I wanted to share with you all a couple of photos from my visit to the museum. I was fortunate to have a chance to inspect and photograph the fire pistons and bamboo strike-a-lights in their holdings. I also saw sets of fire thongs, hand drills and several beautiful Inuit strap drills, accessions Nelson brought back from Alaska. I could have easily spent a week there but I was limited to 5 hours and had to stick to a pre-determined list of all the strike-a-lights and fire pistons.
All sets are illustrated in black and white in books by Walter Hough but have not been photographed since. I wanted to see them in person to look for clues to determine the species of bamboo, formulation of tinder, types of strikers included, and general design.
Anthropologists learn the craft they study to better understand it. I have been lucky enough to successfully start fire using the bamboo strike-a-light method and in learning to do so came up with several questions.
Let me again thank everyone on this list, especially my friends ASH in Malaysia and Galemys (Tom) in the Netherlands for all the fun we've had investigating this technique. I found this forum through ASH's article on the quest for the fire bamboo. I can't tell you how excited I was to learn that others were investigating these methods for fire-making. Lot's of fun has been had and is yet to be had!
O.K. to the photos:
All of the tinder included in the sets is of Caryota palm fibers mixed with charred/charcoal material.
Stikers are of firearm flints, native rock, and porcelain with dull, not sharp, edges.
All spark producing bamboo appeared to be the same type.
All accessions observed are from the Philippines.
Both short scrapes and long scrapes are present on the spark producing bamboo, mostly short.
As far as I can tell, the bamboo is identical to that which I got from my friend Ivan which was imported from the Philippines. Without going into the whole story, I have been studying bamboo taxonomy for over a year (I am a botanist) and have read all the literature pertaining to the genus Schizostachyum. The taxonomy isn't clear cut and taxonomists state that several of the named species may be only one species. I go by the groups or complexes within the genus and my findings match that which ASH has found. He met with the best bamboo taxonomist in Malaysia and showed him examples of the strike-a-light bamboo he obtained. It is of the S. jaculans group which contains S. jaculans, S. iraten, S. lima, S. lumampao and other poorly described species. The main characteristic used to identify the species is removed when making the fire-making set, the culm sheath. A clue to the name of the bamboo was given by Walter Hough in his book 'Fire as an Agent in Human Culture.' He called the type of bamboo used "Buyo" which is probably another spelling for what is today written "Buho" or S. lumampao. Believe me when I say that bamboo taxonomy is vague in this group of Schizostachyum. The descriptions can be very frustrating lacking illustrations and the not-until-recently discovered useful characteristics of the shoot, culm sheeth, and floral anatomy. ASH may play a role in the sorting this out with his DNA collections (send all to Wong). Wow, all that was "without going into the whole story" ha ha.
Let the photos speak for themselves!
Cheers!
Ed R.
All sets are illustrated in black and white in books by Walter Hough but have not been photographed since. I wanted to see them in person to look for clues to determine the species of bamboo, formulation of tinder, types of strikers included, and general design.
Anthropologists learn the craft they study to better understand it. I have been lucky enough to successfully start fire using the bamboo strike-a-light method and in learning to do so came up with several questions.
Let me again thank everyone on this list, especially my friends ASH in Malaysia and Galemys (Tom) in the Netherlands for all the fun we've had investigating this technique. I found this forum through ASH's article on the quest for the fire bamboo. I can't tell you how excited I was to learn that others were investigating these methods for fire-making. Lot's of fun has been had and is yet to be had!
O.K. to the photos:
All of the tinder included in the sets is of Caryota palm fibers mixed with charred/charcoal material.
Stikers are of firearm flints, native rock, and porcelain with dull, not sharp, edges.
All spark producing bamboo appeared to be the same type.
All accessions observed are from the Philippines.
Both short scrapes and long scrapes are present on the spark producing bamboo, mostly short.
As far as I can tell, the bamboo is identical to that which I got from my friend Ivan which was imported from the Philippines. Without going into the whole story, I have been studying bamboo taxonomy for over a year (I am a botanist) and have read all the literature pertaining to the genus Schizostachyum. The taxonomy isn't clear cut and taxonomists state that several of the named species may be only one species. I go by the groups or complexes within the genus and my findings match that which ASH has found. He met with the best bamboo taxonomist in Malaysia and showed him examples of the strike-a-light bamboo he obtained. It is of the S. jaculans group which contains S. jaculans, S. iraten, S. lima, S. lumampao and other poorly described species. The main characteristic used to identify the species is removed when making the fire-making set, the culm sheath. A clue to the name of the bamboo was given by Walter Hough in his book 'Fire as an Agent in Human Culture.' He called the type of bamboo used "Buyo" which is probably another spelling for what is today written "Buho" or S. lumampao. Believe me when I say that bamboo taxonomy is vague in this group of Schizostachyum. The descriptions can be very frustrating lacking illustrations and the not-until-recently discovered useful characteristics of the shoot, culm sheeth, and floral anatomy. ASH may play a role in the sorting this out with his DNA collections (send all to Wong). Wow, all that was "without going into the whole story" ha ha.
Let the photos speak for themselves!
Cheers!
Ed R.
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