Recently I learned about a South African version of the tinderbox called a “tonteldoos” or “tondeldoos’ (as Dave Barry says, “I am NOT making this up”), which apparently dates from the late 19th Century and the Boer Wars. I guess I don’t feel too bad about my ignorance, since all of the info that I’ve found about them on the web dates from 2015 or later.
The tinderbox is a critical and highly-evolved piece of early survival equipment and “EDC” (every-day carry) that was in use for firestarting for at least hundreds of years. There are reasons it was in use for hundreds of years, and it should be better known today, at least among historians, survivalists, and anyone who might find themselves confronted with the sort of basic conditions that characterized life until very recently.
I’m not sure the tonteldoos/tondeldoos really qualifies as a tinderbox in the classic sense, since it’s not exactly a box, but in another sense it might be the last, most-evolved form of the tinderbox. It’s a tube, about 3/4 of an inch in diameter (large enough to easily shove a finger in there) of not-very-thick sheet metal (most often brass), open at both ends with a cap for one end and a plunger in the other, typically with a thin chain connecting the cap and plunger to prevent loss, and also typically with that chain threaded through an oval (real) firesteel of the type we in North America sometimes call the “Hudson’s Bay” form, that looks sort of like a flattened link of a large chain.
It works more or less like those frozen popsicle-in-a-tube confections that kids buy, where they push on the bottom to slide it out the top to be eaten. It contains some sort of natural fiber, cloth or substance that can be used for char, typically cotton cloth rag I think, though I did find a reference on-line to using horse manure. I don’t expect to experiment with that soon, but hey, buffalo chips and all that lore… anyway, the tube is stuffed with whatever, and the capped end of it charred and smothered with the cap, snuffing the embers and turning the surface into good stuff for catching sparks. It’s thus self-sustaining, each time you use it to start a fire you smother it with the cap to keep the surface at that end highly ignitable, and as the contents are used the plunger at the other end is pushed in to advance whatever’s left. This sounds a little convoluted but is actually much easier to use than a simple box of charred material, and can be done in the hands instead of setting up on the ground or floor.
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(Later: I found out about the different spelling “tondeldoos” while writing this. Google Translate recognizes both “tondeldoos” and “tonteldoos” as Dutch, but from searches on each I suspect that “tondeldoos” is at least most commonly Dutch and “tonteldoos” is at least most commonly Afrikaans. That led almost immediately to the information that it had evolved from a much earlier form of tinderbox that goes back at least to the late 18th Century, and I suspect earlier. All of the type seem to be basically cylindrical, though some are very barrel-shaped and at least a few really look more like snuff boxes, but only some of the later examples seem to have the plunger arrangement. Perhaps surprisingly, the most characteristic feature seems to be the end-to-end chain. My interests persists, but research will be a bit slow, simply because I don’t speak Dutch or Afrikaans.)
(Much later: I’ve now seen enough examples to show that the final form of the tonteldoos, with the cap at one end and a captive sliding piston in the other, actually evolved in Holland as the “tondeldoos”, although it seems clear that it persisted in use longer in South Africa as the “tonteldoos”. Both spellings are generic terms for any tinderbox, but this form seems to be the only one in wide use in South Africa and possibly the only form manufactured there. Still, my apologies to the Dutch, it seems that they were the ones who invented this form, it evolving from the earlier cylindrical form with a cap at each end.
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The tonteldoos utilizes a sort-of “reverse” style of striking sparks with flint-and-steel, similar to that used to light pipes, which I’ve always found MUCH easier than the technique used to strike sparks downward into an actual box.
I’m sure there’s no shortage of cotton rags even in the third world, but I guess it’s reassuring to know that purely natural potential “char” material is available, even if it is in the form of dried herbivore dung. That may take it beyond a sort-of “hobo tech, like field-made aluminum-can alcohol stoves, into the realm of technology that is completely sustainable in the wilderness. There must be other purely natural fibrous substances to be found in most environments that would work well.
The South African versions seem sturdy enough (not that many of them are dented) but not terribly waterproof. I’m guessing that historically, in South Africa, getting unexpectedly soaked has not been a usual hazard.
This actually looks like a more convenient way to use flint-and-steel than the conventional tinderbox. I’d guess the only reason the idea didn’t become widespread is that it seems to have appeared at about the same time that self-igniting matches began to make flint-and-steel obsolete.
I’ve seen Youtube videos showing how to make a version out of copper tubing and two caps, but lacking the plunger. Workable,, and possibly even more water resistant than the original final form, but less convenient.
(Once you hit weirdness on the web it just keeps going.. apparently “Tonteldoos” is also the name of a town in South Africa. It seems the town was named after the tinderbox, though it’s not clear from the web why. Apparently the town is mostly famous the Tonteldoos Highland Festival, “the only Scottish festival in the South African Highlands”, and for a restaurant there named The Cat & The Cow. So far, I’ve found no clue on the web as to what that name is about. One gets the impression that in SA it’s not really notable.)
I’d love to see this thing reproduced. I actually sent an email to one company that makes other survival-related items based on metal tubes, but got just a polite boilerplate response. No surprise there, but there must be someone interested in doing it. There seem to be LOTS of people interested in “primitive survival” whether it’s really practical or not, I can’t help but think they’d be at least interested in this, if only they knew about it.
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Later: I have found that there is, or recently was, at least one outfit in South Africa making a tonteldoos reproduction. Unfortunately, though it looks pretty good at a glance, it appears to be fabricated entirely of copper rather than the the brass used in all typical (and military) South African period examples, and has a cap on one end, the other end is closed, with a little forged tool to pull the tinder out to be lit. I suppose this is workable, but certainly less convenient, and I’ve seen no historical examples that match it… so it remains a shame that the “real thing” is not being reproduced yet.
http://www.mountainmanseries.co.za/shop.html
http://www.rsg.co.za/fotos-programme-popup.asp?type=1&id=1647
– Robert the Wombat