Fire-making Apparatus in the U. S. National Museum

by Walter Hough

2. ESKIMO FOUR-PART APPARATUS.

The arts of the Eskimo yield more satisfactory results to students of comparative ethnology than those of any other people.

In all their range the culture is uniform; one finds this fact forced upon his observation who has examined the series of specimens in the National Museum, where they are arranged in order by localities from Labrador to southern Alaska. Prof. Otis T. Mason’s paper on Eskimo throwing-sticks[29] gave a new interpretation to this fact and powerfully forwarded the study of ethnology by showing the classificatory value of the distribution of an art.

Professor Mason points out that though the Eskimo culture is uniform in general, in particular the arts show the modification wrought by surroundings and isolation—tribal individuality, it may be called—and admit of the arrangement of this people into a number of groups that have been subjected to these influences.

The Eskimo fire-making tools in the Museum admit of an ethnographic arrangement, but in this paper it is not found necessary to make a close study of this kind. From every locality whence the Museum possesses a complete typical set, it has been figured and described.

The Eskimo are not singular in using a four-part apparatus, but are singular in the method of using it. The mouth-piece is the peculiar feature that is found nowhere else.

The drilling and fire-making set consists of four parts, viz:

The mouth-piece,—sometimes a mere block of wood, ivory, or even the simple concave vertebra of a fish, or the astragalus of a caribou. More often, they show great skill and care in their workmanship, being carved with truth to resemble bear, seals, whales, and walrus. The seal is the most common subject. The upper part is almost always worked out into a block, forming a grip for the teeth. The extent to which some of these are chewed attests the power of the Eskimo jaw. Frequently the piece is intended to be held in the hand, or in both hands, hence it has no teeth grip. In the under part is set a piece of stone, in which is hollowed out a cup-shaped cavity to hold the head of the drill. These stones seem to be selected as much for their appearance as for their anti-friction qualities. They use beautifully-mottled stone, marble, obsidian, and ringed concretions.

The drill is always a short spindle, thicker than any other drill in the world. It is frequently of the same kind of wood as the hearth.

The thong is the usual accompaniment of the fire drill. It is rawhide of seal or other animals. The handles have a primitive appearance; they are nearly always made of bears’ teeth, hollow bones, or bits of wood. Sometimes handles are dispensed with. Mr. Warren K. Moorhead found some perforated teeth in an Ohio mound that in every respect resemble the Eskimo cord handles. They have also been found in caves in Europe decorated with concentric circles like those on the Eskimo specimens.

The bows are among the most striking specimens from this people. They are pared down with great waste from the tusks of the walrus, taking the graceful curve of the tusk. The Museum possesses one 24½ inches long. It is on their decoration that the Eskimo lavishes his utmost art. The bow does not lend itself well to sculpture, as does the mouth-piece; so he covers the smooth ivory with the most graphic and truthful engravings of scenes in the active hunting life in the Arctic, or he tallies on it the pictures of the reindeer, whales, seals, and other animals that he has killed.

Professor Baird was interested more with these bows than with any other Eskimo products, and desired to have them figured and studied.

The distribution of the bow is remarkable. It is not found south of Norton Sound, but extends north and east as far as the Eskimo range. The Chukchis use it,[30] but the Ostyaks use the ancient breast drill.[31]

The bow is used by individuals in boring holes. It is presumed that its use as a fire-making tool is secondary, the cord and handles being the older. The difficulty of making fire is greatly increased when one man attempts to make it with the compound drill; at the critical moment the dust will fail to ignite; besides, there is no need of one man making fire; a thing that is for the common good will be shared by all. Hence the cord with handles, which usually requires that two men should work at the drill, is as a rule used by the Eskimo.

Though the Sioux, and some other North American tribes, made use of the bow to increase the speed of the drill, they did not use the thong with handles, nor was the bow common even in tribes of the Siouan stock that had attained to its use (see remarks [p. 549]). The bow may be termed a more advanced invention, allowing one man with ease to bore holes.

The hearth is made of any suitable wood. It is commonly stepped and has slots. The central hole with groove is also found. These hearths are preserved carefully, and fire has been made on some of them many times.

The distribution of the central-hole hearth (see [fig. 21], pl. LXXIV), and the slot-and-step hearth (see [fig. 36]), is rather striking. The central holes are found in the specimens observed from the north coast of Alaska, Insular British America, and Greenland, exclusively. The stepped hearth with edge holes and slots is by far the more common in western Alaska, though the other method crops out occasionally; both ways are sometimes used in the same tribe. More often, the central holes are bored on a groove ([fig. 34]), which collects the ground-off particles and facilitates ignition. Rarely fire is made by working the drill on a plane surface, in single, non-connecting holes.