72 The Ancient Haivaiian House. 



tastefully distributed, over-shaded by the flowering wattle, each dwelling semicircular 

 or circular, the roof conical, and from one side a flat roof or portico supported on two 

 posts extended ; these were covered with reeds, grass or boughs. Peron found partly 

 subterranean houses, and others have found framed structures. The more common type, 

 however, was the bark-covered hut which best suited the nomadic life of the people. 



I hope that one thing has appealed to my readers as it has to me, — the never 

 wearisome simplicitj^ of even the rudest shanty built by the Australian blacks. Never 

 a touch of the commonplace in their villages such as is overwhelming in most of our 

 American towns where the house is sufiicientlj' durable, comfortable for its inmates, 

 and an ample protection from the weather, but utterly devoid of the pifluresque. A row, 

 perhaps, of stiff, unlovely cottages each a duplicate of the others, built by contract to 

 make as much show with as little money as possible; the pidture is familiar enough 

 in the suburbs of most cities. Hardly more pleasing if more imposing, are the blocks 

 of brick or stone, — even if the stone be a veneer of costly marble, — that line street after 

 street of every large cit}'. 



In the Pacific islands most villages seem delightfully diversified : there is little 

 pretentiousness in each house, the grouping among the trees or along the shore is 

 often what no real artist could improve. True, to the practical being of many artificial 

 wants, from a civilized cit}', the one-roomed shelter would hardly seem a proper stable 

 for horses or odormobile, but to the islanders the almost empty space is pervaded by 

 that most usefvil of furniture, contentment, and then the house is fully furnished. 



The ephemeral nature of the stick and thatch building is typical of the village 

 also, for the frequent wars are generall}- followed by the destrudlion of the town of the 

 vanquished, and the remnant of the tribe builds elsewhere rather than clear up the 

 ruins. Or, it may be, a war-vessel of some Christian nation comes among the islands 

 and for some wrong, real or fancied, shells the town. Again some tribes desert the 

 house in which the owner dies, and in which he may be buried. It is not surprising 

 that the luwie sentiment hardly exists under these circumstances. While in Australia 

 the tribes were nomads the limited extent of the Pacific islands confine the wander- 

 ings of the people to narrow bounds, and a greater change of abode can only be by 

 emigration, and legendary history tells us this has again and again taken place, as 

 when the Maori went from Hawaiki to Te ika a Maui as their congenors the Moriori 

 had done long before. 



Even the old Hawaiian village in spite of the likeness of its houses to hayricks, 

 and its frequently bare exposure, had a fitness to its surroundings, it was never a blot 

 on the landscape. The only complete Hawaiian village I have ever seen was in the 



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