Keraki - Settlements

The semipermanent villages are usually located in or on the edge of a forest area, on high ground. The village itself is a clearing, planted with coconut palms, with houses irregularly scattered about. Gardens ring the village, and decorative plants and flowers grow within. Houses are of several types. The mongo-viví, or "proper" house, is a long, oblong building with a ridged roof, stamped and hardened clay floor, and semicircular verandas on either end. A good-sized house is about 9 meters long, 3.6 meters wide, and 2.4 meters high, although dimensions vary considerably. These houses are used primarily for food storage, especially for yams. Typically, Villages also contain a number of shelters, called gua-mongo, under which Keraki spread their mats. These shelters are Simple open-sided structures consisting of four poles supporting a ridged roof. In contrast to the semipermanent villages, the temporary villages—which might be used as dry-season settlements, headquarters for large hunting parties, or other temporary encampments—usually contain only haphazard, roughly built houses, shelters, and lean-tos, with little attempt made to clear the brush.