The main features of the structure of a Kayan long-house
have been described in Chapter IV. Here it remains only to describe
some of the more peculiar and important processes of construction.
The great piles that support the house may be floated down river
from the old house to be used in the construction of the new;
[64] they are not dug from the ground, but are felled by cutting
close to the surface of the ground. The great planks of the floor,
the main cross-beams, and the wooden shingles of the roof, are also
commonly carried from the old house to the new. If a house has been
partially destroyed by fire, no part of the materials of the old
house is used in the construction of the new; for it is felt that
in some indefinable way the use of the old material would render the
new house very liable to the same fate, as though the new house would
be infected by the materials with the ill-luck attaching to the old
house.[65] In such cases, or upon migration to a different river,
the whole of the timbers for the house have to be procured from the
jungle, and shaped, and erected; and the process of construction is
extremely laborious. But once the timber has been brought together
upon the chosen site, the building goes on rapidly, and the whole of a
house some hundreds of yards in length may be substantially completed
within a fortnight.
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