While the Aleutians use flint and steel, or a stone containing quartz and pyrites, struck against another stone, they still make use of the four-part drill at certain times. Hunting parties, says Mr. L. M. Turner, carry the drill to use when their matches run out. It takes two men to work it, one holding the hand rest and the other pulling the thong. The spindle is made of harder wood, so as to wear the light dust which ignites, from the hearth. A moment only is necessary to get fire; this is fed with tinder made of willow catkins and powdered charcoal. Sometimes, in order to get fire, they hold tinder at the mouth of a gun and ignite it by firing off a light charge of loose powder.
Fig. 41. Lower Piece and Spindle of Fire-making Set.
(Cat. No. 72514, U. S. N. M. Eskimo of Kadiak Island, Alaska. Collected by W. J. Fisher.)
Possessed of four methods of getting fire, the Aleutian is superior to more fortunately situated people who depend wholly on matches.
II. FIRE-MAKING BY SAWING.
Prof. Alfred Russel Wallace has noted the method by sawing in his work entitled “The Malay Archipelago,” p. 332: Two pieces of bamboo are used; a sharp edge piece like a knife is rubbed across a convex piece in which a notch is cut, nearly severing the bamboo ([fig. 42]); after sawing across for awhile the bamboo is pierced, and the heated particles fall below and ignite. The Ternate Malays and the Tungaras of British North Borneo[40] have improved upon this by striking a piece of china with tinder held with it against the outside of a piece of bamboo, the siliceous coating of the latter yielding a spark like flint. Both of the methods mentioned are in use at different points in the area affected by Malay influence.
The Chittagong hill tribes, on the eastern frontier of British India, use sand on the sawing knife to increase the friction.[41]
The Karens of Burma, Dr. R. M. Luther informs the writer, hollow out a branch of the Dipterocarpus tree like the lower piece of bamboo spoken of, cut a transverse notch, and saw across in it with a rubber of iron-wood. The wood fibers ground off form the tinder; the coal is wrapped up in a dry leaf and swung around the head till it blazes. It takes only two or three minutes to get a blaze this way.
Bearing upon the origin of this method of sawing in these localities, nature is alleged to suggest the way and to repeat the process that would give to tireless man the hint. Mr. W. T. Hornaday relates that many fires are started in the jungle by bamboo rubbing together in a high wind-storm. The creaking is indescribable; the noise of the rasping and grinding of the horny stems is almost unendurable.
In many tribes it is found that often there is more than one method of fire-making practiced. For instance, in Borneo, as we have seen, the Tungaras use the sawing method, the Saribus Dyaks the besiapi, or fire syringe, a most interesting fact,[42] other Dyaks the rotary drill,[43] while the Rev. Dr. Taylor says that the Dyaks are acquainted with the use of the bow and string and the upright stick and cord (pump drill). In connection with all these methods probably flint and steel were used.