_Drills._--In former times fire was obtained in the method common to
so many savages, from the heat developed by the friction of the end of
a stick worked like a drill against a piece of soft wood. This
instrument was still in use at least as late as 1837,[N399] but
appears to have been wholly abandoned at Point Barrow at the time of
the _Plover’s_ visit, though still in use at Kotzebue Sound.[N400]
[Footnote N399: “Their own clumsy method of producing fire is by
friction with two pieces of dry wood in the manner of a
drill.”--(T. Simpson, Narrative, p. 162.)]
[Footnote N400: Dr. Simpson, op. cit., p. 242.]
[Illustration: FIG. 282.--Fire drill with mouthpiece and stock. 1/6]
A native of Nuwŭk one day brought down for sale what he said was an
exact model of the ancient fire drill, nióotĭñ. This is No. 89822
[1080], Fig. 282. The drill is a stick of pine 12 inches long, shaped
like the shaft of a common perforating drill, brought to a blunt but
rounded point. This is worked by a string, without bow or handles,
consisting of a strip of the skin of the bearded seal, 40 inches long,
and has for a mouthpiece the astragalus bone of a reindeer, the
natural hollow on one side serving as a socket for the butt of the
drill.[N401] The point of the drill is made to work against the split
surface of a stick of spruce 18 inches long, along the middle of which
is cut a gash, to give the drill a start. Three equidistant circular
pits, charred and blackened, were bored out by the tip of the drill,
which developed heat enough to set fire to the sawdust produced.
Tinder was probably used to catch and hold the fire.
[Footnote N401: Compare Nordenskiöld’s figure of the fire drill in
use at Pitlekaj (Vega, vol. 2, p. 121), which has a similar bone
for a socket, held not in the mouth but in the left hand.]
Most authors who have treated of the Eskimo have described an
instrument of this sort in use either in former times or at the
present day.[N402]
[Footnote N402: Bessels, Naturalist, vol. 18, pt. 9, p. 867,
speaks of a fire drill used at Smith Sound with a bow and a
mouthpiece of ivory.
A Greenlander; seen by John Davis, in 1586, “beganne to kindle a
fire, in his manner: he took a piece of a boord, wherein was a
hole halfe thorow: into that he puts the end of a roũd sticke like
unto a bedstaffe, wetting the end thereof in traine, and in
fashion of a turner, with a piece of lether, by his violent motion
doth very speedily produce fire.”--Hakluyt’s Voyages, etc. (1589),
p. 782.
“They take a short Block of dry Fir Tree, upon which they rub
another Piece of hard Wood, till by the continued Motion the Fir
catches Fire.”--Egede, Greenland, p. 137.
“If their fire goes out, they can kindle it again by turning round
a stick very quick with a string through a hole in a piece of
wood.”--Crantz, History of Greenland, vol. 1, p. 145.
Lyon (Journal, p. 210) says that at Iglulik they were able to
procure “fire by the friction of a pin of wood in the hole of
another piece and pressed down like a drill from above.” This was
worked with a bow and willow catkins were used for tinder. A man
informed them that “he had learned it from his father rather for
amusement than for utility; the two lumps of iron pyrites
certainly answering the purpose a great deal better.”
“They have a very dextrous Method of kindling Fire; in order to
which, they prepare two small Pieces of dry Wood, which having
made flat, they next make a small Hole in each, and having fitted
into these Holes a little cylindrical Piece of Wood, to which a
Thong is fastened, they whirl it about thereby with such a
Velocity, that by rubbing the Pieces of Wood one against the
other, this Motion soon sets them on fire.”--Ellis, Voyage to
Hudsons Bay, p. 234.
A picture of the process is given opposite page 132, in which a
man holds the socket, while a woman works the thong (western shore
of Hudson Bay, near Chesterfield Inlet).
Rae also mentions a similar drill used in the same region in 1847
(Narrative, p. 187); and there is a specimen in the National
Museum, collected by MacFarlane, and said to be the kind “in use
until lately” in the Mackenzie and Anderson region.
