Bow-drill fire-making pairs plant materials designed for each other from one tree

Evidence

In making a handmade fire, so much depends on the plants, two pieces of cedar, a yielding board, a straight shaft, made for each other, male and female from the same tree. The bow a flexible wand of striped maple, a shapely grip to bear the bowstring twined of dogbane fiber. Stroking back and forth, back and forth, the shaft spinning, feeling its way into the bowl that burns to meet its shape. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 1373

Categorization

• XREF: Recalls ch54’s round-architecture and ch55’s ‘plants as models’ — but here the pairing of cedar board and shaft ‘made for each other’ is the key craft detail.