HOUSES OF THE ABORIGINES. 97 
teeth were stained black for the sake of ornament and they bleached 
their hair *‘ with divers washes.” 
Housres.—According to the testimony of early writers their houses 
were high and neatly made and better constructed than those of any 
aboriginal race hitherto discovered in the Indies. They were rectan- 
gular in shape, with walls and roofs of palm leaves curiously woven. 
They were made of coconut wood and palo maria (Colophylun in- 
ophyllum) and were raised from the ground on wooden posts or pillars 
of stone. In one of the narratives of the Legazpi expedition it is said 
that some of the houses supported on stone pillars served as sleeping 
apartments; others built on the ground were used for cooking and 
other work. Besides these there were large buildings that served as 
storehouses for all in common, wherein the large boats and covered 
‘anoes were kept. ‘*’These were yery spacious, broad, and high, and 
worth seeing.” As described by the missionaries some of the houses 
had four rooms or compartments with doors or curtains of mats, one 
serving as a sleeping room, another as a storeroom for fruits, a third 
for cooking, anda fourth asa workshop and boathouse.’ Gaspar and 
Grijalva described one boathouse near the watering place as being 
supported on strong stone pillars and sheltering four of the largest 
‘anoes of the natives. Many of these stone or masonry pillars are 
still standing arranged in double rows. They are called ** latde” or 
‘casas de los antiguos” by the natives, who regard them with super- 
stitious dread. Much has been made of the pillars on the island of 
Tinian, shaped like the rest in the form of a truncated pyramid and 
capped by hemispherical stones, but in all probability they are nothing 
more than the remains of large houses which served the same purposes 
as the *‘ arsenals,” described in the narratives of the Legazpi expedi- 
tion. These large houses may be compared with the kiala of Florida 
and Isabel islands in the Solomon group, one of which is described as 
100 feet long by 50 feet wide and 50 feet high. In these great houses 
‘‘the large canoes are kept, men congregate and young men sleep, 
strangers are entertained,” and in some islands the skulls of the dead, 
‘lled “‘mangiti” (in all) probability corresponding to the word 
‘aniti” of the Chamorros) were suspended. The dwelling houses of 
Guam also resembled those of Isabel and Florida islands, which differ 
from typical Melanesian houses in being raised on piles, and in their 
neater construction. They are excellent dwellings, square in shape, 
with the side walls and the floor formed of split bamboos flattened and 
interlaced and the roof thatched with coconut leaves. 
The houses were grouped in villages located either on the beach in 
@ Blair and Robertson, The Philippine Islands, vol. 2, p. 115, 1903, 
b Garcia, Vida y Martyrio de Sanvitores, p. 197, 1686. 
¢ Codrington, The Melanesians, p. 299, 1891. 
9773—05 
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