Austialian Houses. 



71 



treatment, as is shown by the carved representations of him and the nse of his image 

 to preserve the remains of the dead chiefs." 



I hope that this description of the uses of the tambu-hoiises will explain why I 

 have referred to them so full}^, for they are really the "living room" of the male portion 

 of the population, as well as their guest chamber or parlor. The wet climate of these 

 islands would make the raised platforms, which are the lounging places in the 

 eastern Pacific, and the lightly roofed gathering places in the central region, useless 

 the greater part of the year. 



FIG. 63. AN .AUSTRALIAN HUT. 



Australian Houses. — We seem to have reached the bottom in the Pacific scale 

 of civilization when we come to the work of the Australian Blacks in house building. 

 A couple of forked sticks set up eight or ten feet apart with a ridge pole between the 

 crotches is all the frame, and the stringy-bark tree furnishes the rest in the shape of 

 great sheets of bark skilfully removed and laid against the frame in such direction as 

 to ward off rain or wind. In reaching a new camp it takes but little time to build the 

 wooden tent. A few handfuls of grass or leaves make a lair little, if au}-, better than 

 a wild animal would scrape together. 



Some of the explorers of Australia found something better than this general 

 type of bark hut : Sir Thomas Mitchell in exploring the Gydir region found huts 



"On all the groups that I have knowledge of the sacred nature of the shark does not prevent the use of his 

 dried skin for drum-heads as on Hawaii, or for files or rasps as on the Gilbert Islands and elsewhere. 



[255] 



