How do I make a fire in the bush without using anything man made?

Question

I was just thinking the other day, that for all that the human race has come a long way and is inventing things that it could never have invented even 200 years ago, how many of us would be able to start a fire from scratch? (one of the best inventions that our "crude"ancestors made).

I would very much like to know how to do this and the scientific proccess behind it.

Answer 1

Join the U.S. Army Rangers, they'll teach you how to live off the land with a knife in the swamps in just 12 short weeks, you'll never be the same again.

Answer 2

Fricking Friction  You know.

Answer 3

Anything you use to make a fire would have to be modified in some fashion into a tool and therefore in the strictest sense be "man-made". But here is one way: Make cord from twisting  grasses, hair, or bark fibers. Tie this on both ends of a green stick that will bend fairly easily This is your bow. Take a stiff dry stick about a foot or so long, make a blunt point on one end. This is the drill. Make a fire-board by taking a flat dry stick and making a depression in it with a notch in the side to the center of the depression. Wrap the cord of the bow around the drill one time. Press the blunt end into the hollow of the fire-board using a lubricated smooth stone or wood piece at the end opposite the blunt end. Run the bow back and forth, continue to put light pressure onto the drill. If it works well a small ember may be formed which you tip into prepared tinder and hopefully can blow into a flame. There are some other details, but that is it in a nutshell. It takes practice to do it quickly. That is why fire was usually never allowed to fully go out, often the last embers were embedded in tinder and wrapped tightly where little oxygen could get to it. It could be carried for a reasonable period, opened up and the ember blown back into a flame quite easily.