Gilbert Islands Houses. 



45 



later had to burn the village in punishment for the murder of one of their crew. 



Wilkes describes their building as follows, and Mr. Agate has given the pi(?ture of the 



principal building (Fig. 38): 



They reached the beach near what the natives termed their "Mariapn" , or council house, one 

 of the large buildings that had been before spoken of as visible from the sea. This stands in front 

 of the town, on a broad wharf made of coral stones built out from the beach ; its dimensions as meas- 

 ured were one hundred and twenty feet long, by fortj'-five feet wide, and to the ridge-pole forty feet 

 high. The ridge-pole was supported by five large posts whence the roof sloped on each side and 



FIG. 39. INTERIOR OF MARIAPl'. 



reached within three feet of the ground ; the rafters descended to a wall-plate which rested on large 

 blocks of white coral, and were also supported by smaller posts ten feet in length, near the sides. 

 At the ends the roof was perpendicular for eight or ten feet, and then they sloped off in the same 

 manner as the sides. The roof was thatched with pandanus leaves. (Loc. cit., v, p. 55.) 



The Mariapu was a very large building, and in the interior [Fig. 39] its architecture showed 

 to much advantage : the ridge-pole with the rafters, were painted in black bands, with points, and 

 ornamented with a vast number of ovule shells. Chests made of the thin laths of the pandanus, 

 somewhat resembling cane, were arranged around, about twenty feet apart : these contained only a 

 few mats and cocoanuts, things of no value, and are supposed to be for the accommodation of visitors 

 or used at their feasts. The floor was in places covered with mats of the cocoauut leaves [p. 59]. 



Near this was a dwelling of the better sort which they thus describe: 



There was nothing remarkable in its exterior ; it was of oblong shape, and about sixteen feet 

 wide by twenty feet long. The interior consisted of two stories, of which the lower one was not more 

 than three feet high, under the floor of the upper storj'. It was entered by a square hole on one side. 



[229] 



