Papua New Guinea native firemaking with string

[BOD]

Hi Rich,

I would say that the bamboo sparks look if they last just a tiny bit longer but that may be because you can use a longer stretch for the strike. So I guess what I actually see is a row of sparks that may be just as short lived as the ones from flint on flint. They are also hard to see in broad daylight.
Occassionally some sparks fly longer and further but I still haven´t had any luck catching them on tinder.


I´m gonna try honing my sparking technique with bamboo as the striking part against the steady held flint & tinder. This should be a more gentle method for the tinder so I can try the charcloth again.

Any other suggestions are greatly appreciated.


Maybe Stuart or Woody can get some temiang bamboo to the next bushmoot for others in England to try? There is always the slight possibility that it is just me who is crap at catching the bamboo-sparks...although the other Dutchmen that I handed some temiang out to also have not reported any success yet. Let´s hope it is not a Dutch thing...

Tom

Hi Tom and others,

I have a pile of bamboo here waiting for Stuart to bring back to the UK if he is so minded.

I am back in Borneo and had a go at spark generation with some quartz rocks.

The orange sparks were easily generated and the streak of sparks were visible in daylight. used a scraping sort of blow. They didn't last long.

I wonder if the account of the Dayak holding the tinder in the palm of his hand is the key to getting the tinder to light.

I can send you the apiang tinder when I get back. It is more robust than char cloth

 

[rich59]

Just questioning!

Silica in plants. I gather it is for real. I did a search and found that lots of plants deposit silica in them -as detected in the ash after burnt. I also noted that the amount varies a lot with time and with location in the plant.

So, is silica the key issue in getting these sparks? If so then where is there most silica in the bamboo? Does the age of the bamboo have a significant effect? Maybe very old pieces are much better than young or middle age stems?

Even if you got 100% silica then would that be any better then stone?

 

[Galemys]

So, is silica the key issue in getting these sparks? If so then where is there most silica in the bamboo? Does the age of the bamboo have a significant effect? Maybe very old pieces are much better than young or middle age stems?
Even if you got 100% silica then would that be any better then stone?

Rich,

The onely information I got from a bamboo-enthusiasts club (I think they were called bambooweb, it's somewhere down in the posts below) that said the silica-content of the culms increase with age so yes, the oldest parts have the highest quantity of silica.

Interestingly, I was playing around with my piece of temiang bamboo yesterday and tried to make sparks something else than flint so I got a piece of iron (an old pair of scissors) and used it to strike the bamboo. Although the edge of it was just as sharpish as the flint I had used I could only in 2 out of some 50 strikes get one lonely dull spark out of it! After that, the flint produced a whole row of sparks with each strike again as it has done before.

Before this I had made up a theory of my own that the silica in the bamboo was there to create enough friction with any hard sharpish object it was struck with and that the sparks were tiny pieces of bamboo that were incinerated by the heat created by the friction. But my little experiment seems to indicate that the striking material also plays a part in this process.

Bod,

I'm still hoping that a "Pandeka, age 163, location Borneo" will join us here at the forum to enlighten us all…

Tom (still waiting for his first bamboo-spark-fire)

 

[BOD]

Rich,

Bod,

I'm still hoping that a "Pandeka, age 163, location Borneo" will join us here at the forum to enlighten us all…

Tom (still waiting for his first bamboo-spark-fire)

I wait eagerly - especially curious about the 163 bit.

BTW what burns causing the spark? The flint, the silica or the bamboo?

 

[BOD]

Interestingly, I tried striking the bamboo which I first collected myself and found that there were hardly any sparks.

This was some of the temaing Jamit and I collected in the rain. I f you read the earlier post this was a mix of what he collected and what I did. Obviously some skill is needed in selecting the bamboo but for the life of me I can't distinguish the ones he took and my efforts.

I hope to be back in Borneo soon and will ask him

 

[BOD]

Tom,

Thought this might refocus your interest after the home renovations.

