Nipa hut

“ The walls are of mud and formerly, among the Nilotic tribes, occasionally of stone. Since the advent of the British the security of the country has induced the Kavirondo to let the walls fall into disrepair. Their huts are circular with conical thatched roof, and fairly broad verandah all round. A portion of the hut is partitioned off as a sleeping-place for goats, and the fowls sleep indoors in a large basket. Skins form the only bedsteads. In each hut are two fireplaces, about which a rigid etiquette prevails. ”

“ In Fijian huts there is always a sort of raised platform at one end of the hut, on which are piles of the best native mats, and, being the guest, I generally got this to myself. The roof inside is very finely thatched, the beams being of “Niu sau,” a native palm,1 the cross-pieces and main supports being enormous bits of hard wood. The smaller supports of the sides are generally the trunks of tree-ferns. The doors in most of the huts are a strip of native matting or fantastically-painted “tapa” cloth, fastened to two posts a few feet inside the hut. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Like the Bongo, the Niam-niam bury their dead with a scrupulous regard to the points of the compass; but it is remarkable that they reverse the rule, the men in their sepulture being deposited with their faces towards the east, the women towards the west.
A grave is covered in with clay, which is thoroughly stamped down. Over the spot a hut is erected, in no respect differing externally from the huts of the living, and being equally perishable in its construction, it very soon either rots away through neglect or is destroyed in the annual conflagration of the steppe-burning. ”

“ Indeed the New Guinea tribes not only impress this belief on the minds of women and children, but enact it in a dramatic form at the actual rites of initiation, at which no woman or uninitiated person may be present. For this purpose a hut about a hundred feet long is erected either in the village or in a lonely part of the forest. It is modelled in the shape of the mythical monster; at the end which represents his head it is high, and it tapers away at the other end. A betel-palm, grubbed up with the roots, stands for the backbone of the great being and its clustering fibres for his hair ”

“ The smoke is left to find its way out through the thatch; consequently the inside of the roof, with the nsanja and everything on it, is black and shiny, and any article which has come out of a native hut may be known at once by a peculiar smell, compounded of wood-smoke and castor-oil.
Square houses, which are often built not only by people at missions but by Yaos who brought the notion from the coast, are much less typical, and from a practical point of view less satisfactory; they are always stuffy and frowsy, in a way the round huts are not. ”

“ A Pagan homestead comprises a cluster of huts. Whereas the Hausa house may consist of one room screened by hanging mats into two or more compartments—though, among the well-to-do in cities such as Kano and Zaria the buildings have interior walls making distinct rooms—the Pagan has a separate hut for each part of his daily life. They [252] are small, circular, very neat, about six or eight feet in diameter, of mud with a roof of the same material lightly covered with thatch. One or more will be the grain store, where the gathered crops are kept and drawn upon for food whilst others are growing. ”

“ The dirty, slovenly villages of the Wak’hutu are an index of the character of the people. Unlike the comfortable cottages of the coast, and the roomy abodes of the Wazaramo, the settlements of the Wak’hutu are composed of a few straggling hovels of the humblest description—with doors little higher than an English pigsty, and eaves so low that a man cannot enter them except on all fours. In shape they differ, some being simple cones, others like European haystacks, and others like our old straw beehives. The common hut is a circle from 12 to 25 feet in diameter ”

“ A strong stem fixed firmly in the earth, extended obliquely to the middle of the inner side of the wall, and two thinner stems on each side, served as supports for this frail building. According to the direction of the wind the hut is turned round.
The Indian huts all stand detached from each other, and they [Pg 287] are seldom divided internally into apartments. They occupy very little ground, never more than sixty square feet of superficies. In the principal settlement of an Indian race, the huts are scattered over a circuit of some miles in the forests. ”

“ The huts are better built than elsewhere, and have porches. Their granaries are wattled, and have very well thatched roofs, and our reception was most cordial. They spread mats for us to sit on. They brought us monkey-nuts, tamarind, and other vegetables to eat, and seemed to think themselves greatly honoured [326] by a visit from the white indunas who had brought their chief such a fine present.
Next morning we walked up to visit ’Mtoko in his kraal. The twenty huts which compose it are girt around with a strong palisade. Each hut is large, and has a porch. ”

“ The situation is much exposed in the winter time to the cold south-west blasts, and the natives accordingly make comparatively strong huts. Their dwellings are formed of a framework of sticks, over which is plastered a thick layer of turf and mud. In addition to this they heap over the hut a great quantity of the sand and shells of which the ground is chiefly composed, so that the houses of the Milmendura look like mere mounds or hillocks rising from the sandy soil. ”

“ I understand that the Nandi live about the same as the other natives about here. They have circular huts of boards roofed with thatch. Each hut has a fireplace in the centre on each side of which is a little bed consisting of a platform of mud built along the wall of the hut. The people sleep on the mud, using round blocks of wood for pillows. ”

“ This compels the Navajoes to erect substantial huts of an oval form, the lower portion of the hut being excavated, and the upper composed of substantial stakes brought together and firmly fastened at the top. Long, slender and supple poles are then hooped closely about the stakes, and the whole thickly covered with mud. These huts are sometimes quite roomy, many of them being twelve or fourteen feet in diameter. The women are extremely dexterous in weaving a very superior kind of blanket, the colors of which are generally black and white ”

