Chapter 21 
Page 136
Page 136
Truthfully, Jed realized, the welcome they received was the warmest he had ever experienced, anywhere. His first impression, though, looking up at what a Hollywood script writer would have termed 'wild jungle savages' lining the bank bordering the village was a forbidding experience. Nervously he smiled. They smiled back.
The question why outsiders were visiting Narangitti was never asked. Instead, a bevy of beauties, wearing only a colorful, short, wrap-around skirt, and intricate designs drawn, or tattooed, upon face and bare breasts, grabbed their packs, and led the way to the visitor's bohio.
This structure, about twenty feet square, was a platform, with thatched roof, that stood on posts six feet off the ground. Entrance was made on a tree trunk ladder that had chopped footsteps. The rest of the village consisted of similar shelters. The visitor's bohio differed by being slightly larger, and having a woven wall covering half of the space between floor and roof.
The girls started a fire on the platform in a box lined with rock and sand. There was no chimney. Smoke either drifted out the open side of the hut, or rose through the loose palm leaves of the woven ceiling. Jed wondered how the village had escaped the ravages of fire until he witnessed the difficulty of fanning a borrowed coal into a blaze. The moist air seemed to retard spontaneous combustion. He also realized that kindling a cooking flame by the vigorous use of an elaborately designed woven paddle was a true act of hospitality.
The clean floor, of woven palm leaves, was supported by springy poles acting as joists. Being that Jed wore boots, and weighed a 100 pounds more than his hosts, he was careful to cross to the sleeping area by spreading the load with a spraddled-legged walk. The beds were planks laboriously whip-sawed from ironwood. The furnishings consisted of hammocks slung from post to post, but Jenny opted for a "room" divided from the communal quarters by a low wall.
Wanting to sleep alone was, as explained to the rest of their "family," because Jed was a notorious snorer. And, unused to sleeping without a heavy blanket, they needed a wall to keep from rolling about at night and falling off the platform.
The question why outsiders were visiting Narangitti was never asked. Instead, a bevy of beauties, wearing only a colorful, short, wrap-around skirt, and intricate designs drawn, or tattooed, upon face and bare breasts, grabbed their packs, and led the way to the visitor's bohio.
This structure, about twenty feet square, was a platform, with thatched roof, that stood on posts six feet off the ground. Entrance was made on a tree trunk ladder that had chopped footsteps. The rest of the village consisted of similar shelters. The visitor's bohio differed by being slightly larger, and having a woven wall covering half of the space between floor and roof.
The girls started a fire on the platform in a box lined with rock and sand. There was no chimney. Smoke either drifted out the open side of the hut, or rose through the loose palm leaves of the woven ceiling. Jed wondered how the village had escaped the ravages of fire until he witnessed the difficulty of fanning a borrowed coal into a blaze. The moist air seemed to retard spontaneous combustion. He also realized that kindling a cooking flame by the vigorous use of an elaborately designed woven paddle was a true act of hospitality.
The clean floor, of woven palm leaves, was supported by springy poles acting as joists. Being that Jed wore boots, and weighed a 100 pounds more than his hosts, he was careful to cross to the sleeping area by spreading the load with a spraddled-legged walk. The beds were planks laboriously whip-sawed from ironwood. The furnishings consisted of hammocks slung from post to post, but Jenny opted for a "room" divided from the communal quarters by a low wall.
Wanting to sleep alone was, as explained to the rest of their "family," because Jed was a notorious snorer. And, unused to sleeping without a heavy blanket, they needed a wall to keep from rolling about at night and falling off the platform.
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