424 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 137 



wing of a swan, fans it gently, and cberisbes it to a flame. On this, the Archir 

 magus brings it out in an old earthen vessel, whereon he had placed it, and lays 

 it on the sacred altar, which is under an arbour, thick-weaved a-top with green 

 boughs. (Adair, 1775, p. 111.) 



Pope says that the base stick used by the Creeks was poplar, and the 

 upper stick sassafrass, but a missionary report dated 1852 states that 

 they were both of ash (Pope, 1792, p. 55; Foreman, 1934, p. 18), and 

 an old Okchai Indian told me that they were of post oak. The last- 

 mentioned added that the true punk upon which the resulting sparks 

 were caught was not any sort of rotten wood such as is now called by 

 the name, but soft stuff of the kind found in hickory or cypress trees 

 by chopping into them where a limb has come away. After the punk 

 had caught fire, it was taken off, mixed with hay, and fanned until the 

 whole burst into flames. Fire was transported from one place to 

 another by means of burning oak bark. From the French they got 

 flint and steel. Hicks (see p. 771) reports that the Cherokee used 

 "dried grape vine" as a base stick. 



By 1904 the Yuchi Indians had so far forgotten their ancient use 

 of firesticks that they had no remembrance of them. Speck says : 



The Yuchi claim that originally two pieces of stone were struck together, 

 either two pieces of flint or a piece of flint and a piece of quartz or pyrites. In 

 the annual tribal ceremony this method is preserved yet. Two persons are 

 ordinarily required in producing fire, one to do the striking, the other to hold the 

 bed of fire material into which the spark is projected when obtained. A single 

 individual might succeed very well, but two together obtain fire much more 

 quickly. Even then the operation often takes fifteen minutes or more. It is 

 likely, however, that the manipulators were already out of practice when the 

 method passed out of common use. It is nowadays admitted that the town chief 

 who strikes the spark at the annual ceremony is greatly worried at this time over 

 the ultimate result of his efforts. It takes him about twenty minutes to secure 

 a flame. 



The method, as observed on several ceremonial occasions, is as follows: the 

 flint, yata dawon^, is held between the thumb and forefinger of the right hand 

 with a small piece of punk material, tcifig 6', alongside of it. This punk appears 

 to be a very close-pored fungus. In his left hand he holds the striker. The 

 helper stands by, holding a curved tray of hickory bark heaped up with decayed 

 wood, sdmbV, which has been dried and reduced to powder. The chief operator 

 then strikes the two stones together, and when several good sparks have been 

 seen to fly, a moment is given to watching for evidence that one has been kept 

 alive in the punk. If the spark smoulders in this it is gently transferred to the 

 tinder in the bark tray. From this moment the responsibility rests with the 

 helper. He begins to sway the tinder very gradually from side to side and 

 gauges his movements by the thin wisp of smoke that arises from the smouldering 

 bed. After a few minutes, if things go well, the smoke increases and the helper 

 becomes more energetic. The climax is reached when from the dried wood 

 tinder-bed a little flame springs up. Small twigs are piled on and then larger 

 ones until the blazing mass can be safely deposited beneath a pile of firewood. 

 Nowadiiys at any rate, the fire-producing materials, fiint and punk, are a part 

 of the town chief's sacred paraphernalia and he has the prerogative of manipulat- 

 ing them. A piece of steel is more often used as a sparker in the modern opera- 

 tion, as It Is more effective. 



