I have seen two hip roofs here in the middle of the coast of Maine with these short tie beams for the rafters to land on.
As for ethnic origin it could be German and called a stichbalken. Look at the illustration here:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkenlage#StichbalkenStub-tie is a good name for them.
I have been researching historic framing in Europe and I have found that framing techniques are shared by many continental European countries so it is often impossible to pin down an ethic origin to one country. for example similar stub-ties in Dutch are called "blokkeel" and in French "blochet".
In cruck framing a stub-tie like this is a "cruck spur".
Nice series of photos. Thanks
Jim
