Bamboo hut

“ We passed many bamboo villages, and for every hut at least a half dozen yellow curs added their yelpings to the uproar that greeted us as we came near.
The inhabitants were careless “wild men” like those of the mountains, content to live and die in their nests of jungle rubbish, with never a peep at the outside world. ”

“ Their huts are one-roomed affairs with the floor of beaten clay, upon which, at night, are laid woven grass mats that serve as beds. The walls are of charo—a kind of poor relative of the bamboo—lashed to a slender framework of the same material by split strips of the mora, the typical hut of the tropical frontier. Stout posts sunk at the corners give the strength to support the roof. ”

“ After considering of it, we determined to get a large piece of bamboo stalk, at least five inches across, and to drive that into the earth with the pummet we had used in building the hut. This we did, and placing the bamboo (a piece about three feet long) in the hole we had already begun to drive, we dealt it several heavy blows with the pummet, by this means driving it into the ground, and at the same time forcing some earth up into its hollow interior. ”

“ Sometimes we rode along narrow jungle paths, bordered by a tangled mass of bright coloured bushes and undergrowth, or by the tall, waving, jungle grass, which is always whispering. These paths lead to tiny collections of bamboo huts, surrounded by high fences to keep out dacoits and other marauders, where the unambitious native leads a peaceful, contented life, under the shadow of the bamboos and peepul trees; an uneventful existence, enlivened, perhaps, occasionally by a Pwé, or visit to a pagoda feast at a neighbouring village. ”

“ The walls are of bamboo, tied together with vines and creepers; the floor, of split bamboo; the eight-foot pillars that support his hut, the ladder at the doorway, the rafters, are all of the same material. Attap leaves for the roof grow everywhere. Cocoanut shells do duty as plates and cups; a joint of the omnipresent bamboo makes a light and handy pitcher or pot. To lay up a stock of bananas for flood time is the work of a few hours; a few yards of clearing supplies the householder rice in abundance. ”

“ It was good to feel wet through on the tramp through the drenched tangle, to feel the blood tingling in the finger tips, the lungs full of quickening air, and the sunshine right in your eyes. It was good to be alive.
After a while, we came to a little campong, some five or six bamboo huts, grouped together in an open space of the wood. Some naked children were playing around a fire of sticks and dry leaves. Under a shed, a woman stood pounding rice in a hollowed-out wooden block, whilst another carrying a child in her slendang, talked to her. ”

“ On the ground floors of the bamboo huts were little else than a few old rags, dried grass and things of that kind. Furniture there was none. It is useless to attempt a description of the loathsome appearance of the lepers. Many were featureless, some were blind, some had lost fingers, others a foot, some a leg, but all were equally dirty, disgusting and miserable. Those able to work cultivate a really prosperous-looking garden, which is near their village. ”

“ The huts are long and low, with an arched roof, and vary in length from ten to twenty feet, with an average height of five feet, and a width of six. They consist of a neat framework of strips of bamboo, thatched with long coarse grass. Each hut is usually situated in a small well-fenced enclosure, and opposite to it on the beach is the cooking place, consisting of a small shed, under which the fire is made. ”

“ The building of a hut is a simple proposition, for all the Indian has to do is to go into the forest and cut some bamboo poles and some palm leaves or banana stalks for a roof, and he has all the material necessary. A few poles are set into the ground, establishing the size, and to these, by means of vines, are attached many horizontal reeds or poles. These may be close together or several inches apart, and sometimes mortar or stones are used to fill in the wall. The same style of steep roof is always made. ”

“ Sticks were then placed between the uprights, and strips of bamboo, beaten until soft, were fastened in and out, just as the threads had been woven in the loom [Pg 64] of the Dundee factory. This was the skeleton of the hut, and when Ma looked at it she clapped her hands with delight.
"It's like playing a game," she said to the children.
The walls were next made by throwing in large lumps of red clay between the sticks. When the clay was dry the surface was rubbed smooth, and then mats of palm leaves were laid on the top and tied down to form the roof. ”

