The most easily constructed hut, and therefore the most common,
consists simply of two forked sticks driven into the ground so they
stand about 8 feet apart and 4 feet high. A horizontal piece is laid
in the two forks, then some strips of bamboo are inclined against this
crosspiece, the other ends resting on the ground. Some cross strips are
tied with bejuco to these bamboos and the whole is covered with banana
leaves. With the materials close at hand a half hour is sufficient
for one man to construct such a shelter. Where a comparatively long
residence in one place is contemplated more care may be given the
construction of a house, but the above description will apply to
many dwellings in a rancheria two or three years old. Instead of
two upright pieces make it four, somewhat higher, and place a bamboo
platform within so the occupants do not have to sleep on the ground,
and you have an approved type of Negrito architecture. Sometimes as
an adjunct to this a shelter may be erected in front, provided with
a bamboo seat for the accommodation of visitors. The more prosperous
Negritos in the long-established rancherias have four-posted houses of
bamboo, with roof and sides of cogon grass. The floors are 4 feet from
the ground and the cooking is done underneath the floors. A small fire
is kept burning all night. The inmates of the house sleep just above
it, and in this way receive some benefit of the warmth. If it were not
for these fires the Negrito would suffer severely from cold during the
night, for he possesses no blanket and uses no covering of any sort.
For two reasons he never lets his fire go out; first, because he likes
to feel the warmth continually, and second, because it is something
of a task to build a fire, once it has gone out. (See Pls. XXXVIII,
XXXIX.)
The method of making fire used universally by the Negritos of
Zambales is that of the flint and steel, which apparatus they call
"pan'-ting." The steel is prized highly, because it is hard to get;
it is procured in trade from the Christianized natives. Nearly every
Negrito carries a flint and steel in a little grass basket or case
dangling down his back and suspended by a fiber string from his
neck. In the same basket are usually tobacco leaves, buyo, and other
small odds and ends. Sometimes this pouch is carried in the folds of
the breechcloth, which is the only pocket the Negrito possesses.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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