Traditional cultures with no ability to make fire

[fireman sam]

Thought this might interest a few of you, apparently two indigenous cultures had zero ability to create fire and so had to rely on natural fire caused by lightning strikes which was then kept going. These were, supposedly, the Jarawa of the Andaman islands

http://mathildasanthropologyblog.wo...-onge-and-sentinelese-of-the-andaman-islands/

and Tasmanian Aborigines. There is quite an interesting theory as to why the latter had no ability to make fire at the time of European settlement. Details below:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=52407

Not sure if I believe this theory but find it fascinating none the less so thought I'd share.

 

[Toddy]

No offence intended Sam, the links are interesting, but ye gods but Mathilda's bigoted :yikes: and opinionated with what appears to be a very cherrypicked reading list.....a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.....if I were you and this really interests you I'd do some more research among main stream, i.e. published, anthroplogists too.

I had heard the theory on the sudden leap technological backwards of the Tasmanian islanders before; the argument went then that in 3,500 years the most adaptive and creative species on the planet would surely have re-developed a basic human toolkit in that time, unless some over riding geas was being culturally enforced. Like a religious taboo kind of thing.
There were also considerations of repeated disease epidemics.

Interesting

cheers,
Toddy

 

[fireman sam]

No offence intended Sam, the links are interesting, but ye gods but Mathilda's bigoted :yikes: and opinionated with what appears to be a very cherrypicked reading list.....a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.....if I were you and this really interests you I'd do some more research among main stream, i.e. published, anthroplogists too.

I had heard the theory on the sudden leap technological backwards of the Tasmanian islanders before; the argument went then that in 3,500 years the most adaptive and creative species on the planet would surely have re-developed a basic human toolkit in that time, unless some over riding geas was being culturally enforced. Like a religious taboo kind of thing.


There were also considerations of repeated disease epidemics.

Interesting

cheers,
Toddy

You've lost me here a bit with this "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" and "if I was you" talk. Christ alive, I only posted it for the ref to fire, thought it might instigate some interesting discussion. Won't bother next time.

 

[bearman]

You've lost me here a bit with this "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" and "if I was you" talk. Christ alive, I only posted it for the ref to fire, thought it might instigate some interesting discussion. Won't bother next time.

I thought the idea of a forum was to share information and to discuss it. If you didnt want to talk about it, maybe you shouldnt have bothered...

 

[Toddy]

You've lost me here a bit with this "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" and "if I was you" talk. Christ alive, I only posted it for the ref to fire, thought it might instigate some interesting discussion. Won't bother next time.

I thought that the interesting discussion was what I was contributing to

The little bit of knowledge was Mathilda's, not yours.
The website/blog says that she is *now* a student of anthropolgy and she's railing against the percieved thought claiming on her own research (what research, web ?? ) that she knows more than the folks who've been doing it for years.

We all know a dedicated amateur can be better than an academically hidebound professional, but at least the professional will read all the viewpoints and research and take in more than just what fits their own theory......well, that's the presumption

I took it that this thread kind of left off your other one on the earliest dates for the use of fire ? the timeline kind of thing? No ?

Part of the problem with cherrypicking third and fourth hand sources is that one must rely on the unbiased opinion (or at least understand any inherant bias of the original observations) of the person who wrote down what one is reading.
Many of the sources that claim that the Andamanese and the now sadly extinct Tasmanians did not make fire were not exactly uncritical observers.
Primitive was justification for their own superiority and that attitude, whether racial, religious, or otherwise makes no allowances for simple things. Such as a taboo topic that the locals just will not discuss. Maybe they simply considered it unlucky to talk of the fire incase it somehow smit it and it went out
In Scotland there was a very old custom of putting all the fires out on the eve of Beltane and the hearth cleaned and the fire re-set. Fire had to be made without iron and the fire built up and divided in two. It was considered lucky, a blessing, a very good thing, to pass all the beasts, children and sometimes special items between the fires and through them. From the Beltane fires all other hearths were re-lit.
How do we know that those so called 'primitives' (totally misleading word) did not have similar customs ? we don't. One set's all dead, and all we do know is that they did use fire, and the other peoples don't talk about fire or religion to outsiders.
http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/chapter17/text17.htm
just for instance.

I do know that the Indian government is sponsoring research on those tribes within their boundaries. I don't read any of the Indian languages and their society is still heavily stratified, the islanders are the lowest of the low to many there, but the internet and it's dominant English language culture means that academic texts and research are becoming very widely disemminated.

As I said, it's interesting

cheers,
Toddy

 

[bearman]

I'm curious how a researcher got a sample of DNA when "No-one has ever been able to get enough to the Sentinelese for a photo, as they tend to shoot at helicopters and careless fishermen with arrows, which is very sensible of them. This was how the outside world realised the Sentinelese had survived the tsunami, they were still being fired upon." seems a little disjointed to me. She also mentions in her 'about me' section that some anthropologists do not publish their work in case it is seen as racist. To be honest i find this doubtful, any scholar would publish their work as long as it was fully researched and referenced, also a bit strange to consider anthropological studies racist, a discipline that studies the origins of humanity would obviously have to explain racial differences.

 

[BOD]

I have no experience of the Andaman islanders but over the years the fire-making technologies of the ‘tribes’ of the exodus from Africa has been a central interest for me.

I have stayed with and studied their ‘cousins’ of the same mitochondrial lineage and I have found the most ingenious methods of fire making from the fire piston, bamboo saw to the hand drill and the fire thong.

Moreover I can tell you that all the necessary materials are present on the Andaman Islands – suitable wood for drills and hearth boards and superb barks for durable cordage.

Carrying fire is not uncommon when the climate works against you during the monsoons. The Mentawai islanders’, further down the same island chain as the Andamans used to carry a shouldering stick when travelling overnight.

Since they possessed bows and also had iron working skills according to one links it is inconceivable that they did not know how to make fire even if, as Toddy points out, there may have been taboos governing the USE of fire