Building a House
Foundations
The terrai of Nepal was so close to flat that wheel-ruts seemed major features of the landscape. Although the Himal’s snow-peaks hung just to the north on the rain-cleared horizon, the soil was pure, yellow clay and if riverbed erosion exposed a rare, fist-sized stone, it would be snatched up by some wandering boy on cow duty or bajaar-bound villager who might be seen coming home at day’s end with it balanced on his or her head, exclaiming happily, “Dekku, I can sharpen my knife with this!”
When monsoon came, the land flowed with water that was lazy about seeking its way to the sea. If no forethought were given, this water would creep into a house. So the first step in building was to make an elevated mound of earth, usually no more than a foot high, to create natural drainage and raise everything above the flood. Cow byres, usually thatched roofs with flimsy walls, did not require so much forethought. The cows would remedy the oversight with the heap of their dung, which made sleeping more comfortable on the stormiest nights, given the degree to which the nature of cattle is fastidious.
Lipnu–a coat of liquid clay mixed with dung, applied with a bunch of straw, served as smoothing somewhere between paint and plaster. Qualities of fibre and protein in the manure gave strength to the surface after drying, diminishing dust without impeding its absorptive qualities. Though the surface was soft, it was easily renewed and nearly self-cleaning of spills.
Rich Rathbun had trained as an architect, so he was approached by Mr. Shahi, one of our former language instructors, near to whose home Rich chanced to be stationed. Shahiji wanted to build himself a house with modern features, if Rich would draw up the plans for him. As Rathbun explained, the plans never got drawn because materials were limited to what could be produced locally and, even then, what the customer wanted was pretty much what a traditional house could offer best. When Rich suggested ceramic tile flooring, Shahiji objected, pointing out that little children without diapers would inevitably create messes of one sort and another, which were easily cleaned on a clay floor, to lipne being quick and easy.
These raised foundation mounds were perfect in the eyes of other inhabitants of the terrai, as well. Tunneling rats and shrews found them convenient places to live, handy to food and resistant to flooding. For this reason, chairs were not welcome in homes. Sitting on the floor was more convenient as the leg of a chair would often enough poke through into a tunnel, tipping the sitter and opening a hard-to-fill hole in the floor. Even the fat-legged beds sometimes went down on one corner in homes old enough to have been completely mined by musa. It was one reason to tear a house down and dig the foundation back to grade.
Walls
The occasional pakkah makkaan or brick house did exist, but not in Govindapur–not much in other villages of the panchhayat, either. The typical building had walls of woven bamboo lath, tied to a timber frame and plastered (lipne-ed) smooth. Simply by leaving a rectangle un-plastered, usually up under the protection of the eaves, a barred window could be created.
Bas, timber-bamboo, twenty feet tall and six inches across the base, was grown as a casual crop by those lucky enough to have a piece of land which could be spared from food production. Of course, the shoots could be dug and eaten, but it was an expensive treat. Bas was established by transplanting rooted shoots or laying green culms of bamboo in trenches–they would sprout from the joints, producing a thick grove in just a few years. These were good places to dump the carcasses of dead cattle. Each stalk would eventually reach its ultimate height in proportion to the thickness of the shoot when it first broke ground. A new grove produced pencil-thin stalks, a couple of feet tall, which could be gathered and stripped to make woven fencing. Leaves went to the cattle. There was a natural life-span of several years to each stalk, and on the occasion when I cut an immature bamboo, much head shaking and tisk-ing followed. Pandit took his kukhri and began splitting the hollow stalk to get long shafts, almost an inch square, then split those nearly paper thin to get strips suitable for weaving mats. All this despite my protests that I had other notions and in complete indifference to the fact that I had paid nine rupees for the bamboo. My plans were clearly unworkable and not worthy of consideration–very probably a fair estimate, though I didn’t care for it at the time. To get seasoned material for a long-lasting wall, bamboo must be cut at full maturity, when the wood is at its hardest, driest and most dense. A more educated eye than mine was called for in identifying the readiness of a stalk.
