Similarities and coincidences in labour and implements of labour

Stool from Dorey in New Guinea - width approx.455mm.(Christy Collection.)

Carved and painted rafters from common halls (bais) in Ruk.(Godeffroy Collection, Leipzig.)

In the interior of the Polynesian huts apartments are arranged by means of woven work and matting stretched from wall to wall; in the smaller houses at least a sleeping place is divided off. The carving on timbers and pillars, the reed panelling or mat tapestry on the walls, the cords of various colours with which the rafters are bound, hanging down from the roof, lend a cheerful and pleasant character to the interior of the better houses. The floor is carpeted with mats; near the central pillar is a hollow where the domestic fire burns. This central pillar is the place of honour where the master of the house and his head wives sleep, and where weapons and utensils hang in tasteful arrangement.

Mats from Tongatabu. (Cook Collection, Vienna.)

Less comfortable is the fitting up of Melanesian houses, in particular of the pile- buildings, the floor of which is formed by cross timbers hardly as thick as the arm and often half a yard apart, rendering a certain amount of dexterity necessary to step over the gaps. In the actual living rooms on either side of the corridor, bamboo rods more closely laid form the floor. There are no windows, since it is thought that ghosts do not come in through the doors but through openings in the roof. Boards covered with a mat form the bed, the hearth is of basket-work with a thick layer of earth on it; long thick pieces of bamboo with the joints perforated for holding water, sacks of matting, javelins, bows, arrows, spears, have their appointed places.

In Tahiti there used to be regular stands for utensils, also shelves, and a long boat-shaped framework on which the dishes were placed at meals. In Samoan huts at the present day a chest stands on the floor in which clothes and small objects are kept. Chiefs even had a chest of drawers, and similar articles of furniture have been introduced elsewhere in the course of Europeanising.

New Caledonian head-stools. (Vienna Museum.)

Among the house furniture of the Tongans, the headstool of hard lancewood is never absent; the Samoans use as a support for their heads a piece of bamboo half a yard long, as thick as the arm, and with short legs. In Yap, the Marshall and Solomon Islands, and no doubt elsewhere, a billet serves. In Fiji, as in Tonga, Samoa, and Tahiti, this has become a regular stool. In Yap these stools have faces carved at either end. Seats are of European introduction, and have established themselves only in the huts of the chiefs. Even in the Christian churches men and women sit upon large mats with their legs doubled under them.

The artistic tendency shows itself also in house architecture by the picturesque forms given to the gables, often as much as 40 feet high, of the roofs, which reach far down, often saddle-shaped and woven with carefully-worked thatch. The reed walls, often entirely concealed on the outside by the roof, display on the inside pretty patterns. Where there are three layers of reeds the inner one lies horizontally, and the crossings of the others are utilised to produce these patterns. A master of difficult patterns is a man in great demand. Much trouble is expended in Micronesia in the adornment of the club-houses: the exterior is painted and inlaid with shells; in the interior red ochre is used on the walls, and the floor is varnished with vegetable lacquer. The principal decoration consists in winding the reeds with string; also in the carving of the timbers and walls with hieroglyphics of mythical signification.

1. Gourd bottle from the D'Entrecasteaux Islands - approx 210mm high.
2. Head-stool from Yap - approx 500mm long. (Finsch Collection, Berlin.)
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The relation between houses and ships exercises a remarkable influence upon the nature of the carved and painted ornaments, perhaps upon the whole style. The walls of the house are made by preference from the planks of old vessels, and bowed outwards. The roof is shaped like a ship, and the whole house is like a boat turned over and placed on props. Images of ancestors on the gable or at the side of a house call to mind how the whole house was consecrated from the foundation upwards. Small monuments in the neighbourhood take the form of miniature houses. If one considers that a large house is fastened together only by cords; that the boards, some 6 inches wide, and the massive beams were hewn with shell axes and finely smoothed; that the planks of the floor are even polished; that the holes were made with sharks' teeth gimlets, we may get an idea of the amount of labour expended upon such a building. These works are eloquent witnesses of the height which craftsmanship, art, and comfort have attained where the age of stone still prevails.

Plan of villages

A small number of houses - some twenty or thirty - form a village at a favourable spot on the shore, by preference at the mouth of a river, where fresh and salt water are at hand. Villages are rare further in the interior, and then only on heights; on the shore they are apt to be hidden behind a belt of forest. The mode of life points, indeed, to the sea; in former times it may have been otherwise. Everywhere in the hills we find traces of deserted villages, but the present inhabitants know nothing about them. Perhaps the assemblages were once larger; now a village of more than 500 inhabitants is a rare exception. Life in these villages is very varied, often idyllic; each dwelling stands separate, surrounded by gardens and fields, or under the shade of lofty trees.

Paved roads are frequent: in Yap they are a yard or two wide and paved with slabs of stone, broadening out in the neighbourhood of the club-houses into a paved place of assembly. Here, and by every old house, flat stones are sunk into the ground as scats. It is in Fiji especially that we hear of well-laid roads and other public works. There a canal called Kelimoosu has been cut through the delta from Bau to the river Wainiki in order to shorten the passage for strategic purposes. New Caledonia shows remains of ancient aqueducts, and in Espiritu Santo the village streets are to this day laid with flints and provided with conduits. A light breath of historic life sweeps with a gentle melancholy round these villages, and round the solitude of the superfluous fortifications on the hills and the stone pyramids which stand man-high in the stone circles of the Nangas.