Not my picture. This was taken in Taman Negara. As soon as I can I will chase this down but it is a second to the fire piston quest

 

[Galemys]

Tom,
Thought this might refocus your interest after the home renovations.

Thank's for that BOD,
Looks like a split stick instead of bamboo.

Still not done with the renovations.
How's the Dengue?

Tom

 

[BOD]

.
How's the Dengue?

Tom

Much better but still not ready for a bush trip.

I'm going DEET happy as I don't want to get a second and more serious dose

 

[Galemys]

Here are some sources that mention the bamboo-spark method being used in Borneo and New Guinea, you may have to click on the preceding or following pages to find the exact bamboo-spark quotes:

Author: Boyle, Frederick
Title: Adventures among the Dyaks of Borneo
Publication date: 1865
http://dlxs.library.cornell.edu/cgi...full%20text;idno=sea176;view=image;seq=84
Author: Guillemard, F. H. H. (Francis Henry Hill)
Title: The cruise of the Marchesa to Kamschatka and New Guinea. With notices of Formosa, Liu-kiu, and various islands of the Malay archipelago. By F. H. H. Guillemard. With maps and numerous woodcuts drawn by J. Keulemans, C. Whymper, and others, and engr. by Edward Whymper
Publication date: 1889
http://dlxs.library.cornell.edu/cgi...;rgn=full text;idno=sea220;view=image;seq=465
Author: Roth, H. Ling (Henry Ling)
Title: The natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo; based chiefly on the mss. of the late Hugh Brooke Low, Sarawak government service, vol.1
Publication date: 1896
This one also gives details about another tinder material, used by the Dusuns! (go to page 378)
http://dlxs.library.cornell.edu/cgi...rgn=full text;idno=sea275a;view=image;seq=413
Author: Roth, H. Ling (Henry Ling)
Title: The natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo; based chiefly on the mss. of the late Hugh Brooke Low, Sarawak government service, vol.2
Publication date: 1896
http://dlxs.library.cornell.edu/cgi...rgn=full text;idno=sea275b;view=image;seq=522

I have contact with Bertrand Roussel, a French "Docteur en prehistoire" who is one of the scientists behind an exhibition on firestarting through the ages in the Terra Amata museum, Nice, France (see http://www.nice.fr/ressources/dossier_presse_mail.pdf). He has written a little article on the bamboo-spark method with all the references he knows of and is gonna send it to me by post. I will give an update when I have read the article.

Cheers,

Tom

PS Mr Roussel was very pleased with the link to this thread I had sent him ("Merci pour ce formidable lien....")!

 

[Galemys]

Here´s a link to some video material on the fire thong, filmed by a `Dutch and American expedition to New Guinea´ in 1926!

The fire thong clip is in ´film selection number 28´ (in the last part of it, after some stone axe footage, some shaving/plucking with a stone knife and a very slow method of killing a pig), a very short piece of the rattan is used as thong:
http://www.sil.si.edu/expeditions/1926/video/index.cfm

Other ´film selections´ include short clips of making a bow with a stone axe, making string and manufacturing arrowheads.

Cheers,

Tom

 

[Galemys]

I had contacted a Dr Bertrand Roussel from the Terra Amata museum in Nice, France with some questions on the fire piston and the bamboo-spark (or bamboo percussion) firestarting method and he has very kindly sent me an article he had written on the method and some copied book excerpts about it. I will give a more detailed summary later in this thread but the most astonishing fact is that the method was reported still in use in New Guinea in the early '90's by a French scientist couple doing research on the polished stone axe!

Cheers,

Tom

PS
Dr.Bertrand Roussel had not only kindly sent me the little article he had written on the 'bamboo spark'/bamboo percussion firestarting method but had included lots of other articles and copied book excerpts with a tonload of information (all in French) on primitive firestarting in general, archeological evidence for different methods of firestarting, news on the 'bamboo-spark' (or bamboo percussion) firestarting method, lots about the usage of the false tinder fungus and some information about a plant that was used as traditional firesteel tinder in Spain. A great read!

