ABORIGINAL USE OF WOOD IN NEW YORK 

 Fire-making 



The aborigines of New York had three means of adapting wood 

 to their use. With fire they felled trees and reduced them to any 

 desired length. With this they hollowed their mortars, and canoes, 

 as well as some household utensils. Stone and shell implements 

 aided in this, removing the charred wood. Sand was also used, 

 either as a gritty cutting stone, or in its free and granulated form, 

 aided by water. The use of metals changed all this in most cases, 

 but not in all. For dugout canoes and wooden mortars fire is still 

 employed, chipping and burning following each other. 



Fire was obtained in several ways. The simple friction of two 

 dry sticks might produce it, as was often done. The Mohawks 

 called this process ganniegarannie, which was an expansion of their 

 own name. There was also an aboriginal tinder used in most cases, 

 called ia-hah-nyn-ka'-ose by the Onondagas. Of one kind in Canada 

 we have this account: 



For a wick they have the skin of an eagle's thigh, with the down, 

 which takes fire easily; they strike two pieces of ore together, as 

 we do flint with a piece of iron or steel; in place of matches they 

 make use of a little piece of tinder (it is a piece of wood decayed 

 and very dry, which burns easily and incessantly till it is consumed) ; 

 having taken fire they put it into some pulverized cedar bark, and 

 blowing gently this bark catches fire. Relation, 1634 



Another way was by rapidly turning a little cedar stick, but this 

 was a Huron mode, little used by the Algonquins, though in favor 

 with the Iroquois. In his Light and Fire-making, Mr H. C. Mercer 

 gives an illustration of the last mentioned method, and also of the 

 mode in use among the Penobscot and Iroquois Indians. His 

 description of the latter follows. 



Make a spindle of hard wood (hickory, cedar) weighted as here, 

 with a flywheel made of strips of bark pegged or sewed together. 

 A wythe bow, with a rawhide string caught at the notch on the 

 spindle top, causes the latter to twirl back and forth as you lift and 

 press the bow. For your hearth, notch against the side of a piece 

 of juniper, pine or cedar, twirling your spindle point at a nick 

 previously made in the wood directly over the notch. In about 20 