“ I found my friend in good health and spirits, strictly guarded in a small thatched hut, of bamboo wattle and clay: the situation was pretty, and commanded a view of the Ryott valley and the snowy mountains; there were some picturesque chaits hard by, and a blacksmith’s forge. Our walks were confined to a few steps in front of the hut, and included a puddle and a spring of water. We had one black room with a small window, and a fire in the middle on a stone ”

“ These huts are mere sleeping-places, the beds being bamboo benches, built against the sides of the wall, at about two feet elevation from the ground. Only in rainy weather is either cooking or weaving done inside [174] the house. The interior of the hut is in almost total darkness, the doorway being both narrow and low; so low that even a woman has to stoop in order to enter it. The smaller tribes whose territory adjoins that of the Taiyal also build huts after the fashion of their more powerful neighbours. ”

“ On the hills, the dwelling huts are made of bamboo matting thatched with grass and teak leaves, whereas on the plains the walls are made of mud, and are roofed with grass and bamboo. Like the Yānādis and Chenchus, the Malasars seem to have an objection to well-built houses, and a Malasar forester prefers his own rude hut to Government quarters. ”

“ The coarse parent grass, which shelters the sirrakee, is the only article yet found to answer the purposes for thatching the bungalows of the rich, the huts of the poor, the sheds for cattle, and roofs for boats. The religious devotee sets up a chupha-hut, [36] without expense,— (all the house he requires,) —on any waste spot of land most convenient to himself, away from the busy haunts of the tumultuous world, since bamboo and grass are the common property of all who choose to take the trouble of gathering it from the wilderness. ”

“ The interior of the hut corresponds in simplicity with its exterior, In order to gain admission it is necessary to first climb the ladder suspended from the door; before entering the feet are bathed in a long bamboo tube filled with water, as shoes are but little worn. As there is no outlet for the smoke arising from the fireplace, excepting through the roof and the crevices at the sides, the room is constantly filled with it. ”

“ An intelligent native of Arakan who accompanied me in wanderings on duty in the forests of the Burmese frontier in the beginning of 1853, and who used to ask many questions about Europe, seemed able to apprehend almost everything except the possibility of existence in a country without bamboos! “When I speak of bamboo huts, I mean to say that posts and walls, wall-plates and rafters, floor and thatch, and the withes that bind them, are all of bamboo. In fact, it might almost be said that among the Indo-Chinese nations the staff of life is a bamboo! ”

“ All the eligible young men of the village then assemble, and form a ring round this hut. At a short distance sits the girl's father or the nearest male relative with tom-tom in his hands, and a few more musical instruments complete the scene. Presently the music begins. The young men, each armed with a bamboo, commence dancing round the hut, into which each of them thrusts his stick. ”

“ It was quite dark [74] inside, but there was just room enough to lie down on the split bamboo floor. All round the hut was a large clearing, planted with maize, belonging to a Filipino, who from time to time lived in another small hut about one hundred yards away. He also owned the one I was living in, and for this I paid him the not very exorbitant sum of one peso (two shillings) a month. Tall gaunt trees rose out of the corn on all sides, and in the early morning they were full of bird-life—parrots, parakeets, cockatoos, pigeons, woodpeckers, gapers and hornbills, etc. ”

“ After cultivation they change their abodes. They put up huts in the vicinity of the cultivated areas, and use bamboo and reeds as materials. After leaving the old, and before putting up the new hut, they live for several days in caves or under trees. They are very good watchmen, and take great care in putting up fences, weeding, and protecting cultivation from wild animals. ”

“ The huts of the native people look very frail, almost like card-houses, leaning up against each other on the edges of cliffs, their roofs of ragged matting, straw thatch, or thin wooden shingles, or the corrugated iron aforesaid. Tall, tapering bamboo canes are frequently stuck up outside, bearing vertical strips of white cotton or linen cloth, like standards, with light tags of the same fluttering at intervals from their outer edges. ”

