ARTS AND MANUFACTURES
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many minute rules to be followed in the work. Very fewhouses had any windows, and the doors were low andnarrow. Some of the chiefs’ houses were from forty toseventy feet long and twenty feet wide. They were notas elaborately ornamented as in some other groups. Thoseof the lower class were mere hovels, ten feet long by sixfeet wide, and four feet high, and were entered by a smallhole in the side.
Furniture. —Their furniture consisted chiefly of cal- -abashes for water, poi, and valuables, wooden dishes, andstone utensils of various kinds, fish-baskets, and mats.The large gourd (Cucurbita maxima) was not known inany other group in the Pacific. The bottle-gourd (Lage-naria vulgaris) was used for water-containers and for huladrums. With their stone adzes they made circular dishesof koa and kou wood, holding from a pint to five gallons,as neatly as if they had been turned in a lathe.*
Mats . —The common floor-mats, made by the women,were formed of the leaves of the pandanus or hala tree.Generally a platform or hikiee, raised two or three feetabove the floor, extended across one end of the house.This was spread with a layer of rushes, and covered withsleeping-mats. A superior quality of mats was made onKauai and Mihau of a fine rush called makaloa. Thesemats were of great size and dyed in various patterns.
Lights. — For lights at night they used the nuts of thekukui tree (Aleurites moluccana). These were baked inan oven and shelled, after which the kernels were strungon a split of bamboo or the thin stock of a cocoanut-leaf,and used as candles, beginning at the top. Each nutwould burn about four minutes, when the one below it