Stilt house is the house architecture of ethnic minority who live in mountainous area, craggy terrain. This kind of house is suitable with the steep terrain and muddy soil. Stilt house overcomes this drawback and become the residence of people, protects them from harsh nature, dangerous wild animals.
Nowadays, living on stilt house still is an unchanged habit of ethnic groups. Most of the family activities take place here: ancestor worship, welcoming guests, cooking, dining, weaving and embroidering clothes, even drying clothes…
Materials to build stilt house are very simple mostly are wood, bamboo and rattan mined in tropical forest. Though constructed from such simple materials, but stilt house is still very solid thanks reasonable proportion of wood frame. The roof of the stilt house often has a steep slope with the material is reed, thatch or yin-yang tile. Slope of roof helps rainwater drainage as fast as possible. The most important part of a stilt house is the kitchen. Not only be used for cooking, the kitchen is the palace to burning fire and keep the house become warm and dry, avoid the humid climate of the tropical area. The kitchen is put in the central of the stilt house where all the family members get together after a hard working day. Therefore, the kitchen has a very sacred meaning to each people. The dividing parts of the stilt house are very clear: the right part of the house is the place to put altar, welcoming guests and living space of the men, the part of women is in the left of the house. As Vietnamese conception, the right is more important, symbolize for strength and right things.
The stilt house has a narrow broadness, and a long length with from seven to nine lines of pillar. The stilt house normally has two stairs, the main one in the right and extra one in the left. With some ethnic group, the main stair is for the family members and male guests only, the female guests must go up by extra stair.
Stilt house is face to the terrace fields and airy space, the back is towards to the hills, mountains, or overgrown bushes. People believe that the mountain or hill face to the house will be the reason of the accidents or death for family members, overgrown bushes will make the cattle be killed…
Even having a simple structure, but stilt house is very secure to protect all the families. Stilt house harmonized with nature. Over all, Stilt house is the fruits of human creativity to adapt to nature. It is a part of architecture industry of humanity.
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