28o Memoirs Bciiiicc P. Bishop Miiscuiii 



tliatch was lashed to each rafter with a single cord running the height of the roof. 

 The hottom tier of mats was laid on first, and the successive tiers were laid on 

 shingle fashion, with a deep overlap. As the successive layers were rarely more 

 than two or three inches to the weather, a well-made roof would be from four to 

 eight mats thick. 



An almost equally common form of thatch was made from leaves of the 

 breadfruit tree. Long straight upland reeds, or occasionally hard-wood shoots, 

 were gathered and the leaves were strung on these by holes pierced at the juncture 

 of the stem and leaf, the top of one leaf resting against the bottom of the next. 

 These rods were then attached to the rafters in overlapping rows in the same 

 manner as the mats. When in position the leaves stood edgewise on the roof. 

 Thatch of this sort, although shaggy and rather unpleasing in appearance, is very 

 effective and is said to outlast that of coconut mats. Where bread fruit leaves 

 were used for thatching, coconut mats were usually substituted for the first two 

 or three rows. 



In ancient times a third ftirm of thatch, made from luUmetto leaves was 

 used. The leaves were strung on light rods at intervals of twelve to eighteen inches, 

 the rod passing from side to side through the juncture of the leaf and stem. 

 The rods were tied to the rafters so that the leaves lay flat and overlapped like 

 shingles. According to informants palmetto was commonly used to thatch the 

 houses in iiic'ac, but was not tapu for other structures. The only example seen was 

 on the front roof of an old chief's house in Ua Pou. 



The use of pandanus for thatch is mentioned by Jardin (33, p. 51), who 

 says that this material lasted longer than cither coconut mats or breadfruit leaves, 

 but the practice is now obsolete and only one fragment of doubtful authenticity 

 was seen. This fragment, found in the debris of a house of Tahitian form, con- 

 sisted of a hardwood rod over which the leaves had been doubled, with the two 

 ends pinned together by a splinter a short distance below the rod. A somewhat 

 similar technique is followed in the making of sugar cane thatch in Tonga. 



Grass was very rarely used for thatch Imt the chief of Tetai, one of the 

 small side valleys in Atu Ona, Hiva Oa, is remembered as having occupied a 

 grass-thatched house, the frame of which was of ordinary Marquesan form. 



The method of closing the peak of the thatched roof was very simple and 

 effective and is still employed for all thatched roofs. In the crotch formed bv the 

 crossing of the small rafters above the ridgepole, a small pole was laid with its top 

 flush with the rafter ends. Several layers of coconut mats were then laid longi- 

 tudinally o\'er this and bent down on either side so that their lower edges ex- 

 tended some distance below the top of the last tier of thatching. These mats were 

 then secured in place by long wooden splints passed through them from side to 



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