TAMBU-HOUSES. 69 



pole, liis head and chest were resting in the mouth of the shark.^ 

 Long after the taiubu-house has disappeared, the carved posts 

 remain in tlieir position and form a not uncommon feature in a 

 village scene as shown in the engraving of a village in Ugi. 

 . . . The roof of the Wano tambu-house is formed of a frame- 

 Vy-ork of bamboo poles covered with palm-leaf thatch, the poles beino- 

 of equal size, whether serving as rafters or cross-battens, the latter 

 affording attachment for the thatch. The same materials are used 



in the sides of the building With reference to tambu-houses 



generally in this part of the group, I should remark that they are 

 open at both ends, with usually a staging at the front end raised 

 about four feet from the grjund, which may be aptly termed " the 

 villafre loung-e." 



The tambu-house of the interesting little island of Santa Cata- 

 lina or Orika — the Yoriki of the Admiralty chart — is worthy of a 

 few special remarks. Its dimensions are similar to those of like 

 buildings in this part of the group, the length being between 60 and 

 70 feet. Placed in front of each of its ends are three circles of laro-e 

 wooden posts driven into the earth, each circle of posts being 4 or 5 

 feet in height and enclosing a space of ground a few feet across, into 

 which are tln'own cocoa-nuts and other articles of food to appease 

 tlie hunger of the presiding deity or devil-god. The ridge-poles and 

 posts are painted with numerous grotesque representations in out- 

 line of war-canoes and fishing-parties, of natives in full fighting 

 equipment, of sharks, and of the devil-god himself, with a long, lank 

 body and a tail besides. On a ridge-pole there was drawn in paint 

 the outline of some waggon or other vehicle with the horses in the 

 shafts : whether this was a reminiscence of some native who had 

 been to the colonies, or was merely a copy from a picture, I did not 

 learn. Some of the representations on the ridge-poles were of an 

 obscene character. The central row of posts were defaced by 

 chipping, which I was informed was a token of mourning for the 

 late chief of the island, who had died not manv months before. Mr. 

 C. F. Wood met with a similar custom in 1873 in the case of a 

 native of a villao-e at the west end of St. Christoval, who on the 

 death of his son broke and damasked the carved figures of birds and 

 fish in his house.^ I am inclined to think that this house was a 



1 !Mr. Brencliley, who visited Wano, or Wanga as he names it, in 1865, refers briefly in 

 his " Cruise of H.M.S. ' Curacoa ' " to these carved posts (p. 267). 

 2 "A Yachting Cruise in the South Seas : " London, 1875 (p. 133). 



