Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 96, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 August 1902 — How Savages Make Fire. [ARTICLE]

How Savages Make Fire.

It is rather difficult for us to imagine people who know nothing about fire, and, as a matter of fact, there are no people now on the face of the earth, no matter how barbarous, who do not know how to make fire. We make it easily enough by striking a match, but years ago our ancestors were compelled to resort to flint, steel and tinder. The forest-dwelling peoples of the further East have an odd instrument for making fire. Near the coast every man carries a bit of crockery in the box of bamboo slung at his waist, a chip off a plate end a handful of dry fungus. Holding the tinder under ills thumb upon the fragment of earthenware, he strikes the side of the box sharply, ajid the tinder takes fire. But this method can only be used by tribes which have such communication with the foreigner as supplies them with European goods. The inland people use a more singular process. They carry a short cylinder of lead, hollowed roughly to a cup-like form at one end, which fits a joint of bamboo. Placing this cylinder in the palm of the left hand, they fill the cup with tinder adjust the bamboo over it, strike sharply, remove the covering as quickly and the tinder is alight