NOTES AND QUERIES
199
tide and is reached by a single bamboo ladder. The verandah is railed, and is sometimes covered and sometimes not. The shed stands on five pairs of piles, the front two of bamboo and the other three of local granite. The roof is pitched and normal save that it is covered with palm leaves and not with tiles. The hut itself is made entirely of wood.
It will be seen from the plan that the main part of the shed has three partitions to provide four rooms, each of which has a door and two windows, one at each side of the room. The kitchen is on the right-hand side of the first room leading off the verandah with a hearth, fuel beside it, and an altar to To Tei (1), the earth god and to Tso Kwan, (#) the kitchen god. [The notebook does not say of which material the hearth was, but it was presumably of brick or stone in a wooden dwelling.] The next room was apparently used as a bedroom by the master [and presumably mistress] of the house; the third was given over to the ancestral altar, that, like the kitchen altar, was set against the east wall; whilst the fourth and last room was used by a married son and his wife. Inspection of neighbouring sheds also shows the cooking place and ancestral altar on the east side.
On the day of the visit it happened that a new shed was being built nearby. See Fig. 2. [The structure was new though it could have been a reconstruction on old piles.] It was rather smaller than the one just described, measuring 7′ 6′′ wide and 18′ 6′′ deep with a 'round roof' (sic). There was also a verandah-to-be, not yet constructed. From this verandah a door led into one large room. This had a side door onto an open platform that ran outside and along the full depth of the main structure. Beyond the main room was a second, smaller one, with a window opening onto the open platform. There were three pairs of stone piles for the main structure. Again it appears that the cooking was to be carried out on the east side, but this time on the open platform.
The structure was entirely built of wood, with bamboo slats supporting the roof. The roof beam was already in position and from the centre hung over and down from it a red cloth with a single "cash" or Chinese copper coin at each corner, put over it and pinned. In addition two oranges hung over it at one edge.
NOTES AND QUERIES
199
tide and is reached by a single bamboo ladder. The verandah is railed, and is sometimes covered and sometimes not. The shed stands on five pairs of piles, the front two of bamboo and the other three of local granite. The roof is pitched and normal save that it is covered with palm leaves and not with tiles. The hut itself is made entirely of wood.
It will be seen from the plan that the main part of the shed has three partitions to provide four rooms, each of which has a door and two windows, one at each side of the room. The kitchen is on the right hand side of the first room leading off the verandah with a hearth, fuel beside it, and an altar to To Tei (1), the earth god and to Tso Kwan, (#) the kitchen god. [The notebook does not say of which material the hearth was, but it was presumably of brick or stone in a wooden dwelling.] The next room was apparently used as a bedroom by the master [and presumably mistress] of the house; the third was given over to the ancestral altar, that, like the kitchen altar, was set against the east wall; whilst the fourth and last room was used by a married son and his wife. Inspection of neighbouring sheds also shows the cooking place and ancestral altar on the east side.
On the day of the visit it happened that a new shed was being built nearby. See Fig. 2. [The structure was new though it could have been a reconstruction on old piles.] It was rather smaller than the one just described, measuring 7′ 6′′ wide and 18′ 6′′ deep with a 'round roof' (sic). There was also a verandah-to-be, not yet constructed. From this verandah a door led into one large room. This had a side door onto an open platform that ran outside and along the full depth of the main structure. Beyond the main room was a second, smaller one, with a window opening onto the open platform. There were three pairs of stone piles for the main structure. Again it appears that the cooking was to be carried out on the east side, but this time on the open platform.
The structure was entirely built of wood, with bamboo slats supporting the roof. The roof beam was already in position and from the centre hung over and down from it a red cloth with a single "cash" or Chinese copper coin at each corner, put over it and pinned. In addition two oranges hung over it at one edge.
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