| [54] | Transactions, American Ethnological Society, vol. i. pp. 355-365. |
| [55] | Inquiry into the Origin of the Antiquities of America, p. 162. |
| [56] | Antiquities of the Southern Indians, p. 200. |
CHAPTER V.
FIRE.
THE FIRE-USING ANIMAL—ESQUIMAUX USE OF FIRE—FUEGIAN FIRE-MAKING—MODES OF PRODUCING FIRE—AUSTRALIAN FIRE-MYTH—MEN OF THE MAMMOTH AGE—HEARTHS OF THE CAVE-MEN—PACIFIC ROOT-WORD FOR FIRE—GREAT CYCLE OF THE AZTECS—REKINDLING THE SACRED FIRE—PERUVIAN SUN-WORSHIPPERS—SACRIFICE OF THE WHITE DOG—SACRED FIRES OF THE MOUND-BUILDERS—INDIAN FIRE-MAKING—SANCTITY OF FIRE—TIERRA DEL FUEGO.
No incident attending the discovery of America is more suggestive than the evidence which first satisfied Columbus that his exploration of the mysterious western ocean had not been in vain. The sun had descended beneath the waves as his eye ranged along the horizon in search of the long expected land, when suddenly a light glimmered in the distance, once and again reappeared to the eyes of Pedro Gutierrez and others whom he summoned to confirm his vision, and then darkness and doubt resumed their reign. But to Columbus all was clear. Not only did those flitting gleams reveal to him certain signs of the long-wished-for land; they told him no less clearly that the land was inhabited by man.
There is something singularly significant in the old Greek myth which represents the Titanic son of Iapetus stealing the fire of Zeus that he might confer on the human race a power over the crude elements of nature. Man is peculiarly fire-using. The element which becomes in his hands a power that controls all the others, and subjects them to his use, is an object of dread to the lower animals, alike amid arctic snows and the shadows of a night-camp in the tropics. Its use, moreover, is so universal as to admit of its being regarded as one of the primitive instincts of man, and so peculiarly his own that he may be appropriately designated the fire-using animal. Nevertheless, his supposed ignorance of fire during primitive ages has been employed as an argument in confirmation of the idea that the first habitat of man must have been a climate where his unclothed body experienced no discomfort from the changing seasons, and where fruit was found in sufficient abundance to supply his wants without need of artificial preparation.[[57]]
Yet it is in climates where the torrid sun presents itself as the life-giving force that, alike in the old and the new world, the worship of fire, and the rites associated with its use, have been found most fully developed. It is noticeable, moreover, that fire is less used in the frigid than in the temperate zones as the direct source of heat. The Esquimaux in his snow-hut would find a fire productive only of discomfort. Even in the adaptation of animal food to his use cookery is less indispensable than in other latitudes; and fire is more prized by him in his brief summer as a protection against the myriads of noxious insects then warmed into life, than as a means of counteracting the rigour of a polar winter. He depends for warmth on his fur clothing, and still more on the heat-producing blubber and fat which constitute so large a portion of his food. Yet the lamp, generally made of stone, with its moss wick, and the stone kettle, play an important part among the implements and culinary apparatus of an Esquimaux’s hut. On those he depends for his supply of water from melted snow, for thawing and drying his clothes, and for cooking; and without the light of the lamp the indoor life of the long unbroken arctic night would be spent as in a living tomb. The Esquimaux generally possess a piece of iron pyrites and of quartz. These serve them for flint and steel, with which they ignite a tuft of dried moss frayed in the hand. But they are also familiar with the more laborious fire-making process by means of friction, which is in general use throughout America.
At the opposite extremity of the Continent lies Tierra del Fuego, the natives of which are exposed to still greater privations, and have been pronounced by observant voyagers as among the most degraded of savage races. Yet the Fuegians exhibit considerable ingenuity in constructing their fishing tackle, slings, bows and stone-tipped arrows, stone knives, and javelins pointed with bone. A bone harpoon in use by them, barbed only on one side (Fig. 33), resembles examples already referred to found in the Dordogne and other caves of the era when the mammoth and its hunters existed together in Southern France. M. Lecoq de Boisbeaudrau suggests that the deflection of the harpoon so formed serves as an equivalent for the refraction of the fish in the water, and thus the fisherman secures an unerring aim. If so, it furnishes an ingenious application of the fruits of experience directed to rectify a difficulty common to the modern Fuegian and to the Troglodyte of post-glacial times.
The canoes of the Fuegians are rudely constructed of bark sewed together with prepared sinews. In the bottom a hearth of clay is made, on which they habitually keep a fire alight. They too have learned the value of iron pyrites, and with its help readily obtain the spark required for igniting their prepared tinder of dried moss or fungus. Captain Weddell states that he produced the tinder-box in presence of a party of Fuegians, in order to ascertain how fire is obtained by them, and presently he discovered that his steel had been purloined. This, however, he recovered, and after sending the culprit to his canoe with threats of punishment, he learned that they procure fire by rubbing iron pyrites and a flinty stone together, catching the sparks in a dry substance resembling moss.[[58]]