Shans at home . red to a thousand pieces of thatchare required. In a district where bamboos are plentiful, smallhouses cost from £6 to ;^io. This price includesthe cost of building, with the bamboos and a Shan builds his own house it costs him nothing,except the price he pays for the thatch. A bamboo house does not last more than threeyears; it is then pulled down and burned and anew one is built, so there are no very old ordirty houses. Sometimes the upright posts are madeof wood instead of bamboo, and they may last twelveor fourteen years; but the walls are more often matsthan plan
Shans at home . red to a thousand pieces of thatchare required. In a district where bamboos are plentiful, smallhouses cost from £6 to ;^io. This price includesthe cost of building, with the bamboos and a Shan builds his own house it costs him nothing,except the price he pays for the thatch. A bamboo house does not last more than threeyears; it is then pulled down and burned and anew one is built, so there are no very old ordirty houses. Sometimes the upright posts are madeof wood instead of bamboo, and they may last twelveor fourteen years; but the walls are more often matsthan planks of wood. A Shan monastery is a more substantial buildingthan an ordinary house. Each upright post is formed. out of the trunk of a large tree, and instead of thatchthe roofs are tiled. The house of a chief is—afterthe monastery and image house—the most imposingbuilding in the village, and is dignified by the nameof palace. When wood is required for the monas-tery or palace the village men and women go to. BUILDING A HOUSE 103 the jungle, and when the trees are cut down they tiestrong ropes round the trunks; then a row of peopleunite in pulling each fallen tree, which has beenlopped of its branches, to the village. For thisservice there is no payment; the people considerthat they are gaining some merit by working fortheir religion or for their chief Indeed, they seem toregard the work as a sort of picnic, and the logsare dragged along by a very merry set of people. In a Shan house, when the roof and mat walls arefinished, the doors may be made. There are nohinges, so a door revolves in sockets, or it maybe tied to the cross bamboo that forms the the latter case it lifts up, and is tied duringthe day to the roof inside, or it is supported on along stick. It is made of interlaced bamboos, madestrong with laths of wood. The key is of wood;it could be easily broken, but there are few burglarsin country districts, and little of value in anyhouse. When the owner of t
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