In this picture the joyous island queen Babai-Alova-Babai is seen carrying her taa-taa, the curious implement which serves so many purposes in the Filbert Group. It is in turn a protection against the sun, the rain and the constant showers of falling nuts, and also, when occasion demands, a most effective weapon of defensive warfare. The taa-taa is made of closely laced panjandrus leaves on a frame of the tough eva-eva. When closed, which is seldom, it is known as a naa-naa. In addition to its other uses it is most evidently a charming background for a splendid example of Filbertine youth and beauty.]
Soon the trail widened, and we were called upon to hurdle several low barriers of papoo-reeds, designed to confine the activities of the countless Alice-blue wart-hogs which whined plaintively about our feet. At a majestic gesture from the chief the taa-taas were furled (becoming naa-naas), and we halted in a bright clearing about sixty feet in diameter, plainly the public square, or, to be exact, circle.
My first impression was that of complete isolation in an unbroken forest. Peer as I would, I could discern no sign of human habitation. We had arrived, but where? My question was soon answered. By most gracious gestures, soft sounds and a series of fluttering finger exercises on the abdominal walls we were led to one side of the circle where, as our guides pointed upward, white eyes for the first time in history rested on a Filbertine dwelling!
The houses were in the trees!
Architecture is said to express deeply the inner characteristics of a people, a statement I am glad to corroborate. But never had it struck me so forcibly as now. Gazing up at a dim picture of informal construction, interlaced and blended with the trunks, boughs and foliage of the overarching palms I saw at a glance the key-note of the life of this simple people—absence of labor.
The houses,—nests, were the better word—were formed by a most naive adaptation of natural surroundings to natural needs. The curving fronds of the towering coco-palms and panjandrus had been interlaced; and nature did the rest, the gigantic leaves interweaving, blending, over-lapping, meeting in a passionate and successful desire to form a roof, proof alike against sun and rain. Some ten feet below this and an equal distance from the ground the tendrils of the eva-eva vine had been led from tree to tree, the subordinate fibres and palpitating feelers quickly knitting themselves into a floor with all the hygienic properties and tensile strength of linen-mesh.
Access to these apartments was something of a puzzle until, to instruct us, a tall Filbert, who was evidently to be our neighbor, approached a nearby dwelling and, seizing a pendent halyard of eva-eva, gently but firmly pulled down the floor to a convenient level, vaulted into the hammock-like depression and was immediately snapped into privacy. From below we could see the imprint of his form rolling toward the center of his living-room and then the depressions of his feet as he proceeded to lurch about his dwelling.
It was now mid-afternoon; we were hot, tired, and, though we did not know it, mildly intoxicated by the inhalations of alova which we had absorbed during our journey. I looked forward eagerly to getting up-stairs, so to speak, and taking a sound nap. One thing only deterred me; I was thirsty.