Page:Material Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos.djvu/171

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salmon, neatly and even ornamentally sewed together". On Southampton Island I saw a small bag of salmon skin in which were kept pieces of flint for fire striking with steel. A small bag from Ponds Inlet has a bottom of salmon skin with a diameter of 10 cm and sides of bladder skin; the mouth is 8 cm in diameter, edged with a strip of seal skin 1½ cm wide; the depth is 15 cm.

Fire in former days seems to have been mostly produced by the help of two pieces of pyrites (ingnerit) struck against each other; the sparks were caught on cotton grass (supun) or moss; this method is also referred to by Parry.[1] Pyrites occurs fairly commonly in the limestone area. Fire-boring has also been used, however; for this they used a bow (nîun) which made a wooden stick (usuk) rotate rapidly against another piece of wood against which it was pressed. Lyon[2] mentions fire-making "by friction"; presumably he means this method. They are both hardly ever used now, as all have matches or fire-steel. But one must economise with matches; in the house the pipes are always lighted with a stick dipped in oil. ignited at the flame of the lamp.

  1. ↑ 1824, p. 504.
  2. ↑ 1824. p. 319.
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