402 THE ADMIRALTY ISLANDS. 



Island. They are supported on two stout posts rising from the 

 foci of the oval floor of each house, and by a regular frame- 

 work of rafters, etc. Shorter posts, placed along the walls at 

 intervals, support the roofs at their periphery and the walls. 

 Very often the ground is excavated to the depth of a foot or so 

 beneath the house, so that the wall is partly of earth, and one 

 has to step down to get into the house. 



The dwelling-houses are mostly about 20 to 25 feet long, 10 

 to 15 feet in height, and about 10 feet in breadth. They have 

 a low opening at one or both ends. To the main supporting 

 posts of the roof are secured a series of wide horizontal shelves 

 placed one above another, and on these shelves food, imple- 

 ments and weapons are kept. I saw these shelves in the 

 women's houses. In some of the houses are also bed places, 

 consisting of rough boards fastened against the side posts of 

 the walls on one side, and supported by short special posts 

 on the other. Arms and implements are suspended from the 

 posts and rafters. The dwelling-houses have no further furni- 

 ture. The posts are sometimes curved and painted, and 

 occasionally a human skull is fastened to a post, or placed 

 under the thatch. Everything about the houses is rough, and 

 there is no neatness as in Fijian buildings. 



About the houses in the villages, bright-red Draccenas are 

 commonly planted as ornaments, representing the flower-garden 

 in its most primitive stage. The temples are houses exactly 

 like the dwelling-houses, but larger — about 20 feet long, 15 

 broad and 20 in height. Some have carved door-posts of wood, 

 the respective carvings representing a male and female figure. 

 The doors are closed by a kind of hurdle. 



The canoes are more of the Polynesian than the Papuan 

 form, i.e., they have their bows and sterns low, and simply 

 pointed, and not turned up and built so as to form figure-heads, 

 as at New Guinea and the Aru Islands. The canoes' hulls are 

 formed each of a hollowed trunk of a tree, with a single plank 

 built on above it, and a gunwale-piece as a finish. The 

 hoUowed-out portion has slightly and equally rounded sides, 

 and is not flat on one side and rounded on the other, as in the 

 Carolines. The mast is stepped in the bottom of the canoe, 

 just in front of the horizontal outrigger platform. A pole of 

 about similar length, with a natural fork at the top, is stepped 

 against the foremost end of the cross-bar of the horizontal 

 outrigger, and it and the mast being inclined towards one 

 another, the mast is fitted into the fork at the top of the pole, 

 and roused down with a rope-stay so as to remain firm in that 

 position. The bow and stern are ornamented with a simple 

 carved ridge or two and with Ovulum ovum shells a single 