 

[BOD]

Here are some sources that mention the bamboo-spark method being used in Borneo and New Guinea, .....This one also gives details about another tinder material, used by the Dusuns! (go to page 378)

Tom,

Thanks for posting these links. Don't know how I missed them earlier.

I’ve done some searching on the net about the other tinder. The preparation sounds similar to what Salang did.

Luckily the account mentions poor Witti and that set me straight as the reference to “Dusun” is ethnologically vague, “Dusun” is a word in many Bornean languages and just means farmer or orchard and also refers to a few related ethnic groups. In this case we are talking about the now called Kadazan Dusun of Sabah.

Witti was killed in a classic explorer vs. natives encounter and not to spoil it for others here is the account in the New York Times of 1882.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archiv...B143DE533A25753C3A9669D94639FD7CF&oref=slogin

Anyway this is relatively accessible country nowadays and I hope to get there sometime and ask around to see if anyone can do the tinder preparation and bamboo spark method. I have a Dusun friend from one of the minority Dusuns who is a botanist and he may help give a direction on the plant used. It might be Decaspermum Fruiticosum. He is a botanist and curator of natural history at a museum.

Can you access Witti’s diary and establish which area he was in around those dates?


I wonder whether it would be an idea to separate the bamboo spark method thread from the fire thong for clarity for future readers?

 

[Ed4sobrevivencia]

Hello Gentleman,

Ed here from Los Angeles. I just found the forum yesterday. It was BODs article that I first found; I was looking for additional info on palm fiber tinder. I stayed up till 2:30am reading this entire thread and have to say that you guys would be a great lot to hang out with.
As for me, I've learned all primitive friction methods and found local materials that work well. As for the fire thong, I have great success using California Buckeye (_Aesculus californica_) and can give details later if people are interested. As for the thong, simply go to a furniture shop and buy the rattan or you could also use what is called 'binding cane'.

O.K. as for Palm tinder for fire pistons and bamboo on crockery. I have some additional info that you may or may not have come across and I hope that it will give you success in your quest.
Most of the literature that I have found lists palm tinder coming from the subfamily Caryotoideae (Fishtail Palms). Arenga pinnataand Caryota mitisbeing the most common. Chamaerops ritchiana is used in Pakistan, Elaeis melanococca is used in Brazil, Caryota urens is used in Lakhimpur (India) and so on.

I see that you guys love the scientific literature as well and here are a couple that relate to the topic that you may have fun looking up.

'Useful Palms of the World, a synoptic bibliography' by Michael Balick, 1990.
This amazing book lists numerous palms used for tinder. Most are in the subfamily Caryotoideae. Oh yeah, I'm a greenhouse manager at California State University Fullerton so I love the plant talk.

'Fire-making using a stone 'strike-a-light' in the Soa Basin of Flores, Indonesia' Adam Brumm. You can find this article and video online. This is a must read and see, especially for BOD. You are my second find for a reference for adding charred material to the palm fiber to prepare the tinder and it really works great! Oh, the people use charred coconut fiber for the additive to the palm fiber. More on this later.

'Palms of Malaya' by T.C. Whitmore, 1977. You guys will love this one. on page 45 it reads: "The fluff which can be scraped off the leaves and sheaths is used for tinder. In Kelantan gobek api is a remarkable means of making fire by friction and compression utilizing this tinder. A piece of buffalo horn has a 1/4" hole drilled in it and a tight fitting piston of the same material; a little tukas fluff is dropped into the hole. The piston id driven sharply home, and if it is then removed quickly enough, the fluff will be found to be smoldering and can be fanned into a flame." It should be noted that some people who have fire pistons inherited them and had different "makes" so the technique varies. One book that shows this is Garvan's 'Negritos of the Phillipines' see page 35.
Yeah, I know your dying to know what tukas is, well it's very common in offices and malls around here. Caryota mitis or rabok, tukas, clumping fishtail palm, +.

