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houses and house carvings |
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Like many Ao villages Chungtia is built on a steep hillside and, although the front doors are on a level with the ground, the houses are raised on bamboo stilts with verandahs jutting out at the back high above the ground. The houses (7) themselves with steeply sloping roofs are made mainly of bamboo and palm leaf thatch, but the house of a rich man who has given Feasts of Merit has a wooden post in the front carved with hornbills, breasts, heads, tigers and bulls' horns. The floors are made of strongly woven bamboo slats. Inside the front door is a small ante-room, containing a boat-shaped paddy husker. The large main room adjoins it and in the centre is the fireplace, made of beaten earth laid on the bamboo slats. As one might guess, fires are extremely common in Ao villages and some are burnt down year after year. Bamboo cups, gourds, baskets and implements are strung up over the hearth, and the smoke coats them all with a black gloss as it finds its way out through the roof and doors. |
