FOR STAMP COLLECTORS

Evening Star, Issue 22465, 9 October 1936, Page 2

FOR STAMP COLLECTORS

[By Philatelist.] Continuing Mr A. E. Gould’s article on ‘ Native Homes on Stamps ’ we road:—Many of the natives of Mexico and Peru live in stone buildings, as some of the new stamps of Mexico show. These stone buildings are linked with the early culture of this part of America, for here only was architecture developed in masonry, though neither country had any knowledge of the arch; but their buildings were massive, apd height was gained by platforms and mounds.

New Zealand’s 1935 issue gives us a wonderful picture of a village meeting house or whare built by the Maoris. The stamp clearly shows the beautifully carved pillars. The carving is elaborate and chiefly shows the faces and figures of the old Maori gods and heroes. In such whares as this the chief and his headmen met in council to settle village affairs. The Maori pa, or village, clustered round the whare. The pa was actually a fortified village. Papuan stamps show us some interesting native homes. The 2s 6d stamp of 1932 shows a typical Papuan house built on cut poles with roof of palm thatch. In front of most Papuan houses is a platform where the people live for the greater part of the day, when not out fishing or working. The £1 stamp depicts a delta house of the type built in or near the water. They are erected on rough piles and are frequently entered by means of a ladder or notched pole. The tree houses on the lid stamp were not actual homes, but were only used as refuges in times of strife with neighbouring tribes. Supplies of stones were kept ready stored m the refuge, so that when its occupants had gone aloft they had only to pull the ladder up after them and were then in a position to withstand a siege while raining the store of missiles on the foe.

We must not omit the interesting portable dwellings seen on some of the stamps of North Mongolia. They are well suited to the needs of the wandering Mongols. When moving to new grazing grounds the yurts are dismantled and packed on the backs of yaks or oxen. Their construction is simple. Upon a framework of wooden poles large pieces of heavy felt are stretched and another is hung over the doorway. A circular frame at the top permits a hole to be left in the felt sheathing, through which the smoke of the yak dung fire within may escape. The inside of the yurt is frequently carpeted and hung with embroidered cloths, making a comfortable home highly adaptable to the severe climate of the steppes. The women make the felt with which the yurt is made by spreading clean fluffed yak’s wool on matting moistened and rolled into a cylinder. The whole is hitched to a yak and dragged up and down the valley for miles. The cylinders are then opened, the wool and matting separated, and the wool again rolled by the women until the felt is of the desired thickness. So much for the ingenuity of man—-or woman. The Mongolian tent seen on the 4 k. stamp of North Mongolia’s 1927 issue is made of skins stretched on wooden poles, though the poles are often hard to obtain in this treeless region. This short article is by no mean exhaustive, for it has only been possible to deal with a few of the “ World’s Homes ” shown on stamps, but it may serve to show how interesting a subject collection of “homes” may be if the needful information for “ writing up ” can be found, and demonstrates how man must have some kind of shelter, and builds with whatever Nature gives him.