Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 January 1898 — A Chance for a Match Company. [ARTICLE]

A Chance for a Match Company.

The Papuans of the Malay coast of New Guinea are still In the most primitive state. Tney are wboMy unacquainted with metals and make their weapons of stone, bone and wood. They do not know how to start a fire, though fire is used among them. When a Russian asked them how they made a fire they regarded it as very amusing, and answered that when a person's fire went out he got some of a neighbor’s and if all the fires in the village sfhould go out they would get It from the next village. Their fathers and grandfathers had told them that they remembered a time or had heard from their ancestors that there was a time when fire was not known and everything was eaten raw.