Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/238

228 F I E E though it might perhaps be explained as equivalent only to solar light antl hoat, undoubtedly invalidates the com modore s supposition ; and the Rev. George Turner, in an account of a missionary voyage in 1859, not only repeats the word afi in his list for Fakaafo, but relates the native legend about the origin of fire, and describes some peculiar customs connected with its use. Alvaro de Saavedra, an old Spanish traveller, informs us that the inhabitants of Los Jardines, an island of the Pacific, showed great fear when they saw fire, which they did not know before. But that island has not been identified with certainty by modern explorers. It belongs, perhaps, to the Ladrones or Marianas Archipelago, where fire was unknown, says Padre Gobien, " till Magellan, wroth at the pilferings of the inhabitants, burnt one of their villages. When they saw their wooden huts ablaze, their first thought was that fire was a beast which eats up wood. Some of them having approached the fire too near were burnt, and the others kept aloof, fearing to be torn or poisoned by the powerful breath of that terrible animal." To this Freycinet objects that these Ladrone islanders mads pottery before the arrival of Euro peans, that they had words expressing the ideas of flame, fire, oven, coals, roasting, and cooking. Let us add that in their country numerous graves and ruins have been found, which seem to be remnants of a former culture. Thus the question remains in uncertainty : though there is nothing impossible in the supposition of the existence of a fireless tribe, it cannot be said that such a tribe has been discovered. It is useless to inquire in what way man first discovered that fire was subject to his control, and could even be called into being by appropriate means. With the natural pheno menon and its various aspects he must soon have become familiar. The volcano lit up the darkness of night and sent its ashes or its lava down into the plains ; the lightning or the meteor struck, the tree, and the forest was ablaze ; or some less obvious cause produced some less extensive ignition. For a time it is possible that the grand manifes tations of nature aroused no feelings save awe and terror ; but man is quite as much endowed with curiosity as with reverence or caution, and familiarity must ere long have bred confidence if not contempt. It is by no means neces sary to suppose that the practical discovery of fire was made only at one given spot and in one given way ; it is much nure probable indeed that different tribes and races obtained the knowledge in a variety of ways. We still find in dif ferent parts of the world the natives taking advantage of hot springs, naphtha or petroleum wells, and accessible craters. In the island of Tanna, for instance, there is a mountain t > the west of Port Resolution which abounds in evidence of its volcanic character in fissures, steam-jets, hot-springs, &c. The inhabitants, says the Rev. George Turner, have not the slightest apprehension of danger; their settlements are arranged so that their murum or public square occupies one of the " hot places of the mountain ; and there they lounge and enjoy the subterranean heat. Some of the springs reach the boiling point. Every day women may be ssen cooking vegetables in artificial pits which form a series of never failing boiling pots. In some places the men or boys have only to stand on the rocks, spear their fish, and pitch them behind into the hot springs." Similar accounts are given of the Maories in New Zealand, and the Negritos in the New Hebrides. It lias been asserted of many tribes that they would be unable to rekindle their fires if they were all allowed to die out. Travellers in Australia and Tasmania depict the typical native woman bearing always about with her a bur ning brand, which it is one of her principal duties to pro tect and foster ; and it has been supposed that it was only ignorance which imposed on her the endless task. This, however, is not so certain ; for Mr Miklucho Maclav remarks of the Papuans, whom he has closely studied, that though they know how to produce fire, they prefer to carry it about. It was one of the distinguishing marks of the Samoan noble that his fire was never permitted to go out ; and his attendants had a special name from their business of watching it while he slept. In Corea the preservation of the ancestral fire is still regarded as of the first import ance for the happiness of a family, and the same belief has had a very extensive sway in other parts of the world. The methods employed for producing fire vary consider ably in detail, but are for the most part merely modified applications of concussion or friction. Sir John Lubbock has remarked that the working up of stone into implements must have been followed sooner or later by the discovery of fire ; for in the process of chipping sparks were elicited, and in the process of polishing heat was generated. The first or concussion method is still familiar in the flint and steel, which has hardly passed out of use even in the most civilized countries. Its modifications are comparatively few and unimportant. The Alaskans and Aleutians take two pieces of quartz, rub them well with native sulphur, strike them together till the sulphur catches fire, and then transfer the flame to a heap of dry grass over which a few feathers have been scattered. Instead of two pieces of quartz the Eskimos use a piece of quartz and a piece of iron pyrites. Mr Frederick Boyle saw fire produced by striking broken china violently against a bamboo, and Bastian observed the same process in Burmah, and Wallace in Ternate. In Cochin China two pieces of bamboo are considered sufficient, the silicious character of the outside layer rendering it as good as native flint. The friction methods are more various. One of the simplest is what Mr Tylor calls the stick and groove " a blunt pointed stick being run along a groove of its own making in a piece of wood lying on the ground." Much, of course, depends on the quality of the woods and the expertness of the manipulator. In Tahiti Mr Darwin saw a native produce fire in a few seconds, but only suc ceeded himself after much labour. The same device was employed in New Zealand, the Sandwich islands, Tonga, Samoa, and the Radack . islands. Instead of rubbing the movable stick backwards and forwards other tribes make it rotate rapidly in a round hole in the stationary piece of wood thus making what Mr Tylor has happily designated a fire-drill. This device has been observed in Australia, Kamchatka, Sumatra, and the Carolines, among the Ved- dahs of Ceylon, throughout a great part of Southern Africa, among the Eskimo and Indian tribes of North America, in the West Indies, in Central America, and as far south as the Straits of Magellan. It was also employed by the ancient Mexicans, and Mr Tylor gives a quaint picture of the operation from a Mexican MS., a man half kneeling on the ground is causing the stick to rotate between the palms of his hands. This simple method of rotation seems to be very generally in use ; but various devices have been resorted to for the purpose of diminishing the labour and hastening the result. The Gaucho of the Pampas takes "an elastic stick about 18 inches long, presses one end to his breast and the other in a hole in a piece of wood, and then rapidly turns the curved part like a carpenter s centre-bit." In other cases the rotation is effected by means of a cord or thong wound round the drill and pulled alternately by this end and that. In order to steady the drill the Eskimo and others put the upper end in a socket of ivory or bone which they hold firmly in their mouth. A further advance was made by some of the North American Indians, who appear to have applied the principle of the bow-drill ; and the still more ingenious pump-drill was used by the Iroquois Indians. For full descriptions of these instruments and a rich variety of details connected with fire-making we must refer the reader to Mr Tylor s valuable chapter in his Re-