POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
389 
In addition to the oval and the oblong house, they 
often had the fare pora^ the fare ran, and the huhapa, or 
other temporary dwellings, for encampments during the 
period of war, or when journeying through the moun¬ 
tains ; and their farau vaa^ or canoe houses, which were 
large, and built with care; a number of what they 
call oa were planted at unequal distances on bath sides 
of the rafter and post, which being one piece of timber, 
tended to strengthen the building. > 
The floor of their dwellings was covered with long 
dried grass^ which, f although comfortable when first 
laid down, was not often changed, and, from the mois¬ 
ture occasioned by the water spilled at meals and 
other times, was frequently much worse than the naked 
sand or soil would have been. Their door was an in¬ 
genious contrivance, being usually a light trellis-frame 
of bamboo-cane, suspended by a number of braided 
thongs, and attached to a long cane in the upper part 
of the inside of the wall-plate—the thongs sliding back¬ 
wards and forwards like the rings of a curtain, whenever 
it was opened or closed. Many of their houses are 
erected within their enclosures or plantations, but they 
generally stand on the shore, or by the wayside. Every 
chief of rank, or person of what in Tahiti would be 
termed respectability, has an enclosure round his dwell¬ 
ing, leaving a space of ten or twenty feet width with- 
inside. This court is often kept clean, sometimes 
spread over with dry grass, but generally covered with 
black basaltic pebbles, or anaana^ beautifully white frag¬ 
ments of coral. The aumoa is a neat and durable fence, 
about four feet high; the upright pieces are tenoned 
into a polished rail along the top, or surmounted with 
the straight and peeled branches of the purau or tamanu. 
