Like I said, the Twa and I made Fire!
It was really cool… You know how you’ve seen on TV people create
fire just out of hitting rocks together to make sparks or rubbing a couple of
pieces of wood to create friction and eventually fire? Well, we did that and it was really fun J
The Twa method of creating fire (which they use away from camp for
the purpose of smoking bees out of their hives so they can get honey) is to use
two bits of wood…
One piece of hard wood in the form of a finger-thickness “dowel”
that is rubbed vigorously between the hands to make it twist while its end is
pushed down into a second softer piece of wood with a small divot in it, Now
this is a pretty effort intensive method, and if you have ever tried it
yourself then you have almost certainly failed… That’s because it takes both a
fair bit of technique and a great deal of effort. So much effort in fact that
it took all four of my Twa friends to pull it off. They each took repeated
turns at spinning the rod (for about 30 seconds each) by rubbing between their
palms while pushing the rod down hard into the base wood… The whole thing took
about half an hour to do of which 15 minutes was the hard work of “spinning the
rod”
Initially not much seemed to happen other than a small mound of
wood powder formed next to the base of the stick. Then after about 10 minutes,
a little wisp of smoke would occasionally be seen, And after another 5 minutes,
the little wisp was a bit more solid, and a little black spot appeared in the
mound of sawdust powder… And that little black spot very slowly got a bit
bigger,,, and it wouldn’t go out… And then it was transferred into a handful of
dry grass and with a bit of careful blowing, the grass started smoking…
And then there was FIRE!!! FIRE! We had created fire out of virtually nothing!...
And then there was FIRE!!! FIRE! We had created fire out of virtually nothing!...
Preparing the divot in the base piece of wood.
A handful off dry grass is collected in readiness.
The spindle is set in the base piece and the "rubbing/spinning" starts.
Not much happens for quite a while.
Then there is a wisp of smoke.
And finally the little black dot appears and the wisp of smoke is steady.
And the black dot grows.
The smoking sawdust is moved to the dry grass.
Careful blowing and now we have real smoke.
And then a small flame appears.
And presto!... We have FIRE!!!
... Better put that out or well burn the forest down! :)
Wow, that was amazingly rewarding! J Im actually a bit surprised how much fun that was!
And after that, I couldn’t help myself and I had to try another method Id knew of that used a bow (as in a bow and arrow) to spin the dowel rather than just using the hands… I tried using their hunting bow and sort of got it to work but the dowel was too slippery and I really had not much idea about technique. But the Twa guys watched what I was doing and became quite excited and chatted enthusiastically with each other about it. The translator guy said they were gonna go home and try my method out… Ooops, I hope I haven’t messed with their culture or corrupted their heritage! J
