M ITERIAL CULTURE. 



51 



manufactures for itself. There is a more or less definite 

 division between the work of men and women, but 

 beyond that there is little specialization. The indi- 

 viduals are not of equal skill, 

 but still each practises practi- 

 cally the whole gamut of in- 

 dustrial arts peculiar to his 

 sex. This fact greatly in- 

 creases the importance of such 

 arts when considered as cul- 

 tural traits. 



Fire-making. The methods 

 of making fire are often of 

 great cultural interest. So far 

 as our data go, the method in 

 this area was by the simple 

 flredrill as shown in the Sho- 

 shone collections, Fig. 15. 

 Some of the Woodland tribes 

 used the bowdrill but so far, 

 this has not been reported for 

 the Plains. It may be well to 

 note that to strike fire with 

 flint one must have some form 

 of iron and while pyrites w r as 

 used by some Eskimo and 

 other tribes of the far north, 

 it seems to have been un- 

 known in the Plains. Naturally, flint and steel were 

 among the first articles introduced by white traders. 



Fig. 15. Firedrill 

 em Shoshone. 



North- 



