars Castor and Pollux.^ Moreover, 

 Mr, Milligan himself, on the question being put to him, has 

 answered it in a way very much corresponding to Mr. Back- 

 house's account, to the efiect that the Tasmanians never pro- 

 duced fire by artificial means at all, but always carried it with 

 them from one camping place to another. Again, a statement 

 of the same kind is reported to have been made by Mr. Mac 

 Douall Stuart at the 1864 Meeting of the British Association, 

 that fire was obtained by the natives of the southern part of 

 Australia by the friction of two pieces of wood over a bunch 

 of dry grass ; but that in the north this mode is unknown, fire- 

 brands being constantly carried about and renewed, and if, by 

 any accident, they become extinguished, a journey of great 

 length has to be undertaken iu order to obtain fire from other 

 natives.^ Now if it is hard to believe that the Tasmanians 

 used fire, but knew of no means of producing it, it is ten times 

 harder to imagine that among a population like that of Aus- 

 tralia, so given to travelling and to intercourse among neigh- 

 bouring tribes, and who, as we know, have had for generations 

 one of the commonest contrivances for making fire, this con- 

 trivance should not have reached districts in the north. It 

 may be over-scepticism, but I think it will be safer to wait for 

 more evidence before deciding positively that any known race 

 of fire-users have not also been fire-makers, especially as the 

 carrying about of burning brands, so as to be able to make a 

 fire wherever they went at a moment's notice, was the habitual 

 practice in parts of Australia where the natives were perfectly 

 able to make new fire, if they chose, with their fire-drill. They 

 simply found it more convenient to carry it about. 



1 Backhouse, ' Australia,' p. 99. ^ ggg Chapter XII. 



3 ' Athenseum,' Oct. 15, 1864, p. 503. 



