down, thus igniting a piece of tinder within the tube. It is curious to find an apparatus on this principle (made in hard wood, ivory, &c.) used as a practical means of making fire in Birmah, and even among the Malays.[1]
The natives of Tierra del Fuego are notably distinguished from their northern neighbours by their way of fire-making. In 1520, Magalhaens on his famous voyage visited the gigantic Patagonians, who thought the Spaniards had come down from heaven, and who, explaining to the European visitors the native theology, told them of their chief god, Setebos. The savages from whom Shakespeare borrowed these traits to furnish the picture of the "servant-monster," Caliban,[2] showed their manner of making fire, which was by the friction of two pieces of wood.[3] But the Fuegians have for centuries used a higher method, striking sparks with a flint from a piece of iron pyrites upon their tinder. This process is described as still in use,[4] and is evidently what Captain Wallis meant by saying (in 1767), that "To kindle a fire they strike a pebble against a piece of mundic."[5] A much earlier account of the same thing appears in the voyage of Sarmiento de Gamboa, in 1579-80.[6] Iron pyrites answers extremely well instead of the steel, and was found in regular use in high northern latitudes in America, among the Slave and Dog Rib Indians.[7] It is probably the "iron-stone" which the Esquimaux call ujarak-saviminilik, and from which they strike fire with a fragment of flint,[8] and is
- ↑ Bastian, 'Oestl. Asien,' vol. ii. p. 418; Cameron, 'Malayan India,' p. 136.
- ↑ Cal.—"Hast thou not dropped from heaven?" ('Tempest,' act ii. scene 2.)
Cal.—. . . . . . . . . . .
"It would control my dam's god, Setebos." (Id., act. i. scene 2.) - ↑ Pigafetta, in Pinkerton, vol. xi. Their process was the simplest hand-drilling, as appears (1577-80) from the account in Drake's 'World Encompassed,' Hak. Soc. 1854, p. 48.
- ↑ W. P. Snow, 'Tierra del Fuego,' etc.; vol. ii. p. 360.
- ↑ Wallis, in Hawkesworth, vol. i. p. 171.
- ↑ Sarmiento de Gamboa, 'Viage al Estrecho de Magallanes;' Madrid, 1768, p. 229. "Y unos pedazos de pedernal, pasados, y pintados de margaxita de oro y plata: y preguntándoles que para qué era aquello? dixeron por señas, que para sacar fuego; y luego uno de ellos tomó unas plumas de las que trahía, y sirviéndole de yesca, sacó fuego con el pedernal. Paréceme que es (casca?) de metal de plata ú oro de veto, porque es al natural como el curiquixo de porco en el Pirú."
- ↑ Mackenzie, 'Voyages;' London, 1801, p. 38. Klemm, C. G., vol. ii. p. 26.
- ↑ Hayes, 'Arctic Boat Journey;' London, 1860, p. 217.
