Not Firemakers.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 406, 28 September 1889, Page 3

Not Firemakers.

It is nob often that explorers discover savage people who are ignorant of the art of producing fire. As far as i 3 known, fire has been a necessity even among the rudest suvages for many centuries, and it always excites wonder when we hear at rare intervals of people who, while enjoying the blessings of tire, express themselves as wholly ignorant of the methods of producing it, and who imagine that, it by some calamity all their tires were extinguished, they oould never kindle them. Suoh a tribe has recently been met by Dr. Finsch during his travels in New Guinea. He says the people in the large villages that are buried in the forests along the shores of Astrolabe Bay know of no means by which they can produce fire. It is therefore a duty devolving upon every member of the community.

To Aid in Preserving Fire. All their cooking is done outside their huts in the open air, but in the centre of each' hut is a fireplace, and it is a crime to permit the fire to go out. They use a hard wood thab burns very slowly, and their aim is to keep a good bed of coals on which the wood burns without bursting into flame. Dr Finsch asked the natives if they never lost their fire. He was told that such a calamity had occurred, and that they would never have had fire again if it had not been for a very fortunate circumstance. They know a tribe in the mountains away from the sea who possess, ,

The Art of Making Fikb, which they guard as a secret.. One time the people were compelled to go to these firemakers for the spark that would rekindle the dead embers in their huts. They carried the fire for many miles. They were j determined never again to be reduced to I this necessity, thou,gh ft ma.d.c t»hem feel

very comfortable to think that they know where they could get fresh fire if they lost their own. It is to be presumed that these simpleminded natives have now ceased to guard the smouldering embers in their huts with such jealous care. A white man has been among them, one of the sort who brings blessings instead of evils in his train, and they know now that even if they never see a white man and the wonderful little fire sticks he carried with him again they can, with the aid of friction and tinder, be their own firemakers. — New York *Sun.'