Tapa cloth

For other uses, seeTapa.

Wedding Tapa, 19th century, from the collection of Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Tapa cloth(or simplytapa) is abarkclothmade in the islands of thePacific Ocean,primarily inTonga,SamoaandFiji,but as far afield asNiue,Cook Islands,Futuna,Solomon Islands,Java,New Zealand,Vanuatu,Papua New GuineaandHawaii(where it is calledkapa). InFrench Polynesiait has nearly disappeared, except for some villages in theMarquesas.

General

See also:Barkcloth § Austronesia

This tapa cloth was made in Papua New Guinea. Tapa can be made from the inner bark of paper mulberry or breadfruit trees.

The wordtapais fromTahitiand theCook Islands,whereCaptain Cookwas the first European to collect it and introduce it to the rest of the world.The cloth is also known by a number of local names, although the termtapais international and understood throughout the islands that use the cloth. In Tonga, the same cloth is known asngatu,and here it is of great social importance to the islanders, often being given as gifts.In Samoa, it is calledsiapo,and in Niue it ishiapo.In Hawaiʻi, it is known askapa.InRotuma,a Polynesian island part ofFiji,it is calledʻuhaand in other Fijian islands it is calledmasi.In the Pitcairn islands it was called 'ahu,and inNew Zealandasaute.It is also known as tapia.

All these words give some clue to the origin.Masicould mean the (bark of the) dye-fig(Ficus tinctoria),endemic to Oceania, and probably the one originally used to make tapa. Somewhere in history, during the voyages of migration thehiapoorsiapowas introduced from SoutheastAsia,thepaper mulberrytree (Broussonetia papyrifera). The bark of this tree is much better to use, and put the use of the dye-fig into oblivion. Only its name remained in Fiji.Tapafinally has the meaning of border or strip. It seems likely that before the glueing process became common to make large sheets (see below) only narrow strips were produced.

Tapa can be decorated by rubbing, stamping, stencilling, smoking (Fijian:masi kuvui,"smoked barkcloth" ) or dyeing. The patterns of Tongan, Samoan, and Fijian tapa usually form a grid of squares, each of which contains geometric patterns with repeated motifs such as fish and plants, for example four stylised leaves forming a diagonal cross. Traditional dyes are usually black and rust-brown, although other colours are known.

In former times the cloth was primarily used for clothing, but now cotton and other textiles have replaced it. The major problem with tapa clothing is that the tissue loses its strength when wet and falls apart. However, it was better than grass-skirts, which usually are either heavier and harder or easily blown apart, but on the low coralatollswhere the mulberry does not grow, people had no choice. It is also labour-intensive to manufacture. Tapa cloth was made by both the men and women in ancient times. An example is the Hawaiian men, who also made their own weapons.

Nowadays tapa is often worn on formal occasions such as weddings. Another use is as a blanket at night or for room dividers. It is highly prized for its decorative value and is often found hung on walls as decoration. In Tonga a family is considered poor, no matter how much money they have, if they do not have any tapa in stock at home to donate at life events like marriages, funerals and so forth. If the tapa was donated to them by a chief or even the royal family, it is more valuable. It has been used in ceremonial masks in Papua New Guinea and the Cook Islands (Mangian masks). It was used to wrap sacred objects, e.g., "God staffs" in the Cook Islands.

In New Zealand, presumably earlyMāorisettlers created clothing from theBroussonetia papyriferatrees that were brought to the islands to be cultivated, however no archaeological evidence of this exists.The New Zealand climate was not suited to cultivate large amounts of tapa cloth, so early Māori adopted the use of harakeke (Phormium tenax,or New Zealand flax) instead.By the 1770s, the primary use of tapa cloth was to create a soft, white cloth used forfilletsor in ear piercings by high status men, however barkcloth textiles disappeared from use in the early 19th Century, coinciding with the tree's disappearance from New Zealand.

Fabrication

Stripping the bark from the trees inNomuka

The following describes the fabrication of Tapa cloth in Tonga, where it is still part of daily life.There may be small or large differences for other locations.

InTongahiapois the name given to the paper mulberry tree. It is not usually grown in whole plantations, but portions of a yam or other vegetable garden are often set aside for it.They are cut and brought home where the first task is to strip the bark from the trees. The strips are about hand wide and person long. The wood left-over is namedmokofute.The bark consists of two layers; the outer bark is scraped or split off from the inner bark. This work is calledhaʻalo.The outer bark is discarded; the inner bark, namedtutuorloututu,is left-over. It is dried in the sun before being soaked.

A break from beating the tapa inNukuʻalofa

After this, the bark is beaten on a woodentutuaanvil using wooden mallets calledike.In the beating the bark is made thinner and spread out to a width of about 25 cm (9.8 in). This phase of the work is calledtutu(ortutua). The mallets are flat on one side and have coarse and fine grooves on the other sides. First the coarse sides are used and, towards the end of the work, the flat side (tā-tuʻa).

The continuous "thonk" beats of the tapa mallet is a normal sound in Tongan villages.If several women work together they can make a concert out of it. In that case there might be one whotukipotu,beats the end of thetutuato set the rhythm.

Ready to rub the koka onto the fetaʻaki inʻEua

When the strips are thin enough, several are taken and beaten together into a large sheet. Some starch from thekumala,ormaniokemay be rubbed on places which are unwilling to stick. This part of the work is calledʻopoʻopo,the glue is calledtouand the resulting sheet of tapa is calledfetaʻaki.It then consists of two layers of strips in perpendicular direction, the upper one calledlauʻolungaand the lower onelaulalo.

