CHAPTER XV

THE SEA PEOPLE

AS Ka-Ma's children grew up, he taught them all the things he knew, how to make weapons and tools of stone, how to dry and season wood, for spear handles, and bows and arrows, how to make cord of fish guts, or the twisted stems of marsh grasses, how to spear fish, use the sling, and shoot with the bow. But he could not teach them how to make pottery, for he could find no clay, and worst of all, there was no fire with which to burn it, even if he had found the clay.

The young people, who had never seen fire, and did not know what it was, were quite content to eat their food raw, for they had never tasted it any other way, but Ka-Ma thought every day of the Sacred Fire, and wished that in some way he could get it again.

Sometimes, when he was drilling a hole in a bit of shell, or in a stick of wood, with a sharp-pointed piece of flint, it seemed to him that the drill grew very hot, but no fire came.

One day Ka-Ma took the dried shell of a nut which he had found in the forest, and after cutting off one end, began to drill a hole in each side of it. Through these holes he meant to run a cord. Not having any bowls or jars of pottery in which to carry water, he thought he could make a sort of water bottle out of the large nut. Then, when he went hunting, or fishing, he could carry the bottle about his shoulders by means of the cord, and so have fresh water to drink during the long, hot day. He had never done this in the valley, because there was plenty of water all about, sweet and fresh, but here all the water was salt, except in the little pool near his hut, and so he either had to carry some with him or go thirsty.

He used a thin sharp piece of flint with a wooden handle to bore the hole, twirling it rapidly between the palms of his hands, and at the same time pressing down upon it as hard as he could. It was a very hot day. The soft, moss-like fibres which covered the outside of the nut were dry as tinder. As the drill cut slowly into the hard shell, Ka-Ma saw, to his surprise, a tiny wisp of smoke curl up from the hole. Its smell told him it was the same smoke he had smelt so often in the Fire Cave at home. Harder and harder he pressed the drill down, faster and faster he twirled it, and then, suddenly, the smoke burst into a tiny flame, which licked up the dry fibres about the edge of the hole and was gone.

Filled with wonder, he tried again and again, and each time the little flame appeared, and went out. At last, after he had thought for a long while, he picked a bunch of the dry moss-like fibres from the shell, and giving it to one of his sons, told him to hold the fibres in the flame the next time it appeared. He also gathered beside him a heap of dry leaves and grass.

When the boy put the fibres into the flame, they blazed up at once, and burnt his hand so that he dropped them with a cry of pain, but Ka-Ma took the blazing bit and placed it among the dry leaves and grass, and in a moment he had a fire. Tula, who had been watching him, quickly brought reeds, and bits of wood, and soon a hot fire was roaring in front of the hut. The children gathered about, astonished and a little afraid, but Ka-Ma and his wife were filled with joy. He did not know why the fire had come, for he did not understand that friction, caused by rubbing two objects together, makes heat, but he was very grateful, for he had now found a way to make fire whenever he wanted it. For this reason, it was not necessary for him or his family to keep the fire going night and day, and thus the new tribe no longer thought of the fire as sacred. They did not worship it, the way the valley people