NORTH QUEENSLAND ETHNOGRAPHY — UOTH, 63 



he door-Wcay, a break-wind would always be put u}) in front, 

 he fire being between it and the entrance. Such a hut was 

 about four feet high. Supposing the blacks were travelling, 

 -and a woman had no baby she might be seen carting the bark- 

 sheets for the hut to be erected at the next camping-place, 

 especially if it were known that there was no such bark in its 

 vicinity. On other occasions when travelling and no tea-tree 

 bark was available, they might use " stringy-bark," '* iron-bark," 

 or " gum " though not so good ; failing these, they would thatch 

 with tussocks of long " bkdy-grass," beginning from below up, 

 and fixing them in position as before with heavy sticks pressed 

 up against them. 



10. Over the larger portion of the North-West Districts 

 another type of dome-frame hut is to be observed ; this is the 

 kurau-i of Boulia^, tlie yin-bur of Cloncurry, etc., which is 

 originally designed for withstanding rain, but now devoted to 

 indiscriminate use, and is almost always constructed on a piece 

 of high ground, so as to ensure the more rapid dispersal of the 

 water. Building operations are commenced with two naturally- 

 bent forked saplings which are fixed deeply into the ground 

 below — and made to interlock above ; to obviate tlie trouble of 

 finding and cutting suitable lengths of the orthodox forked 

 pattern they may occasionally be seen manufactured with spliced 

 timbers and tied. These two primary supports pass by the name 

 of wandaru (PPT.=:back-bone) their lengths varying according 

 to the size of hut required, the summit of which on an average is 

 about four feet and upwards from the ground-level (PI. xv., fig. 1). 

 Pressing up against them on either side are a number of lighter 

 saplings or prinna (PPT.=legs) fixed firmly into the ground along 

 the area to be enclosed ; to allow for the future entrance or tera, 

 the prinna are omitted over the larger portion of the base end 

 of one of the wandaru, the particular " leg " limiting the door- 

 way not being necessarily always larger or in any way specially 

 distinctive from the ottiers. Along the intervals between the 

 prinna, light bushes are laid and intertwined with their foliage 

 down, these being followed by tussets of grass, then a coating of 

 mud, and lastly by another layer of bushes (PL xvii. fig.l), but the 

 covering of mud, which requires no inconsiderable time and skill, 

 is often omitted. The ground-space enclosed by the hut-wall is 

 more or less circular in the smaller varieties, somewhat elliptical 

 in the larger. If the rain beats in at the door-way, the aperture 

 is just covered in with an armful of bushes thrown up in front 

 of it, and if the hut, as in the larger sizes, has two entrances, 



9 Roth— Ethnol. Studies, etc., 1897, figs. 247a and v.. 



