Starting the Smelter - KWS-1

Starting the Smelter

06/06/2019

Observation by Kurt W. Smith

07:40 in the morning. Approximately 1.5 hours after daybreak. Ore Island. At the forge house of Dokon, the owner/operator.

Description of Activity

Dokon unlocks the door lock with a single metal key from his pocket. He removes the lock and opens the latch that holds the heavy beam of wood in place that prevents the door from opening outward. He then swings over the beam, which pivots on a hinge at the opposite side of the door from the latch and lock, allowing the door to swing outward on its own hinge. Dokon enters, followed by Rikon, a noticeably younger man, and Pakum and Laton, two new adolescent apprentices. Dokon leaves the door open, allowing ambient light inside.

“This, and kinding. Ash, not oak,” Dokon says, pointing directly at a long metal tool and then gesturing toward a wall of the room with shelves and boxes containing various species and cuts of wood.

            Pakum picks up the tool while Laton searches for pieces of ash small enough for kindling.

I ask what the metal tool is called. “/bakil/” Dokon and Rikon answer simultaneously. “To push the small fire into the smelter” Dokon added.

“Ash, ready,” Laton says.

Dokon picks up a pair of flints, a dried, square cut of banana leaf, and a handful of coconut fiber from a box on a shelf. Rikon opens a lockless door in the back of the forge cabin into the gated courtyard behind. All four exit. I follow. Beyond a short overhang, which covered the outdoor workshop, stands the smelter. The smelter is a large masonry dome, about seven feet tall at the center, and ten feet in diameter.

Dokon places the bundle of coconut fiber on top of the banana leaf in a shelf-like opening into the dome, about arm’s length inside of it. He explains to the apprentices that starting the fire deeper inside the sheltering dome helps the sparks ignite without being snuffed out by the wind.

“/oktipa/ look away! /oktipa/ look away!” Dokon chants each time he strikes the flints together.

On the ninth strike, a spark lands on the fiber and smolders. Dokon steps aside and points an index finger at Pakum’s chest. “/zingu/” he orders, which I understand as “hurry” in general or “come quickly” in some utterances.

Pakum takes two quick steps to stand next to Dokon in front of the shelf in the smelter. “Blow gently,” Dokon instructs. “Wrap your hands around it like I did.”

Pakum does as instructed, but after a few puffs, the amber spark dies. “Did I blow to hard?” Pakum asks.

“No, your breathes were good,” Dokon answers. “Doesn’t always work the first time. Some sparks are not strong enough. On humid days it helps to ask /lakota/. You strike,” he says, handing the flints to Pakum.

Pakum strikes the flints over the ball of fiber, chanting “/oktipa/ look away!” at each strike. After a dozen or so strikes, a large amber spark remains lit after falling on the ball of fiber.

“/zingu/” Dokon says when he sees the spark.

Pakum cups his hands and blows gently. “/lakota/ give fire,” he whispers between puffs.

“/lakota/ make fire,” Dokon corrects.

“/lakota/ make fire,” Pakum whispers again between gentle puffs. The spark smolders more, growing brighter, and a ribbon of smoke rises. The spark suddenly transforms into a small flicker of fire in the middle of the ball of coconut fibers. “/lakota/ thank you,” Pakum says with a smile.

Dokon turns to Laton. “Kindling,” he says.

Laton holds out his handful of ash scraps he brought from the kindling boxes in the forge house.

“Smallest ones,” Dokon says.

Rikon picks out the smallest twigs and places them on the shelf.

“/zingu/ place them gently over the fire,” Dokon instructs Pakum. Pakum obeys. When the smallest pieces catch fire and the fire grows, Dokon orders slightly larger pieces be added. After all of the kindling is added, he asks Pakum for the /bakil/.

“I don’t know” Pakum replies. “Where did I put the /bakil/?”

I see the /bakil/ on the ground behind everyone, somewhat obscured in the ankle-high grass. He had dropped it, seemingly by surprise, when Dokon called him with the word /zingu/.

“/bakil/! /zingu zingu/!” Dokon shouts. I do not speak or otherwise interfere.

Pakum looks at his feet, then at Laton’s hands, then at Rikon.

“Is it in the forge house?” Laton asks.

“No I brought it,” Pakum says.

“/zingu zingu/ where is it?” Dokon shouts.

“Get a stick of wood instead,” Rikon advises.

“/zingu zingu/!” Dokon shouts. The fire grew larger as it spread across the pile of kindling.

Pakum runs to the forge house a few yards away and returns with a stick of wood. He holds it out for Dokon. Dokon refuses it. “You do it” Dokon says.

Pakum lowers his head and looks into the smelter. A pile of wooden logs are stacked inside, with a gap underneath to allow the smith to push the lit kindling under it with the shovel-like /bakil/. He places the wood stick on the banana leaf and pushes. The banana leaf is burned through, and the stick scatters the kindling pile across the shelf when Pakum pushes. The fires of smaller pieces of kindling quickly die, and only a few large kindling pieces remain on fire, but each far weaker than moments earlier when the pile was whole.

“Find the /bakil/ and try again. Learn, Laton. Don’t ruin it like Pakum,” Dokon says.

Reflections

All four participants were talking casually before the activity began. They seemed to have suddenly switched into a professional, attentive mode when Dokon placed the key in the lock. The change of behavior suggests a strong distinction between work and casual cultures, and that the work day/culture begins by unlocking/opening the place of work.

/oktipa/ is the name of the god of the sea, the sea itself, or both. The ritual chanting of “/oktipa/ look away” suggests a warning of reverence immediately before the creation of a spark. Do the people believe that /oktipa/ disapproves of fire? Is /oktipa/ omnificent? The forge is far inland, away from the sea. Is the utterance thought of as direct speech to /oktipa/ or simply a habitual cantation?

I once heard a story of how /lakota/ gave fire to the first men to keep them warm. I believe the correction of the phrase from Pakum’s utterance “/lakota/ give fire,” to Dokom’s correction “/lakota/ make fire” is in reference to the fire myth, such that /lakota/ has already given fire to mankind, and thus the appropriate request is for /lakota/ to make fire from the spark generated by the flints.

I noticed when Dokom first said /zingu/, he used his index finger to point at Pakum. Perhaps the difference in meaning between “quickly” and “(you) come quickly” is extralinguistic, so that a recipient of /zingu/ must be simultaneously indicated with a gesture, otherwise the word simply means “hurry” or “quickly.”