The Floor
Find two straight, round sticks, not quite as large round as a lead-pencil. The sticks must be cut six and a half inches long, then two sticks of the same kind five inches long; after that there must be six more sticks five inches long. Split these last six sticks in half lengthwise.
The Philippine people do not use nails, or screws, or glue, and not even wooden pegs, in building their houses; they bind and tie the parts together with rattan, and as we are going to build just as they do we, too, will tie the parts of our house together, but will use raffia in place of the rattan.
Fig.50 - The little Grass House you can make.
Hold one of the six-and-a-half-inch sticks (letter J, [Fig. 51]) upright in your hand while you cross it a short distance below the top with a five-inch-round stick (letter K, [Fig. 51]). The distance from the top of the upright stick to the crossing and the distance from the short end of the other stick to the crossing must be the same.
Fig.51 - Begin binding them together.
Fig.52 - Carry the raffia over and between the two ends of the sticks.
Begin binding them together as shown in [Fig. 51]. Then carry the raffia (string will do if you cannot get raffia) over and between the two ends of the sticks ([Fig. 52]), and wind it opposite ways several times around the sticks, bringing the raffia between as well as over them. This will lash them firmly together. Now turn this beginning of your floor around so that the short stick will be upright and the long one extend from side to side. Do not let the binding loosen; hold it tight and cross the long stick with one of the split five-inch sticks ([Fig. 53]). Be sure that the flat side of the split stick is next to the long stick, and that you leave a slight opening between it and the first crosspiece. Pull the raffia tight and bind it over this second crosspiece ([Fig. 54]), then back, crossing it as in [Fig. 55].
Fig.53 - Turn the sticks, bringing J in horizontal position.
Fig.54 - Bind raffia over second stick.
Fig.55 - Then bring raffia across front of second stick
Bind on the next split crosspiece in the same way, and go on adding crosspieces until they reach almost to the end of the long stick, then let the last crosspiece be the second unsplit five-inch stick. When all the short crosspieces are properly bound onto the long stick, bind the other six-and-a-half-inch long stick under the opposite ends of the crosspieces in the same way, and just as carefully ([Fig. 56]). This makes the floor and we must lash it to the stilts, which are four upright sticks, each seven and one half inches long. Fit the stilts in the outside corners made by the crossing of the end and side sticks of the floor, and, holding the floor about four and a half inches above the lower ends of the stilts, bind floor and stilts together ([Fig. 57]). Of course you can put the stilts on only one at a time.