Similarities and coincidences in labour and implements of labour

The houses of Oceania show Malay affinities. They are four-cornered and most frequently rectangular, long and low. The long roof of palm-leaves, rushes, or boughs, often resembles an inverted boat or an elongated bee-hive. The ridge is carried by lofty poles, and the eaves rest upon shorter posts, the walls consisting of reeds or mats fixed between them. In carefully built houses the roof is formed of rafters and sound timbers, covered with mats of banana-leaf. The larger houses stand on stone foundations in the shape of raised platforms. In Polynesia, and the extreme east of Melanesia, especially Fiji, the houses frequently stand on mounds of earth 3 to 6 feet high, the height being proportioned to the owner's claims to importance. In Samoan huts, the roof, made of round bent timbers thatched with sugar-cane or maize-leaves, rests upon a number of shorter posts, the intervals between them being filled up with blinds of plaited palm-leaf. In the Friendly Islands the plan departs curiously from the rectangular, the section below the boat-shaped roof being pentagonal; and the same in Easter Island. In Hawaii the different character of the material has led to a variation in style. The boat-form is maintained for the roof, and the frame-work is the same; but the roof itself, made of thick layers of grass, is carried down to the ground, creating real grass huts.

In the Melanesians Islands this form is retained with few exceptions. We find it in New Guinea, where the huts are on posts forming an oblong of 13 to 33 feet by 13 to 22 feet; and in the Solomons, where the average length of the family dwellings is 45 to 70 feet, with a breadth of nearly 40. Here the roof, projecting and supported on posts, is thatched with sago and coco-palm leaves, and the side walls, about 3 feet high, are woven in pretty patterns of dark and light bamboo. Often a veranda is built on to the narrow side where the entrance is, and gives a touch of elegance to the whole edifice; while the roof, made of leaves laid close together, evinces even more careful work. The Fijian buildings also to some extent fall under this rectangular style. Besides those which are characterised by the long roof-tree we find a second class, of which the ground-plan is a circle or an oval, and its external mark the conical or even bee-hive roof. This is indigenous especially to New Guinea, to some of the groups in the Torres Straits, to New Caledonia, and the Admiralty Islands; also to Fiji and the Solomons. The whole thing often looks just like a hay-rick. The temples differ from the huts only in size and internal fittings. An advance towards embellishment is seen in the fashion of planting a fiery-red dracaena near the huts.

The Polynesian house shows no tendency to soar on high, but grows only in length, even when it is already some hundreds of feet long. Thus, however elegant the general appearance may be, nothing of architectural importance is arrived at; and the building, even though erected with care and amid special rites, is light and not durable. Ruins of habitations are seen only where a stone foundation has been laid. The Hawaiians were the last to give up their grass-huts - long after they had adopted Christianity together with European clothes and utensils; but even seventy years ago their chiefs were having stone houses built. The persistence of the Polynesian house in less elevated forms explains the value attached to the roof. When a Samoan village in time of war is fearing an attack, the people take off their precious roofs and carry them to a place of safety. The roof of a New Caledonian house is richly adorned with bunches of leaves and shells.

Under the peculiar conditions of the Maoris the Polynesian style under-went the greatest variation among them. The ground-plan was the same, but the house had firm wooden walls, with only a small door and narrow window in the front, which faced east-wards. The roof-tree was carried over a porch, and the roof thatched with rushes or coarse grass. This simple type can be materially enriched by carvings. These adorn in the first place the main pillar, which is in human shape; also the supporters of the porch, the gable, and often each individual piece of wood inside and out. In the less genial districts they have winter houses half underground. In winter a fire is lighted inside, and when the coals have ceased to glow every opening is closed air-tight, till with an external temperature of 15° or so the interior is up to 80° or 90°. This no doubt is one of the causes of their disorders, for besides the exhalations of humanity there are also tobacco-smoke and the odours of drying fish, the New Zealanders' "national perfume." On the other hand, the neighbourhood of the huts is kept clean, and in the palmy days of the Maoris a village would always give the impression of tidiness and comfort.

