HOUSES
"What odd homes! toy houses toppling over from their stilts!" I
exclaimed, as we passed a remarkable village. All the buildings were
set up on poles, and had ladders for their dwellers to climb up to
the high doors. The houses looked as though the lower story had been
washed away, and only the second story remained. Over each window and
door projected a very neat eyebrow, so to speak, either to shed rain
or to keep out the sun.
"That is our famous nipa-thatch house used by the original Filipinos,"
said Moro. "I can explain all about it, for all Moros, and many
backward tribes, use these houses."
"Tell me everything," I urged.
"First," said Moro, "there is not one nail in a nipa-thatch
house. Perched high in the air on poles, as it is, you perhaps would
think our typhoons would blow it over, just like a light bandbox."
"So I would think," I replied.
"Well," laughed bright Moro, "let me ask you a question. What makes
a pole snap before the rush of a storm? What makes a brick wall give
way before a sudden wind? And why does a tree or a reed bear the
storm easily?"
"Because the tree and the reed are elastic enough to give a little,--to
bend instead of breaking," I answered.
"That is just it," again laughed my little Master Moro. "Our small nipa
hut, high in the air, sways a little, but rides out the storm. Every
pole, every beam, and every rafter of the frame, is all made of hollow
bamboo. Bamboo is stronger than steel, because it bends and gives,
and then springs back. There is no nail in the house. Every crosspiece
is tied with rattan, the same vine with which you make cane chairs;
so you know how strong and elastic it is."
"And of what are the sloping roofs and the side walls made?" I
inquired.
"Of the famous nipa palm," Moro replied. "It grows in swamps, often
near the sea. It looks like a gigantic fern. Its wide leaves we lap
one over another, and tie them to the bamboo frame by withes of tough
cogon grass."
"Are you not afraid of fire?" I asked.
Moro frankly said: "Yes, but as our house is so cheap, we can build a
new one easily. However, in this warm climate we cook in a separate
house, and we bathe out of doors. We do not smoke within our nipa
houses; it is too dangerous."
"Tell our friend from across the purple ocean how we use the bamboo
and the nipa plants, for other purposes besides building," remarked
little Fil.
Moro continued: "From the sap of the nipa palm, we distill
alcohol. From the hollow bamboo we make pipes for carrying water. We
boil the tender new shoots of bamboo, and eat them like celery. We
put a stopper into one joint of a hollowed bamboo, and use it for a
bottle. The pliant bamboo root we make into whips. We make bridges,
fences, window blinds, furniture, and carriages out of bamboo. We
even make blow guns and shoot our arrows at birds, through the
bamboo stalk."
"There are one hundred kinds of bamboo, and a thousand uses for the
plant," added Filippa.
"I should imagine that the bamboo is the skeleton or the framework,
and that the nipa is the skin of the Philippine structure," I remarked.
"That is the doctor's way of drawing a figure of speech," laughed
the Padre.