Split lengthwise again and again to inch-and-a-half widths, the strips of bamboo would be woven in house-sized mats, each splintery line of warp being hammered down with wooden bats. Tree-trunks of six-inch thickness would be cut and stood upright in the earth to anchor the wall mats. In the center if each end-wall a stouter roof-tree would be erected to support the main beam. The woven mats were then tied to these upright timbers and coated with clay into which some chopped straw and gobar, or cow manure, was mixed. Though the compound was vulnerable to rain, it was durable enough and easily repaired at little expense.
Burglars could enter a house by tunneling under a house wall through the clay mound on which a house stood. Just ask me how I know.
Roof
A heavy trunk would be heaved up to lay across the two vertical uprights. Natural crotches were made use of where possible and the length of a house could be extended by standing another tree-trunk in the middle, where two horizontal trunks met. However, few homes in my area aspired to anything larger. Even compounds housing extended families of considerable importance were made up of several adjacent buildings rather than go to a second story, though that was not unknown in other, more prosperous villages where more wood or the money to buy it was available.
Saplings laid as stringers ran from peak to eaves and across these, either laths of single bamboo strips would be tied or, less commonly, another of the woven lattices which had gone to make the walls. To this lath-work, pottery tiles would be cemented with more clay on the most prosperous homes. Most commonly, bundles of straw would be lashed with cord a quarter of an inch thick which everyone could produce by rubbing his palms together on anything from jute to hay–everyone but me, that is. A certain variety of tall grass was the rope-stuff preferred for strength, economy and durability.
The eaves of the house would be brought out to protect the edge of the raised foundation and the exterior walls. Such would be the force of the rain that any part of the building exposed could be expected to wash away. Though the overall impression was of rectangular construction, not a straight line, right angle or flat surface existed in the entire architecture of the panchayat.
A roof of straw would last perhaps five years, before the rains, wind and nesting sparrows caused it to need total replacement. Autumn was the time for such activity as labor and straw were both available after harvest.
Ornamentation
Painted figures as stylized as Eskimo carvings or African masks were common on house walls. Animals, people, flowers–all were held to represent the gods, but may well have antedated them. (Sunanda Sahay has created the Colors of India website to showcase her paintings in the traditional Madhubani-style described here. I highly recommend you take a look. Several years ago I visited a friend who lived in New Jersey. To entertain his hayseed visitor, he drove us over to Manhattan to see the bright lights and tall buildings. Parking there is such that when you see a vacancy by any curb, you take it, never minding that you will have to take a bus, the subway, transfer to another line and walk ten blocks to where you really want to arrive. If you do not believe in the gods, then, by chance, we parked right outside an archaeological museum which featured relics recently dug from an abandoned city in what is now Pakistan.
The builders of this city planned spaciously and well, building not in mud and thatch but in heavy stone, paving their ways and directing running water to all buildings. Their contemporaries were the first pyramid builders of Old Kingdom Egypt, over four thousand years ago. Centuries has broken on their fortifications before they were finally buried by the drift of time.
In glass cases lay the objects of everyday life, as they lived it–pots, plates, tools, knives, necklaces–all the gear, tackle and trim called forth to support civilized life. And I recognized every item of it. A citizen of this four-thousand year-old city could have been taken up and dropped magically in the Dhanukha panchayat of my acquaintance without causing him to blink. Perhaps he might have wondered at the steel rod used to tip a plow, but bowls were made of the same clay, in the same shape, decorated with the same designs and fired in the same manner now as then. The meaning of the term, cultural conservativism, had not come to me in a meaningful way before.
Adding wonder to the feat, the people who had built that ancient city had long since been overcome and replaced by invaders of different ethnic and linguistic roots. And yet the culture had been continuous, recognizable after four millennia, on the other side of the earth, by someone who had once passed through the neighborhood.
