two done up in native
cloth on the same shelf in the centre of the house, a basket, a fan or
two, and a bamboo knife stuck into the thatch within reach, a
fishing-net, a club, and some spears strung up along the rafters, a
few paddles, and a few cocoa-nut shell water-bottles, were about all
the things in the shape of furniture or property to be seen in looking
into a Samoan house. The fire-place was about the middle of the house.
It was merely a circular hollow, two or three feet in diameter, a few
inches deep, and lined with hardened clay. It was not used for
cooking, but for the purpose of lighting up the house at night. A
_flaming fire_, as we have already remarked (p. 75), was the regular
evening offering to the gods, as the family bowed the head, and the
fathers prayed for prosperity from the "gods great and small." The
women collected during the day a supply of dried cocoa-nut leaves,
etc., which, with a little management, kept up a continued blaze in
the evening, while the assembled family group had their supper and
prayer, and sat together chatting for an hour or two afterwards.

But about _house-building_: it was a distinct trade in Samoa; and
perhaps, on an average, you might find one among every three hundred
men who was a master carpenter. Whenever this person went to work he
had in his train some ten or twelve, who followed him, some as
journeymen, who expected payment from him, and others as apprentices,
who were principally anxious to learn the trade. When a young man took
a fancy to the trade he had only to go and attach himself to the staff
of some master carpenter, follow him from place to place for a few
years, until he thought he could take the lead in building a house
himself; and whenever he could point to a house which he had built,
that set him up as a professed carpenter, and he would from that time
be employed by others.

If a person wished a house built, he went with a fine mat, worth in
modern cash value 20s. or 30s. He told the carpenter what he wanted,
and presented him with the mat as a pledge that he should be well paid
for his work. If he accepted the mat, that was a pledge that he
undertook the job. Nothing was stipulated as to the cost; that was
left entirely to the honour of the employing party. At an appointed
time the carpenter came with his staff of helpers and learners. Even
now their only tools are a felling-axe, a hatchet, and a small adze;
and there they sit, chop, chop, cho