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

by Walter Hough

2. FLINT AND STEEL.

The flint and pyrites method is the ancestor of the flint and steel. The latter method came in with the Iron Age. It is found in the early settlements of that period. A steel for striking fire was found in the pile dwellings of the Ueberlinger See.[58] The Archæological Department of the Museum has a specimen of a strike-a-light of the early age of iron in Scandinavia. It is a flat, oval quartz stone with a groove around the edge; it is thought to be for holding a strap by which it could be held up and struck along the flat surface with the steel. It is scored on these surfaces. The specimen in the Smithsonian is from the national museum at Stockholm. In Egypt it is believed to have been used for a long period, though there is no data at hand to support the conclusion.[59] In China it has been in use for many centuries. Chinese history, however, goes back to the use of sticks of wood. The briquet must have been carried nearly everywhere by early commerce from the ancient countries around the Mediterranean, as it was into new lands by later commerce.

Many persons remember the tinder-box that was taken from its warm nook beside the fire-place whenever a light was wanted; the matches tipped with sulphur used to start a blaze from the glowing tinder are also familiar to the older generation. The tinder-boxes in use in this country were just like those in England from time immemorial down to fifty years ago ([fig. 48]). Mr. Edward Lovett, of Croydon, England, who has studied this matter thoroughly, calls attention to the resemblance of the old English tinder-flints to the neolithic scrapers. These scrapers, picked up at Brandon, can scarcely be discriminated from those made at the present time at that place, and there is a suspicion that the present tinder-flint has come down directly from neolithic times. The old English steel, or “Flourish,” ([fig. 48]) is the characteristic shape, and has been carried by English commerce into many places. A picture of a strike-a-light used by the Lenguas of Brazil, seen lately, shows the unmistakable old “flourish.”

Fig. 48. English Tinder-box (with flint, “flourish,” and bundle of spunks.)
(Cat. No 75516, U. S. N. M. England. Collected by Louis and Maurice Farmer.)

The tinder-boxes had also a damper to extinguish the tinder of burnt linen and to keep it dry. The lids were furnished often with a candle socket. This feature, says Mr. Lovett, has led to their preservation as candle-sticks long after they were superseded by matches.

Fig 49. Wheel Tinder-box.
(Cat No. 130431, U. S. N. M. Broadalbin, N. Y. Presented by F. S. Hawley.)

Many devices were invented in order to improve on the crude way of holding the flint and steel in the hands to strike the spark into the tinder-box. One of these was the wheel tinder-box ([fig. 49]). The compartment near the wheel held the tinder. The flint was placed in a socket on the sliding lid, and the wheel was turned by unwinding a string from off its axle with a sharp pull as in spinning a top. The flint was pressed against the rapidly revolving wheel and a shower of sparks fell into the tinder. The tinder pistol, whose name suggests its use, was another device.[60]

Other devices were intended to be carried in the pocket, and were probably brought out by the introduction of tobacco and the need of smokers for a convenient light.

Fig. 50. Strike-a-light (Briquet).
(Cat. No 129693, U. S. N. M. Boulogne-sur-mer. France. Collected by Edward Lovett.)

The pocket strike-a-light is still used. The one shown ([fig. 50]) was bought in 1888 by Mr. E. Lovett, at Boulogne-sur-mer. They are still used by the peasants and work-people of France. An old specimen in the Museum of this character is from Lima. The roll of tinder, or “match,” is made of the soft inner bark of a tree.

Among many of our North American tribes the flint and steel superseded the wooden drills as effectually as did the iron points the stone arrow-heads.

Some of these tribes were ripe for the introduction of many modern contrivances. Civilized methods of fire-lighting appealed to them at once. Among the Chukchis, Nordenskiöld says, matches had the honor of being the first of the inventions of the civilized races that have been recognized as superior to their own.[61] It was so among our Indian tribes; the Mandan chief “Four Bears” lighted his pipe by means of a flint and steel taken from his pouch when George Catlin visited him in 1832.[62]

The Otoes (Siouan stock) made use of the flint and steel shown in [fig. 51]. The flint is a chipped piece of gray chert, probably an ancient implement picked up from the surface.