BOD, sorry I don't know the name of the plant that your friends burnt (I think they got things mixed up b/c what he really needed to do was char the stuff not burn it. A matter of technique?) It looks to me right off as a Pandanus or one of its relatives. I'd like to know what you guys have found and am willing to look at any additional photos of the plant for I.D. Photographs of the flowers and fruits would help greatly.

O.K., what these guys are essentially doing is making charred cloth. The palm fiber ignites great in a fire piston but will fail to continue to burn (use a clear fire piston to see what I mean, oh yeah, I also relax by making fire pistons). If you char something and mix it with it you get a superb tinder. It will hold up to much more abuse than charred cloth and I think this is key for us trying to start fires with bamboo and flint, etc.
Now why didn't the old gents mention this in their literature? Well, they didn't mention a lot of things like gaskets etc. and they did get a lot right so I'm just happy to see that there are still people who know how to make this stuff alive today. I'll have to see if I can find any more references to adding charred material to the tinders mention in the book by Micheal Balick (you're all welcome to help me).

So, go out and char some coconut fiber, the stuff BOD wrote about, or simply use charred cloth and mix it up with whatever fluff you can scrap off of the palm trees near you and go at it. I've had success with what we call Queen Palm, Buriti Palm, and Clumping Fishtail Palm so far. No need to deface anything, just do a modest scraping without pulling any leaves off. Oh, it should be mentioned that I've only used powdered charred cloth as an admixture so far. Let me know what you've done!

Unfortunately for me I don't have Schizostachyum blumei available to me here. Oh, I just remembered. A friend from Vietnam once told me of a bamboo that is so hard on the outside that it sometimes sparks when you cut it with a machete; just another testimony of the facts under investigation.

I could write more but will stop. I'm glad I found the forum, thanks BOD, TOM, Rich, and the dude on a camel for all you've written.

Ed

 

[Stuart]

Superb first post Ed4sobrevivencia! I can see you're going to fit in nicely around here.

 

[BOD]

Hey Ed.....,

Welcome to the Forum! And thanks for the input.

I had noticed that the palms were similar species but didn't know they were from the Caryota family apart from tukas (C. mitis/griffithii). I think that the Malays may use the term tukas to cover a couple of species. I just go by what the local call them. Unless research is in mind, all you got to do is be able to identfy them when in the bush!

Great thing about the Caryota is that you can eat them and put back the calories you expended in getting the tinder. On thing I've noticed is that the species which grow vertically taste great while those that come out sideways or 'climb' are bitter.

Can you help ID this palm?

If I were to get hold of the temiang bamboo what parts should I photograph/ collect for someone to be able to ID on it? Just Flowers and fruits?

Could you help with an ID or someone you know?

You are right. The char material is a giant pandanus. And I believe that he was making powdered char fibre but somewhat over did it. The lulut was not fully dried as I was pushing to get back to town.

Tom and the Dutch bushies did try charcloth with no luck. Perhaps they should try mixing it as you say.

Tom . Over to you on this one.

I'm off to look for gobeks next month as soon as the monsoon is over but am always keeping an eye out for bamboos.

Ed, you carry on posting here. Those references are going to get Tom all hot!!


Ash

 

[Galemys]

Thank's for that Ed! I really enjoyed your post and it gave me enough starting points for further searches.

Here's a short reproduction of the French article:
Produire le feu par percussion avec le chaume d'un bambou, by Dr. Bertrand Roussel
The article starts with a fire creation myth that was told by the Murut tribes people of Sabah in Northern Borneo. The man and woman that survived the deluge became the parents of a dog. This dog first learned them the handdrill at a hunt. At a later hunt it taught them to take 'Lulup' tinder from the 'Polur' tree, a piece of bamboo and a piece of rock and to make fire with these three materials.

