In all probability the Cave-man obtained fire by the friction of one
piece of hard wood upon another, as is now the custom among many
savage tribes. Sometimes, however, as in the Trou de Chaleux, quoted
by M. Dupont (Le Temps Prehistorique en Belgique, second edition, page
153), he may have obtained a light by the friction of a bit of flint
against a piece of iron pyrites, as is usual with the Eskimos of the
present day.[47]
Mr. Dawkins also says that fire was obtained in the Bronze Age by
striking a flint flake against a piece of pyrites, sometimes found
together in the tumuli. He figures a strike-a-light from Seven Barrows,
Lambourne, Berks, England, an outline of which is reproduced here for
comparison with the one from Fort Simpson, British Columbia (fig. 44_a_
and _b_). Pyrites has been found in a kitchen-midden at Ventnor, in
connection with Roman pottery.[48] Chambers’s Encyclopædia, article,
Pyrites,[49] is authority for the statement that pyrites was used in
kindling powder in the pans of muskets before the gun flint was
introduced.
It is thus seen that this art has a high antiquity, and that on its
ancient areas its use comes down nearly to the present day, the flint
and steel being its modern or allied form.
In North America this art is distributed among the more northerly
ranging Indian tribes, and the Eskimo of some parts. Its use was and is
yet quite prevalent among the Indians of the Athapascan (formerly Tinné)
stock of the north. By specimens in the Museum, and notes of explorers,
it is found to range from north of Dixon’s Sound to Labrador, the
following localities being represented, viz: Stikine River, Sitka,
Aleutian Islands, Kotzebue Sound, Point Barrow, the Mackenzie River
district, at Fort Simpson, and probably Hershel Island, Pelly Bay,
Melville Peninsula, Smith Sound, and Labrador. The Canadian and
Algonquins strike two pieces of pyrites (_pierres de mine_) together
over an eagle’s thigh, dried with its down, and serving instead of
tinder.[50] From other sources we know that the extinct Beothucs, of
Newfoundland, did the same.[51]
As far as can be ascertained, the Eskimo and Indians both use the
method, so that it is not characteristic of either, as the four-part
drill is of the Eskimo, as contrasted with the simple rotation sticks of
the Indians. A description of a flint and pyrites outfit, as at present
used, will give a general idea of the status of the invention. In
different localities the manipulation differs somewhat, as will be noted
farther on.
[Illustration: Fig. 44. _a_ Strike-a-light.
(Seven Barrows, Berks County, England. From Lubbock’s Early Man in
Britain, p. 258.)
_b_ Strike-a-light.
(Cat. No. 1861, U. S. N. M. Indians of Fort Simpson, Mackenzie River
district, B. C. Collected by B. R. Ross.)]
The strike-a-light (No. 128405) was collected by Capt. E. P. Herendeen
from natives who told him that it came from Cape Bathurst, hence he
assigned the specimen to this locality on the evidence. Mr. John Murdoch
has, with a great deal of probability, questioned this and thinks that
it came from Herschel Island with the rest of Mr. Herendeen’s collection
and did not come from as far east as Cape Bathurst. While there is no
improbability that this method is practiced at Cape Bathurst, yet the
specimen has the appearance of the Mackenzie River strike-a-lights,
hence it is deemed advisable to locate it in the Mackenzie River
district at Herschel Island.
[Illustration: Fig. 45. 1. Tinder Pocket. 2. Fire Bag. (Part of
Strike-a-light set).
(Cat. No. 128405, U. S. N. M. Mackenzie River District, B. C.
Collected by E. P. Herendeen.)]
The essential parts of the apparatus are a piece of pyrites, a piece of
flint and tinder. In the more northern parts of the Eskimo area, tinder
is made from the down from the stems and catkins of various species of
dwarf arctic willows. At present the natives often soak the tinder in a
strong solution of gunpowder and water to make it quick; an older way
was to mix powdered charcoal with it. This plan is like the charring of
the linen rags used in the old-fashioned tinder boxes of forty years
ago. The Eskimo then puts the tinder into a little round, flat pouch,
with a flap in the middle (fig. 45, 1).
[Illustration: Fig. 46. 3. Pyrites. 4, 4_a_. Flint Striker and
Handle. (Part of Strike-a-light set.)
(Cat. No. 128405, U. S. N. M. Mackenzie River District, B. C.
Collected by E. P. Herendeen.)]
The pyrites (fig. 46, 3) looks like a short pestle, too much of which
appearance the repeated scraping has no doubt given rise. The upper end
is concave, while the lower end has the original smooth surface of the
concretion. Pyrite is found at Point Barrow in spherical masses of
various sizes up to several pounds in weight. These spheres are nearly
always cracked in two and scraped on the plane surface for very obvious
reasons. This gives the shape seen in Fort Simpson and Long Barrows
specimen. Mr. Murdoch says that the Eskimo think that pyrites comes down
from above in meteors. They call it “firestone.” A native related that
in old times they did not use flint, but two pieces of pyrites, and got
“big fire.”
