Turco-Mongol fire steels with auspicious Chinese inscriptions

Original fire steels, which are one of important accessories in traditional costume among Turco-Mongol peoples proliferated in the late Middle Ages and the New Age in the eastern part of the steppe zone of Eurasia. This article focuses on the analysis of two original fire steels of Turco-Mongol type. Simple fire steels that any grown man could make himself out of scrap materials used to be everyday articles. Such fire-lighting devices were used by herders of South Siberia and Mongolia until the mid-20th century. Along with them, there were popular colorful, ornate fire steels. They served as a marker of social status of their holder in society. In the 19th-20th centuries in Mongolia, Siberia and Central Asia, fire steel manufacturers were engaged in artistic metalwork. Such demands are cultural universals associated with archetypal notions of material and moral guidelines. Analysis of the original label indicates that the fire steels could have been manufactured in one of the craft centers in China, specializing in socially prestigious fire steels for cattle-breeding population. The fire steels are peculiar with carved floral ornament inscriptions consisting of four characters. The inscriptions reflect traditional Chinese desires of wealth and prosperity. In folk art, China Good Luck inscriptions illustrating greeting pictures (nianhua) are widespread in the second half of the 19th century. Analyzing these ‘socio-prestigious’ fire steels with Chinese inscriptions we confront with the difficulties of their profound interpretation by non-Chinese population. It is hardly possible to give a positive answer. We cannot escape the fact that the general wealth-wishing meaning of the inscriptions is well understood in the elite part of pastoral habitations. If the meaning and content of the inscriptions might not be understood by their owners, they could not be perceived as a source of information but as a part of the ornament with bright, artistically executed graphic design.