“ The Indians of the races above noticed seldom live in villages, but chiefly in huts scattered through the forests. Sometimes they construct a few of their dwellings near together, and so form a hamlet. Their huts are either quadrangular, oblong, or circular. The walls consist of strong stems of trees, bound together by twining plants; and the roof is of palm leaves laid over a skeleton of reeds. The entrance, which is on the side opposite to the prevailing wind, is left open, and but seldom protected by a door. At Chanchamayo I saw a very simple kind of hut among the Chunchos. ”

“ The materials for their huts grow around them in the greatest abundance, a few forked upright poles form the walls, and bear others forming the roof; thin sticks tied horizontally or perpendicularly to the uprights, both inside and out, forming a double wall, complete the framework of the hut, which is then plastered with clay or earth, or covered with grass or “loandos,” or mats made of the dried stem of the papyrus. ”

“ A circle of blocks is laid on the ground, then another on them, with the edges projecting a little inward, so that the circumference of each course is less than that of the one immediately beneath it; a large slab covers the top, and finishes the building. Such huts are found in the north-eastern part of the Free State in South Africa, formerly the Orange River Sovereignty.
Among the various Bechuana tribes in and beyond the Free State, the building of a hut is a more elaborate and artistic affair ”

“ Huge as the animal may be, it is ere long consumed, and nothing left but the skeleton. Of the bones the natives make the framework of their huts, the ends of the ribs being fixed in the ground, so that the bones form the supports of the arched roof, which is nothing more than boughs, grass, and matting thrown almost at random upon the bony framework.
During the winter time the native huts are of better construction, although the best hut that an Australian ever made is but a very rude and primitive specimen of architecture. ”

“ Over the idol huts and tobacco bushes they fled like startled fawns, nor could one of them be induced to return. Their chief, however, sat bravely through the exhibition and afterwards examined the lantern with great interest.
Many of the native tribes are very superstitious, and will not touch food offered to them by other tribes. Among themselves they stand upon much ceremony. Each man has his own hut where he has his fire. Should it go out he will build it afresh rather than to take live coals from a neighbor. ”

“ Such huts as these, however, are but seldom seen, the ordinary winter dwellings being made of bushes, as seen in an illustration on the next page. Near the entrance, but not within it, the fire is kindled, and at night the natives crowd into the hut, filling it so completely that a view of the interior displays nothing but a confused mass of human limbs. The reader will perceive that the luxury of a door has not been contemplated by the native architects—an omission which is perhaps rather fortunate, considering the crowded state of the interior. ”

“ They live like animals. A big, square hut covered with rice straw and thatch, with a fence of the same kind of straw running around the house, forms the residence. The only fire is in the middle of the only room, and this consists of a pile of wood burning on a flat stone or piece of metal in the center. There is no chimney in the roof, and not even an opening such as the American Indians had in the tops of their tepees. I do not know how they live. The smoke finds its way gradually through cracks in the walls and roofs. One can hardly find a single Ainu whose eyes are not ruined. ”

“ It is the custom of some households for the Laki-Niho not to return to the house during the whole three days’ search for omens; at such times they build in the jungle, near the clearing, a small hut, which they indicate to be permantong, by putting up beside it two poles, called ‘ponkut,’ whereon the bark is stripped into bunches of shavings at intervals down the pole. ”

“ It is remarkable for its regularity of outline and the narrowness of its apex. On this apex, a mere sugar-loaf crown, are a vigía or look-out station, and a signal-staff, whence the approach of vessels is telegraphed to the port of La Union, at the base of the volcano. A rude hut, half-buried in the earth, and loaded down with heavy stones, to prevent it from being blown clean away, or sent rattling down the slopes of the mountain, is occupied by the look-out man,—an old Indian muffled up to his nose; for it is often bitter cold at this elevation, and there is no wood wherewith to make a fire. ”

“ Living as they do mainly in the Delta, their houses are of necessity near water and are raised from the ground as a protection against floods, being sometimes, it is said, even placed on platforms in trees. The roof is supported in the middle by two vertical posts and a ridge pole, and is composed of palm-leaves, supported at the corners by stakes. The sides of this simple hut consist of light palm-leaf curtains, and the floor is of palm-planks. ”

“ Soon after we saw Indian huts on the banks of the river. They are called by themselves “tepees” (dwellings) , and by the English, “lodges;” they resemble a tent in form, and are covered with buffalo-hides, which are wrapped round long stakes, planted in the ground in a circle, and united at the top, where the smoke passes out through an opening, something like our Laplander's huts, only on a larger scale. There is a low opening in the form of a door to each hut, and over which a piece of buffalo-hide can be let down at pleasure. ”

“ These frail buildings require yearly repairs, but the peasants are put to no expense for them, except in bringing posts, reeds, and grass from the jungle. Assamese families of respectability and wealth live in larger houses of the same character of architecture; but instead of one hut, they erect several close together, in the form of a square, each hut opening into the quadrangular court-yard, which is entered by a portico or receiving room for visitors. ”

“ Summer huts are light portable buildings, thrown up during hunting excursions in the interior, or on the sea-beach in the fishing-season. A frame is made of stakes driven into the ground, supporting a roof, and the whole covered with bark, or with green or dry branches, and skins or bark over all. The door is closed by bark or a curtain of skins. Each hut 103 is the rendezvous for a small colony, frequently covering twenty or thirty persons, all under the direction of one chief. ”