64 



The Ancient Haivaiian House. 



On the island of Malekula (Mallicolo) the form is very similar, and has a certain 

 resemblance to the rnder of the Hawaiian grass houses. The people of this island are 

 perhaps the worst cannibals in the New Hebrides, but their appetites do not seem to 

 have improved their condition, — whether from the poor quality of their food, or their 

 own insusceptible nature, cannot easily be determined. They are a people small in 

 stature, light in bone, and with remarkably prognathous jaws, a low type. A little 



FIG. 58. VILLAGE IN MALEKULA. 



farther in the onset of foreign influences and the front is made of boards and utterly 

 loses its native interest. This process of "amelioration" has already destroyed the 

 houses of the aborigines and substituted throughout much of the Pacific region, non- 

 descript sheds. 



The rude framing and coarse thatch are well shown in Mr. Lawrie's piAure of 

 house thatching on, I believe, the island of Tanna. The neighboring buildings look 

 very modern, but there is no mistaking the native work, and primitive work, on the 

 house in process of construcflion. Fig. 59. 



When we consider that Nitendi, of the Santa Cruz group in the New Hebrides, 



was discovered by Mendana iu 1595, and was the seat of that miserable attempt at 



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