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Updated: May 10, 2025
Rob picked out a place near a big fallen log, drove in two crotches a little higher than his head, and placed across them a long pole; then from the log to this ridge-pole they laid others, and thatched it all with pine boughs until they had quite a respectable house.
It was the mortuary ground of these Indians that occupied the only level spot we could get for the block-house. Their dead were buried in canoes, which rested in the crotches of forked sticks a few feet above-ground. The graveyard was not large, containing probably from forty to fifty canoes in a fair state of preservation.
Half the shelters for man and beast throughout the island are formed of cadjans, costing nothing but the making, and giving protection from the sun and a fair amount of security from the elements. The frame of a house is made of stakes planted in the ground, with rafters and beams resting in crotches conveniently left by the wood-cutter.
It was easy work, and Teddy liked it, only he soon got tired, and left his little basket half full for another day. But the other day was slow to arrive, and, meantime, the sly squirrels were hard at work, scampering up and down the old elm-trees stowing the nuts away till their holes were full, then all about the crotches of the boughs, to be removed at their leisure.
It was the mortuary ground of these Indians that occupied the only level spot we could get for the block-house. Their dead were buried in canoes, which rested in the crotches of forked sticks a few feet above-ground. The graveyard was not large, containing probably from forty to fifty canoes in a fair state of preservation.
Crotches, which means branches of equal or nearly equal size, emerging from a point at a very acute angle, should be prevented by cutting out one or both of them. The branching of a lateral at a larger angle does not form a crotch and it usually buttresses itself well on the larger branch. That is a desirable form of branching.
Placed over them at an elevation of about five feet was a delicate scaffold made of four posts, not larger than a willow rod. In the crotches of these poles were placed lateral rods of about the same thickness, and resting on these transversely were a number of still more delicate sticks. On the center of this frame was a small stone altar, from which issued the sacred fire.
The trees and underbrush are cut down during the dry season, so that they may be ready for burning before the arrival of the first rains. After the clearing, the field is fenced in so as to protect it from deer, wild pigs, and carabao. The rudest type of protection consists of a barricade of brush, strengthened with forked sticks, in the crotches of which poles are laid.
After a few hurried observations, in which he discovered, by the decaying fires before them several other shanties or tents among the trees, a few rods in front, Bart again slunk back to the spot he had just left, and was about to retrace his way to his companion, when a new thought occurred to him, and, moving up to the back of the shanty, which was formed by broad pieces of thick bark standing slantingly against a pole supported by crotches, and, placing his mouth to a crack, softly whispered the names of the captives, and turned his ear to the spot to catch the hoped-for response.
Andy set up some crotches and a cross-bar, to hang his kettles on, and with a cast-iron bake oven one of the kind like a flat, iron pot, in which, after it is stood upon a bed of hot coals, the bread is placed, and then the cast-iron cover is put on, and laden with hot coals began his experiments in cookery, for it was a new art to him.
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