Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 3/Kindling the Need Fire
KINDLING THE NEED FIRE.[1]
Inquiries having been made as to the method employed to kindle the Need Fire (not the bonfires on St. John’s Eve, as one inquirer supposes), I have only to direct attention to the practice of producing fire by the friction of wood which is common among all uncivilised tribes. The Red Indian, the black African, and the brown Mongolian, all use the same method till they become acquainted with tinder-boxes or lucifer matches. By what I remember of the loss of time over the tinder-box, before lucifers were invented, I should imagine the savage method is superior. I have witnessed the process in wild countries, but not in our own,—in the case of the Need Fire or otherwise. It is to be supposed, however, that the best method is used in Cumberland, as in California or the Kobi desert.
The woman makes the fire in savage life. She collects a handful of dry leaves, or wisps of dry grass; also twigs of various sizes up to that which will maintain a fire. She then places herself with her back to the wind, with a sharpened stick in one hand, and a bit of wood with a hole in it in the other. Any kind of wood will do, if it be but dry. She steadies the larger piece with her foot or knee, and twirls the other with its sharpened end in the hole,—as we twirl a chocolate mill,—as fast as it will go, and without stopping for an instant. Smoke comes in three or four minutes, if not sooner; and then a spark. This is the critical moment; and the art is so to apply dry grass, or leaves, or a splinter of touchwood as to catch. It is a pretty sight to see how skilfully the sparks are cherished,—how they run through the grass, and how a gentle breath in the nick of time produces flame, and how the flame is fed and coaxed, till the fire which was covered by a sheltering pair of hands roars and rages among the tree-logs of the camp fire, round which a whole tribe finds warmth through the longest night.
Some practice is required to produce fire in this way; but every child can do it where the method is in constant use. When the materials are in a favourable state, five minutes will suffice to obtain the flame. In rude places, where cart wheels are mere wooden disks set upon wooden axletrees, the driver knows too well how soon fire is produced, on any quickening of the pace. Steady continuous friction will kindle dry wood in a longer or shorter time, under any circumstances; but the shortest seems to be by the rapid twirling of a sharpened stick in a hole which just contains it, with room to turn freely.
- ↑ See No. 50, page 566.