370 
TIRE. 
and the excited crowd, like madmen, strip their bodies to 
wave their lighted candles over them is exactly similar, still 
stranger is it to learn that this most ancient heathen custom 
exists even yet in Cumberland. 
The Esquimaux strike together lumps of iron pyrites and 
flint stones, catching the sparks in dry moss. Such f strike 
lights ’ of magnetic iron ore have been found in Swiss lake 
dwellings.* 
What an advance has been made by man since fire was 
obliged to be obtained by the laborious operation of rubbing 
two sticks together, to the latest phosphorus compounds, the 
Greek or Fenian Fire. When Du Chaillu watched a group of 
Africans, who had never before seen a white man, trying to 
obtain a spark by friction, he filled them with terror by 
instantly striking a light with a lucifer match ; the Maori 
in a similar way expressed his astonishment when he first 
witnessed a lucifer match, and called it takiri, to dart as 
lightning ; what an enormous advance in civilization did 
that match represent, and how much of it has been gained 
in the present generation ! 
The various expressions used for fire, and relating to the 
procuring of it amongst the Maori are interesting as showing 
the value attached to it. Kora, kapura, ahi, mapura, maute, 
ngiha, pahunu, mura, kanaka, all mean fire ; the last word 
kanaka also signifies man in the Sandwich Isles, and is the 
same as tangata in Maori. 
Kauati and kaureureu are names for the stick used in rub- 
bing, rororu for both sticks thus used. Para is the dust 
caused by rubbing ; kauoti, the name given to the process 
of friction, pukuroa the flame thus produced, literally the 
“ long stomach,”- referring to its great power of expansion, 
or the long groove in which it is made, perhaps the name of 
a god, hence the saying, Me oioi hi te ringa ringa ha puta te 
tama Ujpuku roa , wave the dust to and fro in the hand and 
the child upuku roa will spring forth in the flame. Mauika, 
the god of fire, was said to have it in his fingers, probably an 
* From a paper by Mr. Newton on fire, as an agent of civilization. 
Mm 