Mr Roussel describes the bamboo percussion method in short -striking a piece of a special bamboo with flint or pottery to produce sparks for firestarting- and mentions that several types of tinder were used with this method, including scrapings of the innerside of bamboo, material from the Caryota palm, the treated outer layer (epidermis) of a plant and, by the Wamo tribesmen of New Guinea, the "liber" (= phloem) of a palm.
He then gives references of the method being used in the following South East Asian localities:
Northern Borneo (Sarawak and Sabah by "the Kuijaus dusun, the Ranau dusun the Buludupie, the Cagayau-Sulu, the Tungara etc."),
the Moluccan islands (Sulawesi by the "Alfour and Minahassa", the Banggai islands west of Sulawesi, Ceram, Ternate),
the southernmost islands of the Phillipines (Palawan, by "certain Batak people" & Balabac by "certain Malay groups"),
the New Guinean islands of Waigeo and Biak and the mainland of Irian Jaya (the Indonesian side of the island New Guinea). it includes the report of the French scientist couple Petrequien who, during their research on the polished stone axe, encountered the method being used (with a piece of polished stone as striker) in the early nineties by the Wamo-people of the Yeleme mountains in the Western Highlands of Irian Jaya.
He mentions two more locations, from the former ´CochinChina´ (now Southern Vietnam) and a very doubtful one from Africa but excludes these in a later map with the distribution of the method.

He then tries to identify the species of bamboo that was used, citing an article by Walter Hough who determinated the bamboospecies used in a bamboo percussion set from the Phillipines as Schizostachyum lumampao. This bamboospecies however is restricted to the Phillipines and cannot account for the method being used in other parts of South East Asia so Dr. Roussel proposes Schizostachyum lima (synonyms: S. hallieri, Bambusa lima) instead, motivating this choice with linguistical evidence from the Phillipines and the wider distribution of the species. This species also has the rough 'sandpaper' like outer texture that Hough described and was even used for polishing bronze. The maps showing the distribution of S. lima and that of the region where the bamboo percussion method was in use show remarkable similarities but both exclude the mainland of South East Asia. There is also a drawing of the bamboo Schizostachyum lima, a picture of a bamboo percussion set from the United States National Museum and a list of 26 references.

My only criticism of Dr. Roussel´s article is that the mainland location of Southern Vietnam (mentioned by Frederick Boyle) has been excluded from the distribution map. Moreover, there is also a mainland reference of the method being used in Burma (by the German Adolf Bastian). I have only found indirect citations of both of these references so I can not determine how valid they are but if they are true there must be another bamboospecies involved for S.lima doesn't grow in mainland South East Asia, according to the map in mr. Roussel's article. In this thread we have already come up with Schizostachyum blumei as a possible suspect for Borneo but it may just be that there are several South East Asian bamboo-species that are capable of producing sparks when struck by pottery, flint or polished stone.

Cheers,

Tom

 

[Ed4sobrevivencia]

Thank you all for your warm welcome! I'm glad to join in the quest for fire knowledge with you guys.
I've had an incredible amount of fun learning about primitive fire making techniques and doing them.
Just a short note before I respond to other questions.

I think that you guys already know this, but just in case some of the readers didn't know, many types of pottery have crushed flint in them.
Here is one of the many internet links citing recipes:
http://www.stoke.gov.uk/ccm/museums...s/types-of-pottery.en;jsessionid=aUk77ZdVKc2a
I'm not sure how one could tell which cup or plate to break for the experiment. I've tried two and since my bamboo isn't hard enough I think I'll postpone breaking any more dinnerware until I get some Schizostachyum.

Ed

 

[Stuart]

just found this video of the firethong technique as performed in Malaysia:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kz-TW8LG3m8

differs from the Papuan technique in that the wood isnt split and the ember forms on the top, I wish the video showed more detail of the ember notch is designed though!

the second individual pokes a stick though from behind to dislodge the ember, so I assume there must be a hole passing though from one side to the other.

 

[spamel]

Wow, i totally forgot about this thread and it seems to have grown some what! Sparks from bamboo eh? I wouldn't have believed it before seeing that video. Amazing!

 

[BOD]

Yes there are holes. They are visible in the video when he moves the hearthboard.

Similar to how Woody does it even down to the toggles.

I wonder what the thong is made of. Doesn't look like rattan. Note the shape as it dangles down at the end as he walks away