Note 45 — WILLIAM ENDICOTT’S NARRATIVE

The bure or temple was the council chamber and town hall of the village. Strangers were entertained there and the head persons of the village often slept in it. As the best constructed building in the village it was elaborately decorated, the timbers and rafters being wrapped with sennit in various designs of red and black. Votive offerings such as clubs, huge rolls of sennit, whale’s teeth, strips of masi, a model of a temple made of sennit or parts of a victim slain in war, decorated the interior.