Samoan HoHsebuilders. 17 



goes to work, he has in his train some ten or twelve, who follow him, some as journeymen, who ex- 

 pect payment from him, and others as apprentices, who are principally anxious to learn the trade. 

 If a person wishes a house built, he goes with a fine mat, worth in cash value 20s. or 30s. He tells 

 the carpenter what he wants, and presents him with the mat as a pledge that he shall be well paid 

 for his work. If he accept the mat, that also is a pledge that he will undertake the job. Nothing is 

 stipulated as to the cost ; that is left entirely to the honor of the employing party. At an appointed 

 time the carpenter comes with his staff of helpers and learners. Their only tools are a felling-axe, a 

 hatchet, and a small adze ; and there they sit, chop, chop, chopping, for three, six, or nine months, 

 it may be, until the house is finished. Of old they used stone and shell adzes. 



The man whose house is being built provides the carpenters with board and lodging, and is 

 also at hand with his neighbors to help in bringing wood from the bush, scaffolding, and other heavy 

 work. It is a lasting disgrace to an)- one to have it said that he paid his carpenter shabbily. It 

 brands him as a person of no rank or respectability, and is disreputable, not merely to himself, but 



FIG. 13. S.\MO-\N AI.I OK PII.I.OW OF B.\MBU. 



to the whole family or dan with which he is connected. The entire tribe or clan is his bank. Being 

 connected with that particular tribe, either by birth or marriage, gives him a latent interest in all 

 their property, and entitles him to go freely to any of his friends to ask for help in paying his house- 

 builder. He will get a mat from one, worth twenty shillings ; from another he may get one more 

 valuable still ; from another, some native cloth worth five shillings ; from another four or six yards 

 of calico ; and thus he may collect, with but little trouble, two or three hundred useful articles, 

 worth, perhaps, forty or fifty pounds ; and in this way the carpenter is generally well paid. Now 

 and then there will be a stingy exception ; but the carpenter, from certain indications, generally sees 

 ahead, and decamps with all his party, leaving the house unfinished. It is a standing custom, that 

 after the sides and one end are finished, the principal part of the payment be made ; and it is at this 

 time that a carpenter, if he is dissatisfied, will get up and walk off. A house with two sides and but 

 one end, and the carpenters away, is indicative. Nor can the chief to whom the house belongs em- 

 ploy another party to finish it. It is a fixed rule of the trade, and rigidly adhered to, that no one 

 will take up the work which another party has thrown down. The chief, therefore has no alterna- 

 tive but to go and make up matters with the original carpenter, in order to have his house decently 

 completed. When a house is finished, and all ready for occupation, they have their "hou.se-warm- 

 ing" or, as they call it, its oven consecration ; and formerly it was the custom to add on to that a dance, 

 for the purpose of "treading down the beetles." 



Memoirs B. P. B. Museum. Vol. II, No. 3.-2. 



[201] 



