Title:

Mentawai Indigenous People of Siberut, Sumatra, Indonesia.

Caption:

Sago or Nipa palm frond are woven with rattan lines over a trimmed bamboo frame. Dozens of layers will then be piled atop each other to form a thatch roof that will provide excellent shelter against the sun and rain for 20 years. Weaving a good thatch roof is time consuming, but it costs nothing. In the government-run villages, zinc roofs, more modern and less labor-intensive, are slowly replacing thatch the they are no improvement. The loud clatter of rain on metal preempt conversation and they rust and deteriorate quickly; on sunny days, they transform the houses into uninhabitable saunas.