114 '^^'^ Ancient Hazvaiian House. 



Hawaiian Fireplace. — I have left to the last the fireplace which was found 

 in most of the ancient houses. In the colder regions where hunting birds or making 

 adzes compelled some of the natives to dwell for a season, fire was a necessity in the 

 sleeping place, and in the mountain region I have experienced the comfort of the 

 fireplace filled with glowing embers, and although the house had no chimney nor other 

 opening than the ordinary door, there was, to my surprise no tiouble from smoke, as 

 the door was left open diiring the night. In the centre, usually, of the house, and so 

 opposite the door was a shallow excavation walled in with flat stones set edgewise, or 

 sometimes where such stones were not at hand, with larger and wider stones firmly 

 planted as a rectangular wall perhaps eighteen by twenty-four inches. This fireplace 

 was not intended for cooking, which was done out of doors and in an inm or buried 

 oven (which belongs properly to the chapter on Food and Cooker}'). 



The fii-e was kindled carefully and during the night was often replenished by 

 any one who happened to be awake, and in a large company there was sure to be some 

 one awake at any time of night. If a proper selection of wood was made there was 

 little smoke. Often one sees in the stone kahua or platform that marks the site of a 

 vanished house the neatly built fireplace, the last fire quenched so long ago that it 

 differs little in color from the other stone of the ruiu. 



I do not think the Hawaiian, like his Maori brother, ever cut the fireplace from 

 a single block of stone (see Fig. 32); perhaps there was no stone so' well suited for the 

 purpose as is found in New Zealand ; nor did he shut himself in with his fire until 

 the heat was almost overpowering; biit then his climate never was so chilly as that of 

 southern New Zealand. When the old writers commiserate the ancient Hawaiians for 

 having houses with no outlet for the smoke and vapors of their fire except the low 

 door, it is probable that they never spent a night in such a house with a fire. In mod- 

 ern times, since the introdudlion of tobacco, the grass house certainly becomes stifling 

 to a nonsmoker even near the open door, for the wild tobacco emits a stench that no 

 island wood could equal. We must now look at the kindling of the fire, although 

 that perhaps should come after the house is fully furnished and occupied, and so be 

 relegated to the third part of this chapter. I will, however, confess to having caught 

 somewhat of the disorderly method of the Hawaiian raconteur, and must plead that if 

 every description is not in logical sequence. 



Firetnaking. — The Hawaiian, like other Polynesians, made fire bj' ploughing, 

 not by drilling, although they had the pump drill in very early times. If the first im- 

 migrants to the Pacific islands came from Asia they passed through a region where fire 



drilling was generall}^ practised from Australia to Japan, and as in the case of the loom 



[29SJ 



