fig. 1. Traditional Carib structure, used as a meetinghouse, with vertical and diagonal picket walls, Carib Territory, Dominica. Photograph by author. Carib houses were similarly permeable (e.g. see fig. 1). The Eastern Caribbean and South American ajoupa was essentially an elevated bohio standing several centimetres off the ground on poles at each corner (e.g. see fig 2). While the practical consideration of an elevated house would have immediately made sense to Spaniards, as this would keep the floor dry in torrential Caribbean rains, another advantage of this elevation
would be revealed later. The stilted house allowed the circulation of air beneath the structure, cooling it from below as its porous walls and thatched roof did from above. Amerindian hammocks functioned in much the same way, suspending and thereby cooling the sleeper in mid-air within a porous membrane. Thus the ajoupa and hammock were part of a tropical Amerindian architectural aesthetic that allowed interiors to ‘breathe’ naturally. The thatched roofing of Amerindian houses, while
fig. 2. Traditional ajoupa construction with floors elevated on wooden posts, Pakuri Arawak Territory, Guyana. Photographs by Damon G. Corrie.
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