In some districts the native is not content with just putting his material together and providing a place to sleep in, but spends much time and a certain amount of skill and taste upon the decoration of his house. The best in this way are to be found in the eastern part of Papua, with elaborately-carved barge boards, or woven mat gables, with patterns worked out in white cowry shells.
All round Delena the houses lack ornamentation, though they differ in both plan and details of building. Perhaps the most interesting part of the work to watch is the putting on of the palm-leaf thatch. When the framework of the house is up, and the rafters all in position, the place of the slater’s battens is supplied by either strips of palm bark or strings of fibre. The palm leaves, doubled across the middle, are then pushed with one limb on either side of the strip and allowed to lie one on the other, much like the bits of carpet in the old cottage hearth rug. In this way a good thatch roof is made which will keep the water out for four or five years.
Another plan is to sew the palm leaves together and make long sheets of thatch, but this is not so tidy nor does it make so watertight a roof, and it needs some repair each year.
Paroparo.
The Snake Game.
