58 



RKCORDS OF THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM. 



with a view to sheltering the fire wliich is usually kept burning 

 just outside the entrance. In such a case the two " back-bones " 

 of tliis kind of winji-winji are built as high as, or liigher even 

 than those of the attached habitation and the " legs " instead of 

 being fixed vertically are kept in position more or less liorizun- 

 tally one above the other by being stuck into the vertical inter- 

 spaces surrounding the original entrance-way ; the occupants 

 pass in and out on either side of the fire between it and its 

 shelter-cover. 



The ridge-pole would appear to be the most advanced of all, 

 not only in principle, but in the requirement of specialised, i.e., 

 forked, upriglits. Such an arrangement may be simple or 

 multijtle, in the former case completed with some leafy switches 

 leant up against it (PI. xiv., fig. ">) ; in the latter, a couple may 

 be placed side by side (PI. xv., fig. 2), the overlaid foliage con- 

 stituting a shelter from tlie sun when well over-head, or linearly 

 to form a palisade. There may be an extra thatch of tea-tree 

 bark in certain cases. 



3. The simplest form of bark-hut met with is that composed 

 of a single sheet either curved or more usually bent at its 

 middle (PI. xvi., fig. 2), the ends being firmly fixed into the soil. 



A development of this is where, as on 

 the Pennetather River, two or three 

 such bent sheets overlap one behind 

 the other, the extremities being fairly 

 jambed into the sand which is heaped 

 u|) against them slightly ; it is known 

 locally as rju-ini (fig. 31), tlie same 

 name given to the oval-framework hut made here and on the 

 Batavia River. On the Jardine River, on the extreme north of 

 the Peninsula I have seen a single-sheet bark hut with one of its 

 otherwise-open ends enclosed with leafy boughs. 



4. On the Lower Tully River the following is the orthodox 

 method of building a liut (fig. 32) : — 



Three pairs of unsplit withes ahc are fixed /'/ 

 in po.sition, theii- ends bent over, and tied 

 on top with lawyer-cane. Three hoops 

 are thus formed, the middle b being the 

 tallest, and c ultimately forming the 

 entrance, the smallest. Beyond the third 

 arch, some five or six i)ieces of split cane 

 jwe stuck into the ground, bent over, and tied (not usuall}' 

 interlaced) on to the arches as to constitute the frame- 

 work. The next thing is to thatch which is done either 



Fig. 31. 



