'60 



RECORDS OF THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM, 



and tying, not inter-locking, so as to form a series of hoops crossing 

 one anotlier ; these hoops are finally stiengthened liy transv'erse 

 and oblique pieces fixed across tlieni, in and out. At Cape 

 Bedford, the hut (KYI. bayen) may be built of five or six such 

 crossed hoops (KYJ. karar), at Princess Charlotte Bay of over 

 a dozen, the future entrance (KYI. barkar = mouth) being con- 

 stituted of one of the intervening spaces ; sometimes, there may 

 be two such entrances. The thatch is eitlier of bark, blady- 

 grass, lawyer-vine, C5'^cad- or palm-leaf accordinji; to the local 

 vegetation, and certainly both on the Bloomfield River and at 

 Cape Grafton, the leaves are invariably commenced with from 

 the fop, succeedhig layers being placed from above down, heavy 

 boughs or rather logs weigh theui .into position, the rain being 

 kept out not so much owing to the ariangement of the leaves as 

 to the quantity put on. Furthermore, the leaf-thatch ma}', as at 

 Cape Grafton, be preceded by odd scraps of l»ark, placed more 

 or less vertically so as to act as drains for the rain. The height 

 of these huts averages about four or four and a luilf feet ; there 

 is no floor excavation. There is usual)}- a fire burning inside 

 the structure wlien built for winter-use, and one or two entrances 

 according to the size of hut. Tliu.s, on the Bloomfield River, 

 a man with one wife and a small family will occupy a hut with a 

 single entrance ; if he has one old wife, and other wives and 

 children, a larger habitation will he used, the old woman having 

 a separate entrance and separate fire to herself. 



6. A similar type of hut'% made by the Brishane women, was 

 often seen at Eagle Farm, on the Coast-line, and at Bribie and 

 Moreton Islamls. It was much larger than the other made by 

 the men, being about nine feet across and 

 four feet high. It was constructed of a 

 series of four hoops (fig. 34) crossed, stuck 

 at both extremities into the ground, the 

 timber employed being the local wattle 

 or "oak". Filling up the segments, other 

 straight withes were stuck into the 

 ground with their tips tied to the hoops 

 where they crossed each other ; there 

 were no sticks fixed in obliquely or 

 transversely, indeed, no interweaving. One of the segments 

 was left open, to act ultimately as an entrance. The whole 

 was then covered with sheets of tea-tree baik, but (unlike 

 the bark-hut made by the men) these were jtlaced transversely 

 and made to overlap after the manner of a shingle roof, with a 



Fig. 34. 



6 According to Mr. T. Petrie. 



