[The new fire among the Todas of Southern India and among the Nagas of North-Eastern India.]

The Todas of the Neilgheny Hills, in Southern India, annually kindle a sacred new fire by the friction of wood in the month which begins with the October moon.  The ceremony is performed by two holy dairymen at the foot of a high hill.  When they have lighted the fire by rubbing two dry sticks together, and it begins to burn well, they stand a little way off and pray, saying, “May the young grass flower!  May honey flourish!  May fruit ripen!” The purpose of the ceremony is to make the grass and honey plentiful.  In ancient times the Todas lived largely on wild fruits, and then the rite of the new fire was very important.  Now that they subsist chiefly on the milk of their buffaloes, the ceremony has lost much of its old significance.[339] When the Nagas of North-Eastern India have felled the timber and cut down the scrub in those patches of jungle which they propose to cultivate, they put out all the fires in the village and light a new fire by rubbing two dry pieces of wood together.  Then having kindled torches at it they proceed with them to the jungle and ignite the felled timber and brushwood.  The flesh of a cow or buffalo is also roasted on the new fire and furnishes a sacrificial meal.[340] Near the small town of Kahma in Burma, between Prome and Thayetmyo, certain gases escape from a hollow in the ground and burn with a steady flame during the dry season of the year.  The people regard the flame as the forge of a spectral smith who here carried on his business after death had removed him from his old smithy in the village.  Once a year all the household fires in Kahma are extinguished and then lighted afresh from the ghostly flame.[341]

[The new fire in China and Japan.]

In China every year, about the beginning of April, certain officials, called Sz’hueen, used of old to go about the country armed with wooden clappers.  Their business was to summon the people and command them to put out every fire.  This was the beginning of a season called Han-shih-tsieh, or “eating cold food.”  For three days all household fires remained extinct as a preparation for the solemn renewal of the fire, which took place on the fifth or sixth day of April, being the hundred and fifth day after the winter solstice.  The ceremony was performed with great pomp by the same officials, who procured the new fire from heaven by reflecting the sun’s rays either from a metal mirror or from a crystal on dry moss.  Fire thus obtained is called by the Chinese heavenly fire, and its use is enjoined in sacrifices; whereas fire elicited by the friction of wood is termed by them earthly fire, and its use is prescribed for cooking and other domestic purposes.  When once the new fire had thus been drawn from the sun, all the people were free to rekindle their domestic hearths; and, as a Chinese distich has it—­

“At the festival of the cold food there are a thousand white stalks
    among the flowers;
On the day Tsing-ming, at sunrise, you may see the smoke of ten thousand houses.”