“ They are built of timber, with matting walls and thatched roof, much like the Burmese dwellings I have described. Native custodians are in charge of them, and although specially intended for the use of Government servants, any traveller may use them. In the forest similar houses, called "tais," smaller and often built of bamboo, are erected, though sometimes [61] very small huts indeed, formed of bamboo and reeds, are the only shelter available. ”

“ Bamboo poles form the framework and support the projecting roof, which gives shade to the house. These huts lay hidden in a jungle formed of bamboo groves, whose straight spiky branches look like the fingers of an outstretched hand pointing downwards. Banana-trees there were, whose palm leaves, fringed and jagged, are only distinguished by this from the ordinary palm, and cocoa-nut groves. These had their golden halo of fruit under the shade of their fringing, feathery arms, and notches cut in their slender stems by the natives, who climb up by them to gather the fruit. ”

“ Near it is a cluster of native huts, mostly with walls of corded bamboo, some dabbed with clay and lime, and all roofed with the ever shabby-looking palm-leaf; none are as neat as those of the "bushmen" in the interior, where they are regularly and carefully made like baskets or panniers. ”

“ There, accordingly, was the little skinned object twirling slowly between two bamboo sticks, over a fire beneath two or three immense green leaves on a frame, with its knees up not to let its legs burn; about a dozen half-open sheds and huts, like little corn-stacks, thatched close with reeds, and hung with wattled mats of split bamboo, giving the place more the look of a farmyard than a village ”

“ She is standing in the low verandah of her bamboo house, looking out over a network of gorges, rifts, and ravines, precipices in peaks, with villages crowning each crest. The houses are thatched with long grass, which grows over the hills, while below in the valley the rice is cultivated in terraces. The villages are stockaded with bamboo, and the water runs through them in troughs of split bamboo.
"The people are certainly very dirty," says Eleanor, watching an old woman with large amber earings, pounding rice, and talking to a dusky man in a blue turban. ”

“ The scattered bird-cage huts, made of twisted bamboo and nestling in the hollows, that were shaded by feathery palms, intensified the enchantment of the secluded forest empire. I know that the glad reception which I received from the whole population when I entered the high bamboo stockade gate, my two native boys ahead of me, was as impressive as it was pleasing to me. The two boys in question were Palao and Sango, neither of them more than ten years of age. ”

“ The interior consists of but one room, with a square fireplace of brick at one end, and seats round it; the bed-places of the family are on either side; and overhead are racks to hold spears and agricultural instruments, the whole blackened with the constant smoke, which has no other outlet besides the door and window. The houses of the peasantry on the plains are composed almost entirely of bamboo; the posts and beams of the stoutest pieces of that plant, and the walls of split bamboo woven into mats, the roof being covered with leaves of the hissah palm. ”

“ Many of the hedges on this road are formed by an elegant small leaved bamboo, with its pendent branches drooping in graceful tufts, the tree itself not attaining the elevation usual with other more useful but less ornamental species: this bamboo forms a very beautiful, as well as compact fence. On attaining the gentle and gradual rise of the hill, the view that expands itself is both extensive and grand; embracing a wide portion of this splendid island, and causing feelings of regret in the mind of the spectator, that so much fertile land should be permitted to lie waste. ”

“ Each habitation was surrounded by a small clearing in which broad-leaved banana, plantain, and papaya trees grew in wonderful luxuriance. Jungles of tall bamboo bordered the plantations and grew beside the track. Plantains and bamboo seem to be the staples of the people. The former they eat, and of the latter their houses are built. The flimsy structures were ramshackle affairs with ragged, thatched roofs, and fitted well into their surroundings. Frequently we had a fleeting view of the almost nude occupants of the huts, lolling about in the darkened interior. ”