68 TAMBU-HOUSES. 



may be sometimes seen suspended to the roof overhead. In the 

 tambu-house of the viHage of Makia, on the east coast of Ugi, I 

 observed hanging from the roof the two temporal bones, the right 

 femur, and the left humerus of the victim wlio had been killed and 

 eaten at the opening of the building ; and similarly suspended in 

 the tambu-house of the hill-village of Lawa on the north side of St. 

 Christoval, in which I passed the night, I noticed over my head as I 

 lay on my mat the left femur, tibia, and fibula, and the left humerus 

 of the unfortunate man who had been killed and eaten on the com- 

 pletion of the building twelve months before. At these feasts there 

 is a great slaughter of pigs that have been confined for some pre- 

 vious time in an enclosure of strong wooden stakes, which may be 

 allowed to remain long after the occasion for its use has passed 

 away. After the feast, the lower jaws of all the pigs consumed are 

 huna- in rows from the roof of the buildinsr. In one tambu-house I 

 remember counting as many as sixty jaws thus strung up. 



The style of building and the size and relative dimensions of the 

 tambu-houses are very similar in all the coast-villages of the eastern 

 islands, a correspondence which may be explained from the necessity 

 of the structure beinac Ions; enoug-h to hold the lar^e war-canoes. As 

 a type of these buildings, I will describe somewhat in detail the 

 tambu-house of the large village of Wano, on the north coast of St. 

 Christoval. Its length is about 60 feet and its breadth between 20 

 and 25 feet. The gable roof is supported by five rows of posts, the 

 height of the central row being some 14: or 15 feet from the ground ; 

 whilst on account of its high pitch the two outer lateral rows of 

 posts are only 3 or 4 feet high. The principal weight of the roof is 

 borne by the central and two next rows, each of which supports a 

 long, bulky ridge-pole. The two outer lateral rows of posts are 

 much smaller and support much lighter ridge-poles. In each row 

 there are four posts, two in the middle and one at each gable-end. 

 These posts, more particularly those of the central row, are grotesquely 

 carved, and evidently by no unskilled hand, the lower part repre- 

 senting the body of a shark with its head upwards and mouth agape, 

 supporting in various postures a rude imitation of the human figure 

 which formed the upper part of the post. In one instance, a man 

 was represented seated on the upper lip or snout of the shark, with 

 his legs dangling in its mouth, and wearing a hat on his head, the 

 crown of which supported the ridge-pole. In another case the man 

 was inverted ; and whilst the soles of his feet supported the ridge- 



