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commonly adopted in Biasca, Aquilino had taken advantage of the local resources (the
profusion of creeks around Jim Crow) and used a mud mortar,' Similar to the peasant-
style homes of his compatriots,*" and those which were being built by the Italian
speakers in Australia, Aquilino's house was evidence of the enormous variety of
techniques used and solutions sought in the building process. After his wife's arrival
from Ticino, he had added a second room to his home built from scrap bricks and
mbble. The cellar was later extended and a room (coined by the family the 'long room'
and used for dances and parties) buih upon h.** The floors of the house comprised
long logs covered with fifteen centimetres of dirt and stone over which were placed red
box planks. The interior walls were 46 centimetres thick with a fireplace in each room
and there was a timber shingle roof *^
The cellar, which was divided into three rooms, stored the family's dairy
products, meat, fmit, wdne and other food-stuffs produced on the farm. A large
Swiss-style bam, built from clay and stone wdth a gable roof, attic and cobblestone
floor, stabled the cattle during the winter months ~ a Swiss tradition maintained by the
family.*' A small stone dairy, the entrance of which was supported by tree tmnks and
which had foundations reaching several centimetres into the soil, was situated close to
the house. Both the bam and the dairy walls were inscribed with family names: on a
waU of the bam the name F. Tinetti and the date 1889 probably referred to the then
thirteen year old Ferdinando, and the name Kate on a wall of the dairy to his sister
Caterina (her name having been anglicised from an early age).*"* Into the thick,
coarsely stoned walls of the dairy, Chinese coins were also embedded ~ curios
probably found by Aquilino while mining** ~ their appearance in the stonework of
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