The terrai of Nepal was so close to flat that wheel-ruts seemed major features of the landscape. Although the Himal’s snow-peaks hung just to the north on the rain-cleared horizon, the soil was pure, yellow clay and if riverbed erosion exposed a rare, fist-sized stone, it would be snatched up by some wandering boy on cow duty or bajaar-bound villager who might be seen coming home at day’s end with it balanced on his or her head, exclaiming happily, “Dekku, I can sharpen my knife with this!”
When monsoon came, the land flowed with water that was lazy about seeking its way to the sea. If no forethought were given, this water would creep into a house. So the first step in building was to make an elevated mound of earth, usually no more than a foot high, to create natural drainage and raise everything above the flood. Cow byres, usually thatched roofs with flimsy walls, did not require so much forethought. The cows would remedy the oversight with the heap of their dung, which made sleeping more comfortable on the stormiest nights, given the degree to which the nature of cattle is fastidious.
Lipnu–a coat of liquid clay mixed with dung, applied with a bunch of straw, served as smoothing somewhere between paint and plaster. Qualities of fibre and protein in the manure gave strength to the surface after drying, diminishing dust without impeding its absorptive qualities. Though the surface was soft, it was easily renewed and nearly self-cleaning of spills.
Rich Rathbun had trained as an architect, so he was approached by Mr. Shahi, one of our former language instructors, near to whose home Rich chanced to be stationed. Shahiji wanted to build himself a house with modern features, if Rich would draw up the plans for him. As Rathbun explained, the plans never got drawn because materials were limited to what could be produced locally and, even then, what the customer wanted was pretty much what a traditional house could offer best. When Rich suggested ceramic tile flooring, Shahiji objected, pointing out that little children without diapers would inevitably create messes of one sort and another, which were easily cleaned on a clay floor, to lipne being quick and easy.
These raised foundation mounds were perfect in the eyes of other inhabitants of the terrai, as well. Tunneling rats and shrews found them convenient places to live, handy to food and resistant to flooding. For this reason, chairs were not welcome in homes. Sitting on the floor was more convenient as the leg of a chair would often enough poke through into a tunnel, tipping the sitter and opening a hard-to-fill hole in the floor. Even the fat-legged beds sometimes went down on one corner in homes old enough to have been completely mined by musa. It was one reason to tear a house down and dig the foundation back to grade.
Walls
The occasional pakkah makkaan or brick house did exist, but not in Govindapur–not much in other villages of the panchhayat, either. The typical building had walls of woven bamboo lath, tied to a timber frame and plastered (lipne-ed) smooth. Simply by leaving a rectangle un-plastered, usually up under the protection of the eaves, a barred window could be created.
Bas, timber-bamboo, twenty feet tall and six inches across the base, was grown as a casual crop by those lucky enough to have a piece of land which could be spared from food production. Of course, the shoots could be dug and eaten, but it was an expensive treat. Bas was established by transplanting rooted shoots or laying green culms of bamboo in trenches–they would sprout from the joints, producing a thick grove in just a few years. These were good places to dump the carcasses of dead cattle. Each stalk would eventually reach its ultimate height in proportion to the thickness of the shoot when it first broke ground. A new grove produced pencil-thin stalks, a couple of feet tall, which could be gathered and stripped to make woven fencing. Leaves went to the cattle. There was a natural life-span of several years to each stalk, and on the occasion when I cut an immature bamboo, much head shaking and tisk-ing followed. Pandit took his kukhri and began splitting the hollow stalk to get long shafts, almost an inch square, then split those nearly paper thin to get strips suitable for weaving mats. All this despite my protests that I had other notions and in complete indifference to the fact that I had paid nine rupees for the bamboo. My plans were clearly unworkable and not worthy of consideration–very probably a fair estimate, though I didn’t care for it at the time. To get seasoned material for a long-lasting wall, bamboo must be cut at full maturity, when the wood is at its hardest, driest and most dense. A more educated eye than mine was called for in identifying the readiness of a stalk.