The steel is a very neatly made oval, resembling those of the Albanian strike-a-lights,[63] or the Koordish pattern, ([fig. 54]). Here arises one of the perplexities of modern intercourse, perhaps both of these steels were derived from the same commercial center.

The flint, steel, and tinder were always carried in a pouch, usually suspended from a belt as in specimen No. 8481 from the Assiniboins (Siouan stock) of Dakota. This is a buckskin waist-belt, beaded and fringed, ornamented with bells of tin. It supports a flapped pouch for the flint, etc. The tinder used was fungus.

Fig. 51. Flint and Steel.
(Cat. No. 22431, U. S. N. M. Otoe Indiana, Kansas and Nebraska. Collected by J. W. Griest.)

The pouch of the Cheyennes (Algonquian stock) is compact, and neatly made of leather ([fig. 52]). The equipment is complete and of a superior order. The bone cup is used to hold the tinder while striking a spark into it. It is the tinder horn of early days, a cow’s horn which was used to hold tinder before sheet-iron boxes came into use. The Lenguas of Brazil use a horn for the same purpose.[64] In the Aino set, ([fig. 57]), and the Eskimo strike-a-light, ([fig. 45]), can be seen this feature. The tinder with this set is rotten wood. Nearly all Indians know the value of fungus tinder.

The Comanche Indian strike-a-light is a similar pouch to the one described, but much poorer in equipment ([fig. 53].) A broken rasp, a piece of chert, and a piece of spunk, is enough for the purpose, and a bag made from a saddle skirt to hold them, completes the outfit.

The flint and steel is still used nearly all over Mexico, Dr. Palmer informs me. There is at present a manufacture of gun and strike-a-light flints at Brandon, England, whence they are shipped to Spain, Mexico, Italy, and other civilized countries. Doubtless this flint from Guadalajara ([fig. 54]) came from Brandon. It is real calcareous flint, such as does not exist in this country. The flint is the “swallow-tail” pattern. The tinder is of prepared fungus sold in little packets.

Fig. 52. Strike-a-light (flint, steel, tinder-horn, spunk, and pouch).
(Cat. No. 22104, U. S. N. M. Cheyenne Indians, Arkansas. Collected by Dr. J. H. Barry.)

The Koords of Bhotan, Eastern Turkey, carry a pipe pouch containing besides flint, steel, and tinder, a pipe pick and a pair of pincers, to transfer the lighted tinder to the pipe ([fig. 55]). The tinder is prepared from a fungus, probably polyporus species. The steel, shaped like an old-fashioned bell pull, is a very good form for holding in the hand.

Fig. 53. Strike-a-light. (Pouch for holding flint and steel.)
(Cat. No. 6972, U. S. N. M. Comanche Indians, Texas. Collected by Edward Palmer.)

The Chinese strike-a-light is the customary appendage to the pipe pouch. It is a very ingenious way of combining the steel with a pouch in which to keep the flint and tinder ([fig. 56]). In Thibet they are made very large and are finely decorated. One owned by Mr. W. W. Rockhill has a curving steel between 5 and 6 inches long, finely carved. The pouch was trimmed with encrusted silver set with jewels.

The Ainos of Japan use flint and steel for striking-a-light, this method having supplanted the generation of fire by sticks ([p. 551].) This outfit shown ([fig. 57], pl. LXXXI) is complete. The shoe-shaped steel is attached by a piece of sinew to the cork of a small wooden bottle containing the soft charcoal used as tinder. The flint is a small piece of ferruginous silex. With this set is a piece of stick which retains fire for a long time. It is the root of the Ulmus campestris, or lævis, formerly used for the fire-drill (see [fig. 17]), but has come into a secondary place since the introduction of the flint and steel.

Fig. 54. Flint and Steel.
(Cat. No 126576, U. S. N. M. Guadalajara Indiana, Mexico. Collected by Edward Palmer.)

Fig. 55. Smokers’ Pipe-lighting Outfit (showing flint, steel, pipe-pick, and pincers).
(Cat. No. 130607, U. S. N. M. Koords of Bhotan, eastern Turkey. Collected by Rev. A. N. Andrus.)

Fig. 56. Strike-a-light.
(Cat. No. 130311, U. S. N. M. China. Gift of George G. Fryer.)