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keep the sleepers in the upper storey warm. Woven grass mats are used as mattresses. The only other form of furniture is a square stool made of pieces of bamboo lashed together with fibre. A noteworthy feature is the use of plaited grass funnels for filling pots with water or beer. Baskets woven with strips of bark or cane are used as receptacles for beer during the process of maturing. They are two or three feet in height, and are reinforced by four pieces of bamboo palm which serve as legs. They are rendered watertight by being smeared inside with the ashes of the fruit of the Gardenia ternifolia tree. Similar baskets woven from the bark of bamboo-palm are used as granaries, being set on a platform which raises them two or three feet from the ground.
The legs of the platform consist of two pieces of wood, one resting on the other. The upper piece is bamboo-palm, the smooth surface of which prevents rats from climbing up into the granary. The platform is covered with matting, and the basket which stands on it is protected from rain by a covering made of woven strips of palm-branch. There is usually also an additional outer covering consisting of pieces of palm-branch split in half and set vertically, each piece fitting closely to the other. The basket is reinforced at the base and rim with a band of grass several inches thick. It is protected at the top with a cap of thatch.
A compound consists usually of two or three huts surrounded or connected by fencing made of woven reeds or cane. Granaries as described are scattered about the compound, and there may be one or two stone pens for chickens or goats. Wooden troughs, cut out of a solid tree-trunk, are used for watering the domestic animals. All the compounds are well drained by trenches, and many contain groves of banana trees.
Two or three compounds standing close together form the hamlet of the smaller family group. More remote relatives, and other unrelated sections of the village or local group, may occupy sites as much as a mile away. In former times, however, the various families lived cheek by jowl close to the grove, into which they would fly when threatened by more powerful enemies. The trees of these groves are never cut, and where a grove is seen on high ground it is a certain sign that there is a village in the vicinity.
Most of the gullies contain trees, and every gully which has bamboo-palms is owned by some family group. In each village
Plate 59
on R 2 granaries[115] 