Split lengthwise again and again to inch-and-a-half widths, the strips of bamboo would be woven in house-sized mats, each splintery line of warp being hammered down with wooden bats. Tree-trunks of six-inch thickness would be cut and stood upright in the earth to anchor the wall mats. In the center if each end-wall a stouter roof-tree would be erected to support the main beam. The woven mats were then tied to these upright timbers and coated with clay into which some chopped straw and gobar, or cow manure, was mixed. Though the compound was vulnerable to rain, it was durable enough and easily repaired at little expense.
Burglars could enter a house by tunneling under a house wall through the clay mound on which a house stood. Just ask me how I know.
Roof
A heavy trunk would be heaved up to lay across the two vertical uprights. Natural crotches were made use of where possible and the length of a house could be extended by standing another tree-trunk in the middle, where two horizontal trunks met. However, few homes in my area aspired to anything larger. Even compounds housing extended families of considerable importance were made up of several adjacent buildings rather than go to a second story, though that was not unknown in other, more prosperous villages where more wood or the money to buy it was available.
Saplings laid as stringers ran from peak to eaves and across these, either laths of single bamboo strips would be tied or, less commonly, another of the woven lattices which had gone to make the walls. To this lath-work, pottery tiles would be cemented with more clay on the most prosperous homes. Most commonly, bundles of straw would be lashed with cord a quarter of an inch thick which everyone could produce by rubbing his palms together on anything from jute to hay–everyone but me, that is. A certain variety of tall grass was the rope-stuff preferred for strength, economy and durability.
The eaves of the house would be brought out to protect the edge of the raised foundation and the exterior walls. Such would be the force of the rain that any part of the building exposed could be expected to wash away. Though the overall impression was of rectangular construction, not a straight line, right angle or flat surface existed in the entire architecture of the panchayat.
A roof of straw would last perhaps five years, before the rains, wind and nesting sparrows caused it to need total replacement. Autumn was the time for such activity as labor and straw were both available after harvest.
Ornamentation
Painted figures as stylized as Eskimo carvings or African masks were common on house walls. Animals, people, flowers–all were held to represent the gods, but may well have antedated them. (Sunanda Sahay has created the Colors of India website to showcase her paintings in the traditional Madhubani-style described here. I highly recommend you take a look. Several years ago I visited a friend who lived in New Jersey. To entertain his hayseed visitor, he drove us over to Manhattan to see the bright lights and tall buildings. Parking there is such that when you see a vacancy by any curb, you take it, never minding that you will have to take a bus, the subway, transfer to another line and walk ten blocks to where you really want to arrive. If you do not believe in the gods, then, by chance, we parked right outside an archaeological museum which featured relics recently dug from an abandoned city in what is now Pakistan.
The builders of this city planned spaciously and well, building not in mud and thatch but in heavy stone, paving their ways and directing running water to all buildings. Their contemporaries were the first pyramid builders of Old Kingdom Egypt, over four thousand years ago. Centuries has broken on their fortifications before they were finally buried by the drift of time.
In glass cases lay the objects of everyday life, as they lived it–pots, plates, tools, knives, necklaces–all the gear, tackle and trim called forth to support civilized life. And I recognized every item of it. A citizen of this four-thousand year-old city could have been taken up and dropped magically in the Dhanukha panchayat of my acquaintance without causing him to blink. Perhaps he might have wondered at the steel rod used to tip a plow, but bowls were made of the same clay, in the same shape, decorated with the same designs and fired in the same manner now as then. The meaning of the term, cultural conservativism, had not come to me in a meaningful way before.
Adding wonder to the feat, the people who had built that ancient city had long since been overcome and replaced by invaders of different ethnic and linguistic roots. And yet the culture had been continuous, recognizable after four millennia, on the other side of the earth, by someone who had once passed through the neighborhood.