56 



The Ancient Hawaiian House. 



cooking is done, the accumulated ashes preventing the house from catching fire. The flooring is 

 made from the sides of old canoes well adzed and secured to the framework of the house by rattan 

 cane. One would surmise that their bones would be sore with lying through the night on bare 

 boards : such, however, is not the case. Their ornaments and petticoats, weapons and chatties, 

 hooks, lines and seines, are all in their proper places. The thatch is either of sago or nipa-palm 

 leaf. All along, outside the ridging, sprouting cocoanuts are kept ready for use. Ornaments occa- 

 sionally dangle from the extremity over the doorway. I noticed everywhere small oysters adhering 

 to that part of the mangrove which is submerged : these become poisonous through contact with 

 the mangrove. 



Each dwelling in Hula is connected with the next by means of a single loose plank. A rail 

 sometimes assists the hand iu steadying the body of the adventurous traveller. It was interesting to 

 observe how they ran from one house to another in perfect safety. We too achieved the feat, not, 

 however, without fear of getting a ducking." [L,oc. cit., p. 281 et seq.] 



FIG. 49. NEW GUINEA PII^EOWS. 



Kerepunu is a magnificent place, and its people are very fine-looking. It is one large town of 

 seven districts, with fine houses, all arranged in streets, crotons and other plants growing about, 

 and cockatoos perching in front of nearly every house. [P. 40.] 



The brief glimpse of Kerepunu, a village on the mainland, shows that the love 

 of ornamentation, a strong trait of the Papuan race, there materialized in ornamental 

 plants and birds, the former a difficult thing to manage about houses perched over the 

 sea. The houses themselves, as everywhere iu New Guinea, are still on piles. The 

 tree houses, to which we shall come presently, are only built on gigantic, living piles. 

 To return to our missionary leader who has sailed from the mainland some twenty miles 

 to Wari (Teste of D'Urville) a small island where the natives make great use of human 

 bone in their rather unpleasant ornamentation, and he thus describes their houses : 



Their houses are built on poles, and are shaped like a canoe turned bottom upwards, others 

 like one in the water. They ornament their houses on the outside with cocoanuts and shells. The 



'' I had a good photograph of one of these pile viUages but it has been misplaced, and a friend who promised me 

 others to replace it has not yet fulfilled his promise ; so I must ask my reader to imagine one of the ordinary villages 

 built on land but still on piles, to be in a season of flooding, for the construction of the houses is much the same. 



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