H. A. Junod, “Les Conceptions physiologiques des Bantou Sud-Africains et leurs tabous,” _Revue d’Ethnographie et de Sociologie_, i. (1910), p. 147.
Columella, _De re rustica_, xii. 4. 2 _sq._
Horace, _Epodes_, ii. 65 _sq._; Martial, iii. 58. 3 _sq._; L. Preller, _Römische Mythologie_, 3rd Ed., ii. 105 _sqq._, 155 _sqq._ See also A. De-Marchi, _Il Culto privato di Roma antica_, i. (Milan, 1896) p. 67, with plate iii.
Macrobius, _Saturn._ iii. 4. 11; G. Wissowa, _Religion und Kultus der Römer_, pp. 145 _sq._
Festus, _s.v._ “penus,” pp. 250, 251, ed. C. O. Müller; Tacitus, _Annals_, xv. 41; J. Marquardt, _Römische Staatsverwaltung_, iii. 2nd Ed., 252 _sq._
Dionysius Halicarnasensis, _Antiquit. Rom._ ii. 66; Livy, xxvi. 27. 14; J. Marquardt, _op. cit._ iii. 2nd Ed., 250 _sq._
[Sidenote: Mode of rekindling the Vestal fire at Rome by means of the fire-drill.] In historical times, whenever the Vestal fire at Rome happened to be extinguished, the virgins were beaten by the pontiff; after which it was their custom, apparently with the aid of the pontiff, to rekindle the fire by drilling a hole in a board of lucky wood till a flame was elicited by friction. The new fire thus obtained was carried into the temple of Vesta by one of the virgins in a bronze sieve.[683] As this mode of producing fire is one of the most primitive known to man, and has been commonly employed by many savage [Sidenote: Use of the fire-drill by savages.] tribes down to modern times,[684] we need have no difficulty in believing that its use in the worship of Vesta was a survival from prehistoric ages, and that whenever the fire on the hearth of the Latin kings went out it was regularly relit in the same fashion. In its simplest form the fire-drill, as the apparatus has been appropriately named by Professor E. B. Tylor, consists of two sticks, the one furnished with a point and the other with a hole. The point of the one stick is inserted into the hole of the other, which is laid flat on the ground, while the operator holds the pointed stick upright in position and twirls it rapidly between his hands till the rubbing of the two sticks against each other produces sparks and at last a flame.
[Sidenote: Many savages regard the two sticks of the fire-drill as male and female, and the rubbing of the two together as a sexual union.] Many savages see in this operation a resemblance to the union of the sexes, and have accordingly named the pointed stick the man and the holed stick the woman. Thus we are told that among the Thompson Indians of British Columbia “fire was obtained by means of the fire-drill, which consisted of two dried sticks, each over a foot in length, and rounded off to less than an inch in diameter. One stick was sharpened at one end; while the other was marked with a couple of notches close to each other—one on the side, and the other on top. The sharpened end of the first stick was placed in the top notch of the other stick, and turned rapidly between the straightened palms of both hands. The heat thus produced by the friction of the sticks caused sparks to fall down the side notch upon tinder placed underneath, which, when it commenced to smoke, was taken in the hands, and blown upon until fanned into a flame. The tinder was dry grass, the shredded dry bark of the sagebrush, or cedar-bark. The sharpened stick was called the ‘man,’ and was made of black-pine root, tops of young yellow pine, heart of yellow-pine cones, service-berry wood, etc. The notched stick was called the ‘woman,’ and was generally made of poplar-root. However, many kinds of wood were used for this purpose. When hot ashes or a spark fell upon the tinder, they said, ‘The woman has given birth.’”[685] The Hopi Indians kindle fire ceremonially by the friction of two sticks, which are regarded respectively as male and female. The female stick has a notch in it and is laid flat on the floor; the point of the male stick is inserted in the notch of the female stick and is made to revolve rapidly by twirling the stick between the hands. Pollen is added as a male symbol, and the spark is caught in a tinder of shredded cedar bark.[686] The Urabunna tribe of Central Australia, who also make fire by means of the fire-drill, call the upright piece “the child-stick,” while they give to the horizontal or notched piece the name of “the mother-stick” or “the mother of the fire.”[687] So in the Murray Islands, Torres Straits, the upright stick is called the child (_werem_), and the horizontal stick the mother (_apu_). In Mabuiag, Torres Straits, on the other hand, the vertical stick is known as the male organ (_ini_), and the horizontal stick as the hole (_sakai_).[688]