Common Dwelling House

The ordinary house was small. Many of the house sites measured are 9 feet long by 6 feet wide; some are even smaller. However, as public congregations took place on the marae and people sat out on the graveled open spaces in front of their huts, the small size is accounted for by the use of the huts as bedrooms. The chiefs had larger houses. Lamont noticed the larger houses of the principal chiefs he visited at Omoka, Motu-unga and other islands. Turua's house at Motuunga he describes (15, p. 185) as hav- page 94 ing a framed roof about 10 or 12 feet square with the eaves about 5 feet from the ground. The house platform of the house of the high chief, Turua, in Motukohiti was, roughly, 38 feet long by 18 feet 6 inches wide, and though the house may not have covered the platform entirely, it was large.

The house framework is shown in figure 3. A supporting post (pou) of coconut (niu) or hala (Pandanus; hara) was erected in the middle of either end of the rectangular ground plan. The ridgepole (tahuhu) was placed in position on the supporting posts. Side wall posts, also called pou, were used, and the wall plates were lashed to them. The principal rafters (oka) were stretched over the wall plates and ridgepole, with the upper ends crossing to form a support for the upper ridgepole, called tamaiti (child) to convey the idea of its being the child of the main ridgepole. About three horizontal purlins (torotoro) were used on either side on the outer side of the principal rafters. The thatch rafters (rau oka) were placed on the outer side of the purlins. The eaves rods (torotoro hiohio) were tied to the outer side of the lower ends of the thatch rafters. They supported the lowest tier of thatch and derived their name from torotoro (purlin) and hiohio (small), being thinner than the main purlins. The names which differ from those used in the Cook Islands are hapai for rape, torotoro for tarava, tamaiti for taorangi, rau oka for kaho, and torotoro hiohio for manuae or iniki. The thatch rafter name of rau oka (rau, thatch; oka, rafter) although appropriate, has displaced the widespread Polynesian term kaho, which occurs in some regions as kaho, 'aho, and 'aso. The term kaso is present in the Tongarevan dialect, but has been applied to the rod over which lauhala (leaves of Pandanus; Tongarevan, rauhara) is bent to form roof sheets.

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The thatching material was made of lauhala, which, like that of the lower Cook Islands, was first soaked in the salt water of the lagoon to kill the bugs and beetles. After being dried in the sun the leaves were rubbed against a stake stuck in the ground in the same manner as in Aitutaki (28, p. 13). The rubbing process is termed sahu (Aitutaki, oro). On the completion of the rubbing the tip end (siku) of each leaf was bent across the butt end (pu) and kept down with the foot at the bottom of the rubbing stake. When several leaves had accumulated around the stake they were tied together at the leaf crossings and formed a tupe bundle.

For joining the leaves into roof sheets, aerial roots (kaihara) of hala (Pandanus; Tongarevan, hara) were used. The roots were cut into three or four foot lengths, and the bark peeled off (ka sosore te kiri). The lengths were split (vavasi) into two kinds of rod, a thicker rod (kaso) and a thinner rod (haniu). The term kaso has been transferred from the original thatch rafter. The term haniu in Tongareva is also applied to the midrib of the coconut leaflet and is so used in the Cook Islands.

A wooden needle (tui) made of ngangie is used to sew the roof sheets of lauhala together. The implement resembles the au tui of the Cook Islands, except that it is wider and that most of them are sharpened at both ends. (See fig. 4.)

After material has been assembled, the sewing of the sheet commences (kua sausau te tui), as shown in figure 5. The sheets are three to four feet wide, according to the length of the kaso rod which stiffens the doubled-over edge of the sheet. The haniu rod keeps the leaves together. A large number of sheets are required and when they have been made the thatching commences.

In the Cook Islands the roof sheets are sewn together in exactly the same manner (28, p. 17). Here and in Samoa coconut leaflet midribs are used for pinning the leaves together. The use of thin strips of hala rootlet under the name of haniu shows that the leaflet midrib was also in use in Tongareva, and the name haniu was applied to the rootlet material after it had displaced the coconut leaflet midrib.

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The covering of the roof with lauhala is termed tapoki (to cover), but the actual thatching process is atohanga. Two-ply twisted sennit cord (hauato) is used for tying (sere) the sheets to the thatch rafters. In commencing, two sheets (parua) are laid together across the thatch rafters with their rod ends just above the eaves rod. The cord is tied to the lower end of the thatch rafters. The thatcher, from the inside of the house, carries the cord over the upper edge of the sheet on the right of the thatch rafter, crosses it over the thatch rafter on the outside, and after puncturing a hole through the sheet below the kaso rod on the left of the rafter, brings the cord through the hole to the inside. The cord is drawn taut with a half hitch around its standing part or with a single overhand knot. Single sheets are then added two or more inches apart, each being knotted in position with the continuous cord. The thatching works upward until the upper ridgepole is reached, when another double sheet (parua) finishes off the section. The roof is thatched in sections of the width of the roof sheets. The completion of the thatching is expressed by the phrase “kua tuku te raumanu,” raumanu meaning all the rau (leaf) sheets. In the Cook Islands a wooden needle with a hooked point is used in thatching (28, p. 22), but in Tongareva no mention was made of such an implement.

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Roof sheets of split coconut leaves with the leaflets plaited in check are used in the rougher houses. It is probable that lauhala was formerly not commonly used, for Lamont (15, p. 155) states that “their houses or sheds are made of the cocoa-nut branches.” The coconut leaf sheets are easier to make, as the leaflets are fixed naturally to the midrib strips and require no artificial kaso rods. In thatching, the midrib strip edges are placed above, and the tying with a continuous cord proceeds. The details of making the coconut leaf sheets are the same as in the Cook Islands (28, p. 7).

Ridge sheets (takaumisau) of plaited coconut leaf are laid longitudinally to overlap the upper edge of the roof thatching on either side. Pointed stakes of ngangie, termed soka, are pinned through below the upper ridgepole to keep the ridge sheets in position. Pinning on the ridge sheets is “sokahia te takaumisau.” The ridge sheets are also similar to those in the Cook Islands (28, p. 26).

The sides of the house are termed tua, and the ends, tara. Lamont (15, p. 185) states that the eaves of a large house on Motu-unga were about five feet from the ground. In the smaller houses the walls were much lower. The ends were thatched to about the level of the side eaves, and below that the house was open on the four sides. Shelter from wind or rain was provided by plaited coconut leaf screens.

There were two wall screens, a narrow screen (pataro) formed by plaiting the leaflets on one side of the midrib, and a wider one (pataro mangarua) in which the extra width was obtained by plaiting two sides of the midrib. Lamont (15, p. 185) noted that

… slight stakes, of about a foot high, are driven into the ground around the house, immediately under the eaves, and at night long narrow mats of cocoa-nut leaf are fastened to, or laid against, these pegs, forming a shelter from the blast. Otherwise the house is entirely open all round.

The mat was probably the long narrow pataro. The wider pataro-niangarua was attached by one of its split midrib edges to the wall plate above and hung down as a screen. To secure it during a strong wind, the lower midrib edge could be fastened to pegs below. To permit the circulation of air through the house, the wider screens were propped upward and outward by lengths of coconut leaf midribs. The wider wall screen is the one in common use.