All over India they light fire with two pieces of wood; although they had a great deal of wax, they knew no use for it, and produced light from pieces of wild pine wood.
From Oviedo’s description I am inclined to believe that the dust in which the fire starts was allowed to fall below on tinder placed beneath the hearth.
Through the kindness of Prof. F. W. Putnam, curator of the Peabody Museum, at Cambridge, Mass., I have received an extract from a manuscript written by Mrs. Alice W. Oliver, of Lynn, who, as a girl, in 1838 resided on Matagorda Bay, and learned the language and customs of the Caranchua Indians, a separate stock, now thought to be extinct.
Mrs. Oliver says:
After the hut is built a fire is made, the squaws usually begging fire or matches from the settlers, but, in case their fire is out and they have no other means of kindling it, they resort to the primitive method of producing it by friction of wood. They always carry their fire-sticks with them, keeping them carefully wrapped in several layers of skins tied up with thongs and made into a neat package; they are thus kept very dry, and as soon as the occasion for their use is over, they are immediately wrapped up again and laid away.
These sticks are two in number. One of them is held across the knees as they squat on the ground, and is about two feet long, made of a close-grained, brownish-yellow wood (perhaps pecan), half round in section; the flat face, which is held upward, is about an inch across. Three cylindrical holes about half an inch in diameter and of equal depth, the bottoms slightly concave, are made in it. The three holes are equally distant apart, about 2 inches, and the first one is the same distance from the end of the stick, which rests upon the right knee. In one of the holes is inserted the slightly-rounded end of a twirling stick made of a white, softer kind of wood, somewhat less than the diameter of the hole, so as to turn easily, and about 18 inches long.
Holding the twirler vertically between the palms of the hands, a gentle but rapid alternating rotary motion is imparted. After continuing this for about five minutes the abrasion of the softer wood causes a fine, impalpable dust to collect in the hole, from which soon issues a thin, blue line of smoke.
As soon as the Indian sees this he quickly withdraws his twirler with one hand, while with the other he catches up and crushes a few dry leaves previously placed on a dry cloth close by (having been produced from thin wrappings, in which they have been preserved for this very purpose, to serve as tinder), and quickly but lightly sprinkles them in and around the hole, over which both hands are now held protectingly, the head bent down, and the incipient fire fanned to a blaze with the breath. As soon as the blaze has fairly caught, the stick and tinder are deftly turned over upon a little pile of dry twigs and leaves, got ready beforehand, and the fire is started.
This operation of getting fire is always performed by the men, and not by the squaws. The fire is invariably built in the center of the hut, upon the ground, and, is usually kept burning, for the Indians never slept regularly, but whenever they pleased, often asleep in the day time and awake nights, or vice versa, as they felt inclined.
3. IROQUOIS WEIGHTED DRILL.
The Iroquois are unique in America, and perhaps in the world, in making fire with the pump-drill. Several other tribes in America use the pump drill to pierce stone and shell, for which purpose it is an excellent tool, but the mechanical difficulties lying in the way of making fire with it have only been overcome by the Iroquois. Pump-drills are intended for light, fine work, with uniform, light pressure; hence, with little friction. The Iroquois have added this element by increasing the size of the balance-wheel and stock. Mr. Morgan, in his “League of the Iroquois,” p. 381, figures a fire drill with a wooden stock 4 feet long and 1 inch in diameter. This stock has at the upper end a string and bow, while near the lower end is a “small wheel.” Mr. Morgan says this is “an Indian invention of great antiquity.”
Mr. J. N. B. Hewitt, of the Bureau of Ethnology, has kindly given the writer a set of apparatus and valuable information with reference to fire-making among the Iroquois, especially the Onondagas and Tuscaroras. He states that at times when there is disease among the people they say it is because the fire is “old.” They then determine to make “new fire,” so all fires are put out and two slippery-elm logs are selected and one of these is laid on the ground and a V-shaped notch is cut on the upper side. In this notch some tinder of dry slippery-elm is put and three (mystic or sacred number) men at either end work the other log backward and forward until fire is generated, and from this the fires are lighted. He believes that the new fire is made at the winter feast of the Iroquois. They say that the drill with the weight is their own invention. They use elm for that also. In making the pump-drill they sometimes cut an elm sapling and work out the drill, leaving the tap root for the fore part, the knot for the weight, and part of the stem for the top part of the drill.
It is not improbable that the Iroquois—the most advanced Indians in some respects on the continent, invented this use of the widely diffused pump-drill. It scarcely seems to be a practical way to make fire, and, despite the assurances and belief of the Iroquois, is not very ancient, but was perhaps suggested by the white man. Indeed, Pere Lafitau, that keen and careful observer, in his “Moeurs des Sauvages Ameriquains,” written in 1724, on page 242, gives a description of Indian fire-making that includes the Iroquois. He says:
The Hurons, the Iroquois, and the other peoples of North America do not make fire from the veins of flint, but rub two pieces of wood one against the other.