(the hosts) will be living in that village.  View platforms, from which the dancing can be watched, are built by all the people of the community.  These are built between the houses where possible, or at all events so as to obstruct the view from the houses as little as possible.  They are built on upright poles, and are generally between 12 and 20 feet high, each platform having a roof, which will probably be somewhat similar to the roofs of the houses.  Sometimes there are two platforms under one roof, but this is not usual.  Sometimes the platforms, instead of being on posts, are in trees, being, however, roofed like the others.  Two or more houses may join in making one platform for themselves and their friends.  All the above works are put in hand at an early stage.

The following are done later, perhaps not till after the sending out of the formal invitation (see below), but they may conveniently be dealt with here.  The people erect near to, but outside, the village in which the feast is to be held one or more sheds for the accommodation of the guests, the number of sheds depending upon the requirements of the case.  These are merely gable and ridge-shaped roofs, which descend on each side down to the ground, or very close to it, being supported by posts, and there being no flooring.  They are called olor’ eme, which means dancers’ houses.  Posts about 20 or 25 feet high and 12 inches or nearly so in diameter are erected in various places in the village enclosure, and each of these posts is surrounded with three, four, or five upright bamboo stems, which are bound to the post so as together to make a composite post of which the big one is the strong supporting centre.  The leaf branches of these bamboos, starting out from the nodes of the stems, are cut off 3 or 4 inches from their bases, thus leaving small pegs or hooks to which vegetables, etc., can be afterwards hung; and in the case of each post one only of its surrounding bamboos has the top branches and leaves left on.  Each household is responsible for the erection of one post.  I may here say in advance that upon these post clusters will be hung successively, yams and taro in the upper parts, human skulls and bones lower down, and croton leaves by way of decoration at the bottom.  The sugar-cane and banana and ine and malage are dealt with in another way.  There is a further erection of thin poles, which will be mentioned in its proper place.

About six months before the anticipated date of the big feast there is a preliminary festivity, which is regarded as a sort of intimation that the long-intended feast is shortly to take place.  To this festivity people of villages of any neighbouring communities, say within an hour or two’s walk, are invited.  There is no dancing, but there is a distribution among the guests of a portion of each of the vegetables and fruits which will be consumed at the feast, and a village pig is killed and cut up, and its parts are also distributed among the guests, who then return home.