The flint (fig. 46, 4) is an oblong piece of chert, square at the base
and rounded at the forward end. It is more elaborately made than the
flakes so numerous in Europe, one of which was found with the piece of
pyrites in the English Barrows. The Mackenzie River scraper is more like
the curved ancient one (fig. 44_b_). In most cases the flints used are
not mounted in a handle; this specimen, however, is fixed in a handle
made of two pieces of wood held together by a thong of sealskin (fig.
46, 4_a_).
The bag (fig. 45, 2) is made of reindeer skin. The little bag that hangs
from the larger has a double use; it is a receptacle for reserve tinder,
but its chief use is for a toggle; being passed under the belt it
prevents the loss of the outfit, which is said to be carried by the
women.
An oblong pad, stuffed with deer hair, is sewed to the mouth of the
fire-bag to protect the hand from sparks and blows of the flint.
To get a spark, the Eskimo places (fig. 47) the piece of pyrites on the
pad held in the left hand over the curved forefinger, the large end down
and the thumb set in the cup shaped cavity in the top. The flap of the
tinder pocket is turned back and held on the forefinger under the
protecting pad. The flint is held in the right hand and by a scraping
motion little pieces of pyrites at a dull red heat fall down into the
tinder. The pellet that glows is transferred to the pipe or fire, and
the flap of the tinder pocket is turned down, serving to keep the tinder
dry and to extinguish it if necessary.[52]
[Illustration: Fig. 47. Method of Using the Strike-a-light.
(Cat. No. 128405, U. S. N. M. Drawing by W. H. Burger.)]
There comes in here appropriately a note of B. R. Ross on the burial
customs of the Kutchin Indians of the eastern Athapascan stock. He says:
They bury with the dead a flint fastened to a stick, a stone to strike
it on (pyrites) to make fire, and a piece of the fungus that grows on
the birch tree for tinder and some touch-wood also.[53]
There is no mention of this process of fire-making by the older writers
on Greenland, Cranz and Egede, though they carefully note and describe
the plan by wood-boring. Later explorers going higher north in western
Greenland have found it. Dr. Emil Bessels, writing about the Itah Eskimo
of Smith Sound, says:
The catkins of the arctic willow are used as tinder to catch the
sparks which have been produced through the grinding of two pieces of
stone.[54]
Dr. E. K. Kane gives a more complete account from nearly the same
locality, the Arctic Highlands of northwest Greenland. He says that the
Eskimo of Anoatok struck fire from two stones, one a plain piece of
angular milky quartz, held in the right hand, the other apparently an
oxide of iron [pyrites or iron ore?] They were struck together after the
true tinder-box fashion, throwing a scanty supply of sparks on a tinder
composed of the silky down of the willow catkins (_Salix lanata_) which
he held on a lump of dried moss.[55]
Very much farther west on Melville Peninsula Parry gives a complete and
interesting description of the primitive way. This account gives us a
link between the western and eastern Eskimo. He writes:
For the purpose of obtaining fire, the Eskimo use two lumps of common
pyrites, from which sparks are struck into a little leathern case (see
fig. 25, pl. LXXIV) containing moss well dried and rubbed between the
hands. If this tinder does not readily catch, a small quantity of the
white floss of the seed of the ground willow is laid above the moss.
As soon as a spark has caught it is gently blown till the fire has
spread an inch around, when the pointed end of a piece of wick being
applied, it soon bursts into a flame, the whole process having
occupied perhaps two or three minutes.[56]
The Museum was in possession of a specimen catalogued, “Moss-bag and
lumps of pyrites used by Innuit for getting fire,” collected by Capt. C.
F. Hall at Pelly Bay, in latitude 69°, longitude 90°, several degrees
west of Melville Peninsula.
The only other record of the process under consideration among the
Eskimo is found in the Aleutian Islands. There is absolutely no evidence
had by the writer that the Eskimo south of Kotzebue Sound (Western
Eskimo) use the pyrites and flint for making fire. The latest
information about the Aleutian Islanders is given in a manuscript of the
careful explorer, Mr. Lucien M. Turner. His observation will serve to
explain the description of striking a light by earlier travelers.
They use the four part drill but they also use pyrites. A stone
containing quartz and pyrites is struck against another similar one,
or a beach pebble, into a mass of sea bird down sprinkled with
powdered sulphur. This ignites and is quickly caught on finely
shredded blades of grass or beaten stalks of wild parsnips. This
method prevails to this day on the islands west of Unalashka.
The people told Mr. Turner that this was the ancient way. There is a
doubt in the writer’s mind that Sauer’s (Billing’s Expedition, page 59),
and Campbell’s (Voyage, page 59) observations, brought together by
Bancroft,[57] were accurate with regard to the stones used. All the
other details are correct, but they say they took two pieces of quartz,
rubbed them with sulphur, and struck them together. It is well known
that pieces of quartz even when rubbed with sulphur will not strike a
spark of sufficient heat to cause ignition. The pieces used must have
been pyritiferous quartz as noticed by Mr. L. M. Turner.
To resume, the following facts arise out of the foregoing considerations
of the flint and pyrites method:
(1) It is very ancient, inferring from the few reliable finds of pyrites
and flint in juxtaposition.
(2) Its distribution is among high northern tribes, both Eskimo and
Indian.
(3) As far as known, its range is limited to this area, only one other
instance coming to our notice, that of the Fuegians.