Dall figures a fire drill with bow and mouthpiece formerly in use
at Norton Sound (Alaska, p. 142); and Hooper (Tents, etc., p. 187)
describes a similar drill at Plover Bay.
From Nordenskiöld’s account (Vega, vol. 2, p. 121) the fire drill
seems to be still generally used by the natives at the Vega’s
winter quarters. He says that the women appeared more accustomed
to the use of the drill than the men, and that a little oil was
put on the end of the drill.]
Among most Eskimo, however, a bow is used to work the drill. The only
exceptions to this rule appears to have been the ancient Greenlanders
and the people of Hudson Bay (see the passages from Hakluyt, Crantz,
and Ellis, just quoted.) Chamisso, however,[N403] speaks of seeing the
Aleutians at Unalaska produce fire by means of a stick worked by a
string making two turns about the stick and held and drawn with both
hands, with the upper end of the stick turning in a piece of wood held
in the mouth. When a piece of fir was turned against another piece of
the same wood fire was often produced in a few seconds. This passage
appears to have escaped the usually keen observation of Mr. W. H.
Dall, who, speaking of the ancient Aleutians, says: “The ‘fiddle-bow
drill’ was an instrument largely used in their carving and working
bone and ivory; but for obtaining fire but two pieces of quarz were
struck together,” etc.[N404]
[Footnote N403: Kotzebue’s Voyage, vol. 3, p. 260.]
[Footnote N404: Contribution to N. A. Ethnology, vol. 1, p. 82.]
I had no opportunity of seeing this drill manipulated, but I have
convinced myself by experiment that the stick or “light-stock,” to use
Nordenskiöld’s expression, must be held down by one foot, the workman
kneeling on the other knee.
_Flint and steel._--Fire is usually obtained nowadays by striking a
spark in the ordinary method from a bit of flint with a steel, usually
a bit of some white man’s tool. Both are carried, as in Dr. Simpson’s
time, in a little bag slung around the neck, along with some tinder
made of the down of willow catkins mixed with charcoal or perhaps
gunpowder. The flints usually carried for lighting the pipe, the only
ones I have seen, are very small, and only a tiny fragment of tinder
is lighted which is placed on the tobacco. Lucifer matches
(kĭlĭăksagan) were eagerly begged, but they did not appear to care
enough for them to purchase them. Our friend Nĭkawáalu, from whom we
obtained much information about the ancient customs of these people,
told us that long ago, “when there was no iron and no flint”--“savik
píñmût, ánma píñmût”[N405]--they used to get “great fire” by striking
together two pieces of iron pyrites. Dr. Simpson speaks[N406] of two
lumps of iron pyrites being used for striking fire, but he does not
make it clear whether he saw this at Point Barrow or only at Kotzebue
Sound. Iron pyrites appears to have been used quite generally among
the Eskimo. Bessels saw it used with quartz at Smith Sound, with
willow catkins for tinder[N407] and Lyon mentions the use of two
pieces of the same material, with the same kind of tinder, at
Iglulik.[N408] Willow catkins are also used for tinder at the
Coppermine River.[N409]
[Footnote N405: Compare this with Dr. Simpson’s statement, quoted
above, that stones for arrowheads were brought by the Nunatañmiun
from the Ku´wûk River.]
[Footnote N406: Op. cit., p. 243.]
[Footnote N407: Naturalist, vol. 18, pt. 9, p. 867.]
[Footnote N408: Journal, pp. 210 and 231.]
[Footnote N409: Franklin, First Exped., vol. 2, p. 188.]
No. 89825 [1133 and 1722] are some of the catkins used for making the
tinder, which were gathered in considerable quantities at the rivers.
They are called kĭmmiuru, which perhaps means “little dogs,” as we say
“catkins” or “pussy willows.”
_Kindlings._--From the same place they also brought home willow twigs,
9 inches long, and tied with sinews into bunches or fagots of about a
dozen or a dozen and a half each, which they said were used for
kindling fires. (No. 89824 [1725].)