26 The Ancient Hatvaiian House. 



thatch is laid on in rather thin tiers, and fastened down by long rods, found ready for use in the man- 

 grove forests, and from ten to twenty feet long, and secured to the rafters by split rattans. Some 

 very good houses are covered first with the cane leaves, and then with the grass, forming a double 

 thatch. Sometimes the eaves are made two feet thick with ferns, and have a good effect ; but, when 

 thicker, they look heavy, and, by retaining the wet, soon rot. 



The ridge of superior buildings receives much attention. The ends of the ridgepole project 

 for a yard or more beyond the thatch, having the extremities blackened, and increasing with a funnel- 

 shape, and decorated with large white shells (Ovulutn ovum). The rest of the ridge is finished as a 

 large roll bound with vines, and on this is fixed a thick, well-twisted grass cable ; another similar 

 cable is passed along the under side of the roll, having hung from it a row of large tassels. All for- 

 eigners are struck with the tasteful character of this work, and lament that its materials are not more 

 durable. I have seen several hou.ses in which the upper edge of the eaves was finished with a neat 

 braid. The thatchers, contrary to the statement in the "U. S. Exploring Narrative," always begin 

 at the eaves and work upwards. 



A more animated scene than the thatching of a house in Fiji cannot be conceived. When a 

 sufficient quantity of material has been collected round the house, the roof of which has been previ- 

 ously covered with a net-work of reeds, from forty to three hundred men and boys assemble, each 

 being satisfied that he is expected to do some work, and each determined to be very noisy in doing it. 

 The workers within pair with those outside, each tying what another lays on. When all have taken 

 their places, and are getting warm, the calls for grass, rods, antl lashings, and the answers, all com- 

 ing from two or three hundred excited voices of all keys, intermixed with stamping down the thatch, 

 and shrill cries of exultation from every quarter, make a miniature Babel, in which the Fijian — a 

 notorious proficient in nearly every variety of halloo, whoop and yell — fairly outdoes himself. All 

 that is excellent in material or workmanship in the Chief's houses, is seen to perfection and in un- 

 sparing profusion in the mbure or temple. 



An iutelligent voyager observes : 



In architecture the Fijians have made no mean progress ; and the}- are the onh' people I have 

 seen, among those classed by Europeans as savages, who manifested a taste for the fine arts ; while, 

 as with the ancient Greeks, this taste was universal.^' 



I think my reader will agree with me that Mr. Williams has given us a very 

 complete account of the Fijian house and its building; I can hear the noise of its 

 builders as I recall similar scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and elsewhere in the Pacific 

 — the Fijian has no monopoly of noise, and if he can beat a modern Hawaiian game of 

 "bawl" I am much mistaken. Dr. Pickering is right in his estimate of the artistic 

 tendencies and even achievements of this interesting group of cannibals, for this they 

 certainl}' were when they in some former day contrived the plan and form of their 

 hotises which possess at least one prime requisite of true Art, pleasing and satisfying ' 

 to a cultured mind. There is but one tribe in the Pacific that can contest the suprem- 

 acy in architedlure with them, and this too is a people of inveterate cannibalistic 

 tastes, the Maori of New Zealand. I have elsewhere called attention to the curious 

 fact that anthropophagous people seem to produce the most elaborate ornamentation, 



'"Pickering's "Races of Man", p. 155. 



[210] 



