4 The Ajicicnt Haiuaiian House. 



age; in others guest houses; and common to man}' groups were the lodging houses 

 for unmarried males. 



The material for a studj- of the oldest habitations of the Pacific immigrants 

 must be gathered from the accounts, sometimes excellent, of the old voj-agers and in 

 these we shall find little change through the centur}' these vo3'ages praAicallj- cover, 

 for the early Spanish and Portuguese explorers have not given sufficiently definite 

 descriptions of the houses of the people the}- discovered. As the good descriptions of 

 houses are scattered through accounts of voyages not always accessible, it seems well 

 to transcribe them here with such illustrations as the aiTthors have given us. In some 

 cases, as in the accounts of the Marquesan houses it would seem possible to reconstruct 

 the homes of the fine natives who have long since disappeared from the beautiful val- 

 leys where they once thronged to their cannibal feasts. 



In the vo3'age of the Duff,' the first missionarj' expedition to the Pacific from 

 England, are given detailed accounts of the houses in Tahiti, Tonga and the Marquesas 

 which will be here reproduced from that very interesting volume. On page 131 we 

 find this account of a Marquesan house on the island of Santa Cristina (Tahuata): 



To convey an idea of what this and all their best built houses are like, it is onlj- necessary to 

 imagine one of our own of one story high with a high peaked roof ; cut it lengthwise exactly down 

 the middle, you would then have two of their houses, only built of different materials. That we now 

 occupied was twenty-five feet long and six wide, ten feet high in the back part, and but four in front; 

 at the corners four short stakes are driven into the earth, on which are laid horizontal pieces, and 

 from these last to the ground are bamboos neatly arranged in perpendicular order, about half an inch 

 distant from each other ; and without them long blinds made with leaves are hung, which make the 

 inside very close and warm ; the door is about the middle on the low side. The}- do not use the 

 leaves of the wharra [Pandanus] tree here for roofing, as at Otaheite, but common broad lea\'es which 

 they lay as thick as to keep the water out ; but the greater part of their houses are miserable hovels. 

 The inside furniture consisted of a large floor mat from end to end, several large calabashes, some 

 fishing tackle, and a few spears ; at one end the chief kept his ornaments which he showed to us. 



A generation later the Marquesans were visited by a more observant missionary 

 whose account of the houses, while showing that the st3-le remained the same, leaves little 

 to be desired. The Rev. C. S. Stewart, well known on these islands, wrote as follows: 



The houses — though of very different sizes, from twenty to one hundred feet in length, from 

 eight to sixteen in height, and from ten to fourteen and sixteen in breadth — are all of one shape and 

 style, and vary materially in their form and construction from those of the Sandwich Islanders. 



Here the roofs, instead of descending to eaves on both sides of the ridgepole, have rafters in 

 front only, while the back of the house descends perpendicularly, or in very slight inclination, from 

 the peak to the ground — giving to the exterior the appearance of an ordinary hut cut lengthwise in 

 two. They are universally erected, so far as I have observed, on a platform of rough, but in many 



' A Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean, performed in the years 1796-1798 in the Ship Duff com- 

 manded by Captain James Wilson. Compiled from Journals of the Officers and the Missionaries ; and illustrated with 

 Maps, Charts, and Views drawn by Mr. William Wilson and engraved by the most eminent Artists, etc. London, 1799. 



[188] 



