Aborigines of Van Diemen's Land, 1830-1840 - Page 34
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[Page 34]
The methods which savage natives have of kindling fire are most probably very imperfect as well as laborious, for it is observed that they usually keep it burning, and are very rarely seen without either a fire actually made, or a piece of lighted wood, which they carry with them from place to place and the natives of Australia used even to take it with them in their canoes. The perpetual fires (says an early writer) which in Some countries formed a part of the national religion, had perhaps no other origin than a similar inability to produce it at pleasure; and if he suppose the original flame to have been kindled by lightning, the fiction of its coming down from heaven will deviate very little from the truth " - I have alluded to the fire-sticks and burning grass which the natives carried with them to light their fires in different places at where they might stop. I am aware that they were acquainted with the moda of procuring fire by friction, as is the case in all other countries occupied by savage tribes, but the proper material is not to be obtained in all places. It is something very surprising that among the savage nations, according to the early discoverers and travellers, the natives avail themselves of two small pieces of wood, which by rapid friction produce fire. It is scarcely possible