62 REPORT OF THE HARVARD AFRICAN EXPEDITION 
occasionally wear cast-off American or European clothing and the women are 
frequently clothed in a man’s singlet or undershirt. 
Their villages vary greatly in size from a dozen or two houses to several 
hundred. The larger houses are frequently built near rivers or streams, on ele- 
vated plains from which the neighboring forest is cleared off so that the land can 
be used for farming. Many of the villages, particularly the smaller ones, are 
stockaded. Around some of the smaller villages the stockade, some six to eight 
feet high, is formed of small stakes driven into the ground placed close, and 
thoroughly laced together with rattan fiber and lianas. There are usually two 
gates, one in front used as an entrance and one at the back of the village used as 
an exit. Around some of the larger villages, the stockade near the entrance con- 
sists of poles from twelve to fifteen feet high, closely placed and rammed into 
the ground. They often take root and, being interlaced with rattan fiber and 
interspersed with thorny bushes, form an impenetrable wall; in other places 
masses of thorny bush protect the town where it is not surrounded by the denser 
forest. Across the trail at the entrance to the town there is often a narrow gate 
made of heavy slabs of wood cut from the trunk of the silk cotton tree. 
The Chief of the village may also have his own compound stockaded in which 
he lives with his wives and retainers. The houses are usually of one type and 
are placed close together. The base is first built of clay and is from eighteen 
to twenty-four inches high. Around it the poles for the framework of the house 
are erected. The low walls are then constructed of pounded clay or earth. A 
framework of slender poles forms the roof. The roofs are thatched and are de- 
tachable and thus they can be moved, if advisable, to a new base. Usually, but 
not always, there is one window closed by a thatched blind, and there is a door 
of wood closed at night by a latch string. Most of the houses are built with an 
earthen ledge inside, which serves as a bench by day and asa bed at night. Com- 
monly there is but one room. 
Hach village has at its center a community meeting place or palaver house, 
considerably larger than the other houses. It is generally oblong or square in 
shape; though in rare instances it is oval. The walls are about three feet high, 
constructed of clay, and inside there is a wide clay ledge and a fireplace. The 
roof consists of thatched palm, projecting over the clay base for several feet, 
and serves as a protection from rain. The sides of the houses above the three- 
foot wall are open, and there is good ventilation. We often slept in these com- 
munity houses when we were without tents. Occasionally they contained one 
or two stools, or clumsy chairs. 
As a rule, there is no ornamentation of the houses. They contain little but a 
mat or two, a few boxes and household utensils, and three upright stones on 
which stands a cooking pot. There is no place in the dwelling houses through 
which smoke can escape but none of the natives seem to mind the dense clouds 
that arise from the fire of sticks and logs often green or damp. The rafters, and 
indeed the whole interior of the house, are usually well blackened. The people 
themselves frequently show a chronic injection of the vessels of the conjunctiva 
which may result from this frequent exposure to smoke. 
