Fire as an agent in human culture / by Walter Hough.

  • Walter Hough
Date:
1926
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fire as an agent in human culture / by Walter Hough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    There appears an invention to raise the fuel above the fire bed and promote combustion, consisting of stones set in the fire. The fireplace of the Nascapi Indians of Labrador is in the center of the tent and is composed of several large stones to support the sticks of fuel laid across them.38 In the mud huts of the United States of Colombia the fire was built between three stones.39 Almost all of the primitive fireplaces had as an early addition per¬ haps a bordering circle of stones, which, among other things, facili¬ tated the keeping of the fire and protected it in a measure from winds. At a later stage we see three stones or bosses of mud placed in the fire as a rest for the cooking pot. Trivet bosses of baked clay in one piece, forming a fireplace, have been uncovered in ruins of both the cliff and open-air type in New Mexico and Arizona by the writer (pi. 2, figs. 1, 2). These primitive andirons are suggestive, and it is allowable to see in them the rude beginnings of the stove and an approach to the idea of draught. Three pot supports are seen in simple stoves in various localities (see p 48). The erection around the fire, consist¬ ing of four posts with cross sticks, used for drying, roasting, or smok¬ ing food, prefigure further additions of the stove. Morton, quoting from Josselyn and Young, describing the wigwams of the New England Indians, says: “One good post they set up in the middle that reaches to the hole in the top, with a staff across it. At a convenient height they knock in a pin upon which they hang their kettle. Beneath that they set up a broad stone for a back, which keepeth the post from burning.”40 The boxing in of the fire with circles of stones, slabs, or mud or daub and wattle walls are steps toward a better utilization of fire and hint at coming inventions. Occasionally a considerable advance is seen in ancient fireplaces. In the ancient pit houses at Luna, New Mexico, the writer uncovered a hearth in the side of a pit. The bottom was a smooth stone slab and the jambs were slabs of clay baked hard by the fire. The stone bottom projected in front, forming a little step.41 The central fire in these pits was laid sometimes on a pavement of stones (pi. 2, bottom). The rudimentary oven is observed in the primitive fireplace where food to be baked is buried in hot ashes. The chimney might have its origin in the embankment, walling in, or other protection of the fire from wind. The idea of draught had not yet appeared. Sooner or later a simple knowledge of draught has 38 Manuscript of Lucien M. Turner in United States National Museum, p. 454. 39 Woman’s Work for Women, November, 1887, p. 294. 40Josselyn’s Voyages, p. 126; Young’s Chronicles of the Pilgrims, p. 144; Note in Morton’s New Eng¬ lish Canaan, Prince Society, Boston, p. 135. 41 Walter Hough. Ancient Pit Dwellings at Luna, New Mexico, vol. 55, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., 1919, pp. 409-421.