i6 



The Anci'efif Hawaiian Uousr. 



A house, after the usual Samoan fashion, has but o>ie apartment. It is the common parlour, 

 dining-room, etc., bj- day, and the bed-room of the whole family by night. They do not, however, 

 altogether herd indiscriminately. If you peep into a Samoan house at midnight, you will see five or 

 six low oblong fefi/s \_taina)ini'\ pitched (or rather strung up) here and there through the house. 

 They are made of native cloth,'' five feet high, and close all round down to the mat. They shut out 

 the mosquitoes, and inclose a place some eight feet by five ; and the.se said tent-looking places may 

 be called the bed-rooms of the family. Four or five mats laid loosely, the one on the top of the other, 

 form the bed: the pillow is a piece of thick bamboo, three inches in diameter, three to five feet long, and 

 raised three inches from the mat by short wooden feet ( Fig. 13 ) . After private prayer in the morning, 



FIC;. 12. SAMOAN PALACK. 



the tent is unstrung, mats, pillow and sheet rolled together, and laid up overhead on a .shelf between 

 the posts in the middle of the house. 



These rolls of mats and bedding, a bundle or two done up in native cloth, on the same shelf in 

 the centre of the house, a basket, a fan or two, and a butcher's knife stuck into the thatch within 

 reach, a fishing net, a gun strung up along the rafters, a few paddles, a wooden chest in one corner, 

 and a few cocoa-nut shell water-bottles in another, are about all the things in the shape of furniture 

 or property you can .see in looking into a Samoan house. The fireplace is about the middle of the 

 house. It is nierel}* a circular hollow, two or three feet in diameter, a few inches deep, and lined 

 with hardened clay. It is not used for cooking, but for the purpose of lighting up the hou.se at night. 

 hjiaming fire, was the regular evening offering to the gods, as the family bowed the head, and the 

 fathers prayed for prosperity from the "gods great and small". The women collect, during the day, 

 a supply of dried cocoa-nut leaves, etc., which, with a little management, keep up a continued blaze 

 in the evening, while the assembled family group have their supper and prayer and sit together 

 chatting for an hour or two afterwards. 



But about house-bitilding: it is a distinct trade in Samoa ; and perhaps, on an average, )ou 

 may find one among every three hundred men who is a master carpenter. Whenever this person 



"Siapo or kapa beaten loosely, but still too tight to be ciulurable for a while man. One in the Bishop Museum 

 No. 2231, is heavil}' varnished with breadfruit gum. 



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