[Sidenote: The evolution of a fire-god or fire-goddess.] These Koryak and Chuckchee customs illustrate the evolution of a fire-god into the patron deity of a family and his representation in human form by the board which is used in fire-making. As the fire-board is that part of the kindling apparatus which is commonly regarded as female in contradistinction to the drill, which is regarded as male, we can easily understand why the deity of the fire should sometimes, as at Rome, be conceived as a goddess rather than as a god; whereas if the drill itself were viewed as the essential part of the apparatus we should expect to find a fire-god and not a fire-goddess.
Festus, _s.v._ “Ignis,” p. 106, ed. C. O. Müller: “_Ignis Vestae si quando interstinctus esset, virgines verberibus afficiebantur a pontifice, quibus mos erat tabulam felicis materiae tamdiu terebrare, quousque exceptum ignem cribro aeneo virgo in aedem ferret_.” In this passage it is not clear whether _quibus_ refers to the virgins alone or to the virgins and the pontiff together; but the strict grammatical construction is in favour of the latter interpretation. The point is not unimportant, as we shall see presently. From a passage of Plutarch (_Numa_, 9) it has sometimes been inferred that the Vestal fire was rekindled by sunlight reflected from a burning-glass. But in this passage Plutarch is describing a Greek, not a Roman, mode of making fire, as has been rightly pointed out by Professor M. H. Morgan (“De ignis eliciendi modis apud antiquos,” _Harvard Studies in Classical Philology_, i. (1890) pp. 56 _sqq._). In this memoir Professor Morgan has collected and discussed the passages of Greek and Latin writers which refer to the kindling of fire.
See E. B. Tylor, _Early History of Mankind_, 3rd Ed., pp. 238 _sqq._ More evidence might easily be given. See, for example, J. Dawson, _Australian Aborigines_, pp. 15 _sq._; C. Lumholtz, _Among Cannibals_, p. 191; A. W. Howitt, _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, pp. 770-773; Maximilian Prinz zu Wied-Newied, _Reise nach Brasilien_, ii. 18 _sq._; E. F. im Thurn, _Among the Indians of Guiana_, pp. 257-259; K. von den Steinen, _Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens_, pp. 223 _sqq._; H. Ling Roth, _The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo_, i. 375 _sqq._; A. Maass, _Bei liebenswürdigen Wilden, ein Beitrag zur Kenntniss der Mentawai-Insulaner_ (Berlin, 1902), pp. 114, 116; Mgr. Le Roy, “Les Pygmées,” _Missions Catholiques_, xxix. (1897), p. 137; E. Thurston, _Ethnographic Notes in Southern India_ (Madras, 1906), pp. 464-470; W. A. Reed, _Negritos of Zambales_ (Manila, 1904), p. 40.