Here and there in Polynesia stone buildings have been found which have been taken to be habitations. The caves in heaps of stones which are among the curiosities of Easter Island were perhaps places of refuge in case of war. They exist also on other islands. In Isabel, villages defended by palisades for the reception of fugitives have been laid out in the heights of mountains difficult of access. They are called Teitaiki, and from the sea look like little forts. In Hawaii the boundaries enclosing the villages were marked by walls a yard high.

Although as regards the form of the house it is immaterial in itself whether it stands on the ground or on piles, on dry land or in the water, yet pile-building in Melanesian dwellings has been carried to an extent found nowhere else; and even where it is not, as it often is, seen in its extreme development, it forms a characteristic feature of life and scenery. Whether on dry ground or in the water, the house is built on piles.

Speaking of the village of Sowek on Geelvink Bay (of which we give a coloured illustration [below]), where some thirty houses stand on piles, attached by tree stems to each other, but not to the shore, Raffray says: "We have in fact a perfect pile-village, just like those which science has reconstructed from the prehistoric period." The yet neater huts in Humboldt Bay similarly rest on piles a yard out of the water, but are connected by bridges. The roof rises to a height of nearly 40 feet, and forms a steep six or eight-sided pyramid.

The houses more in the interior of New Guinea are likewise built on a similar plan; and although on dry land, stand upon lofty piles which, with their sloping stays, present a highly original type of architecture as shown in the cut [of the Arfak house]. They hang like eagles' nests, some 5o feet in the air, on their thin swaying trestle-work, looking as if every puff of wind must sweep them away. These airy dwellings are entered by means of slanting tree-stems with steps nicked in them.

Constant hostilities have given rise to a special architecture in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Huts, known as bako, adapted to hold some twelve people, are attached to the branches of huge trees at a height of 80 to 100 feet. The stem below is stripped of all unnecessary branches, and perfectly smooth. Ladders made from liana or bamboo,which can be drawn up, serve to climb into these tree-huts, in which stones and spears are stored. At the foot of each tree a second hut is built, to live in during the day.

The size of the buildings is the expression of social conditions. Where one family inhabits the house, as in Polynesia, they are small, becoming larger in proportion as the family groups adhere to the old custom of a common dwelling. Large houses belonging to individuals are rare. In Fiji, where the houses are very fine, the old customs had been much weakened by the prosperity of the aristocracy of chiefs even before the English annexation. As regards size, and in other respects, the architecture of the Solomon Islands comes nearest to that of Fiji, the New Hebrides standing a stage lower. The chiefs' houses, the capacious assembly and guest-houses, the boathouses, are carefully built and adorned with carved work, painting, and skulls; while large pots, ornamental bowls, plaited work, and here and there firearms form the most highly-valued decorations.

In New Guinea the village halls, called marea, are specially notable. Even in the pile-villages they are found in a reduced form. In New Hanover and New Ireland they are buildings of moderate size, 12 feet by 25 or 30 feet; so, too, in New Britain, where the roof of palm-leaves, projecting a little beyond the outer walls, has on either side a kind of turret, on the top of which is a bundle of reeds. It is in Micronesia that the assembly or club-houses are most conspicuous. In Yap, Pelew, and Mancape in the Gilberts, two kinds of houses are universally distinguished - the family houses, blais, and the great houses or bais.

The building of the great houses is a political matter, and as such entrusted to consecrated artificers. They are rectangular buildings, standing alone: in the Carolines on a stone foundation; in Pelew on a platform of beams, upon which the polished floor immediately rests. Here the principle of pile-building is employed on dry land. In contrast to the care with which foundation, floor, and walls are treated, the high steep roof seems neglected, no doubt because violent storms frequently take it off. The common hall has generally six similar openings the entire height of the wall, from a yard to a yard and a half in width. These, like the doors and windows, can be closed with light screens of reed or bamboo. Verandahs contribute to the comfortable character of the houses. In the case of the club-houses of New Guinea they are often covered with hangings of leaf fibre. The low door has often a porch of its own.