Liberia 



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midribs. It is also spread tor drying on lofty platforms in the 

 open air. 



I he houses of the Liberian natives may perhaps be divided 

 into two types, which, like the two breeds of cattle, are found 

 widely distributed throughout Negro Africa, otten side by side, 

 and sometimes mingling their characteristics. Thev are the 

 round and the rectangular or oblong. The round house in its 

 most characteristic form is generally associated with the use of 

 clay or mud as a building material. Though the framework 

 is ot wattle (usually) the clay is worked into this and plastered 

 over inside and out with mud that has been well mixed. On 

 this relatively smooth surface grotesque designs are often drawn. 

 The roof, ot course, is a framework ot sticks or poles (very often 

 the midribs ot raphia palms) thatched with palm tronds, banana 

 or other leaves, grass or reeds accordino- to the district. In the 

 forest region, of course, the thatch is nearly invariably ot" palm 

 fronds or big leaves. 



The oblong house, which is perhaps more characteristic 

 of the forest than is the round hut (the last-named being more 

 usually adopted by the Mandingo or Muhammadan tribes living 

 in the open country), is the form generally met with on the 

 Kru coast. The sides of these rectangular houses are often 

 made of slabs of palm midribs.^ They may be made of palm 

 fronds or mats worked into a wattle frame. But sometimes the 

 oblong house borrows from the round hut the principle of clay 

 architecture. The tendency, in fact, is increasingly towards clay 

 walls, on account of their greater security. 



Far inland, on the Mandingo Plateau, the architecture is 

 like that of the Niger Basin — buildings of considerable height 

 with clay walls, and mosques of a wattle framework supporting 

 clay, with minarets shaped like extinguishers. This, however, 



' Usually mis-called bamboos. 

 1004 



