Arizona republican., 1890-05-31
HOW sAvAGEs OBTAIN FIRE.
Various Methods in Use by Primitiv Peo'
 ple of Producing Fire by Friction.

pie of Producing Fire by Friction.
 The friction methods in use in diff ferent parts of the world are various. One of the simplest is with the stick and groove, blunt pointed stick being run along groove of its own making in q piece of wood lying on the ground. In Tahiti Mir. Darwin saw native produce fire in very few seconds, but only suc- ceeded himself after much labor. This devise is employed in New Hea- land. Sandwich Islands, Tonga Samoa and the Radack Islands.
 Instead of rubbing the movable stick backward and forward other tribes make it rotate rapidly in a round hole in the stationary piece of wood in the manner referred to, thus making, as happily designated, fire drill. This device has been observed in Australia, Kamschatka, Sumatra and the Carolines, among the Yeddahs of Ceylon, through out a great part of South Africa, among the Esquimaux and Indian tribes of North America, in the West Indies, in Central America and as far south as the Straits of Magellan. It was also em- ployed by the ancient Mexicans, and Mir. Taylor gives a quaint picture of the operation from Mexican Ms, in which man, half kneeling on the ground, is causing the stick to rotate between the palms of his hands.
 This simple method of rotation seems to be generally in use, but various devices have been resorted to for the purposes of diminishing the labor and hastening the result. The Guacho of the pampas takes "an elastic stick about eighteen inches long, presses one end to his breast and the other in the hole of piece of wood, and then rapidly turns the curved part like a carpenters center bit." In other cases the rotation is effected by means of cord or thong wound around the drill and pulled alternately by this end and that. A further advance was made by some North American Indians, who appear to have applied the principle of the bow drill, and the still more ingenious pump drill was used by the IrUquois Indians. For full description of these instruments we must refer the reader to MT. Taylor's valuable chapter in his Researches"
 These methods of producing fire are but rarely used in Europe, and only in connection with superstitious obser- vances. We read in Wuttke that some time ago the authorities of Mecklen- berg village ordered wild fire to be lighted against the murraip among cat tie. For two hours they strove vainly to obtain a spark, but the fault was not ascribed to the quality of the wood or to the dampness of the atmosphere, but to the stubborness of an old lady, who, objecting to the superstition, would not put out her night light.
 Such a fire to be efficient must burn alone. At last the strong-minded woman was compelled to give in. Fire was ob- tained, but of bad quality, for it did not stop the murrain. A belief in the pe- culiar virtues of fires obtained by fric- ton of wood has at one time or another prevailed among nations of Indo-Euro- pean race, and not many years ago the obtaining of need (fire) was practiced in the Highlands of Scotland. One of it's principal virtues has always been con sidered to be its efficiency against disease.