A knife or sharp shell, namedmutu,is used to trim the edges, and the pieces fallen off in this process are calledpapanaki.When the white fetaʻaki is smoked brown, it is calledsala.

Often the women of a whole village work together on a huge sheet of tapa. A donation is made to the church or their chief at an important occasion. Such sheets are about 3 m (9.8 ft) wide and 15 or 30 m (49 or 98 ft), or sometimes even 60 m (200 ft) long. The 15 meter pieces are calledlaunima(meaning five-sheet, because the sheet is five squares), and the 30 m pieces are calledlautefuhi.

Ratzel(1896)described the fabrication of tapa as follows:

A circular cut is made with a shell in the bark above the root of the tree; the tree is broken off, and in a few days, when the stem is half-dry, the bark and bast are separated from it. The bast is then cleaned and macerated in water, after which it is beaten with the ribbed club on a wooden block. This beating enlivens a village in Tonga as threshing does in Europe. In half an hour the piece will have changed in shape from a strip almost to a square. The edges are snipped with shells, and a large number of the pieces are drawn separately over a semi-cylindrical wooden stamp, on which the pattern, worked in coco-fibre, is stretched and smeared with a fluid at once adhesive and colouring. On each a second and third layer is placed; and the piece, three layers thick, is coloured more strongly in the parts which are thrown into relief by the inequalities of the bed. Others are annexed to it both at the side and the end, until pieces a yard wide, and 20 to 25 yards long, are produced.

—Friedrich Ratzel,(1896)

Painting

Thefetaʻakiis almost always painted. It then becomesngatu,the Tongan word for the final product. The painting is done over the whole length, but only the central 2.5 metres (8 ft 2 in) in the width direction. On both sides there is an unpainted border of about 20 cm (7.9 in) wide, which is called thetapa(in Tonga). To paint it, the sheets are put over a huge wooden drum covered with stencils orkupesi(upetiin Samoa). These stencils are made from coconut front midribs (or any other sticks of a few millimeter thick) and made in the pattern which will be used. There are a handful of standardkupesidesigns, like the 'pine road' (the road from the palace to the royal cemetery), or the 'shield of Tonga', or the 'lion' (the king), or the 'dove' (the king as ruler), and more abstract figures like the 'Manulua' (two birds).

A Tongan woman accentuating thekupesidesign

The tapa sheet is put over the drum and the women rub with force a dabber with some brown paint (made from thekokatree(Bischofia javanica))over the sheet. This work is calledtataʻi.Where they rub over a rib of thekupesimore paint will stick to that position while very little will stick elsewhere. In this way the basic pattern is put on the sheet. Once a part is done, they lift up the sheet and proceed to the next strip and so forth. Only when the whole sheet has been preprocessed, it will be spread out on the ground andwith a brush (made fromPandanusseeds). The women will accentuate the faintly visible marks with some more generous paint, this time made from thetongo,the mangrove(Rhizophora mangle).Bothkokaandtongopaint are always brown, but the latter is much darker. Black is not used in Tonga, although it is characteristic for Fiji.

It is customary that during the paint process lines are drawn on thengatualong the width every 45 cm (18 in) or more. Thekupesitoo are made to the size that they will fit in the divisions thus made. Such a division is known aslangangaand they are numbered (on the blanktapa) from one to as many as needed for the whole length. When a smaller piece of ngatu is needed, the sheet is cut along alangangadivision. A 4 to 6langangapiece is calledfolaʻosi.An 8-piece isfātuua,while a 10langangapiece ofngatuis known astoka hongofulu.Less common are the doublefātuua,namedfātufāor double of that again, thefātuvalu.

These are the traditionalngatu,as evidenced by the extensive vocabulary used (still many more terms exist). Nowadays for the tourist trade other sizes and designs can be made as well.

Gallery

• Examples of Tapa Cloth
• 
  Siapo mamanu (tapa cloth), 1890s, Samoa (Te Papa, Wellington)
• 
  Kapa (tapa cloth), pre-1890, Hawaii (The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Massachusetts)
• 
  Masi (tapa cloth), 1800s, Fiji (Neiman Marcus Art Collection, Honolulu)

Notable tapa craftspeople

• Mauatua
• Teraura

See also

• Barkcloth
• I-sala,Fijian barkcloth headscarves
• Lacebark
• Lamba
• Lava-lava
• A catalogue of the different specimens of cloth collected in the three voyages of Captain Cook, to the Southern Hemisphere

General sources

• Pule, J and Thomas, N.Hiapo: past and present in Niuean BarkclothDunedin, University of Otago Press, 2005.
• Arkinstall, Patricia Lorraine, “A study of bark cloth from Hawaii, Samoa, Tonga and Fiji: An exploration of the regional development of distinctive styles of bark cloth and its relationship to other cultural factors”, Ithaca, N.Y., 1966.
• Brigham, William Tufts, “Ka hana kapa, making of bark-cloth in Hawaii”, Honolulu, Bishop Museum Press, 1911.
• ʻI.F. Helu;Critical essays: Cultural perspectives from the Southseas;1999
• Kaeppler, Adrienne Lois,“The fabrics of Hawaii (bark cloth)”, Leigh-on-Sea, F. Lewis, 1975.
• Leonard, Anne, and Terrell, John, "Patterns of Paradise: The styles and significance of bark cloth around the world", Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago USA, 1980.
• Neich, Roger and Pendergrast, Mick, "Pacific Tapa", University of Hawai'i Press, Honolulu, 1997.
• Winter, Joan G., "Talking Tapa: Pasifika Bark Cloth in Queensland", Keeaira Press, Southport QLD, 2009.
• Aldridge, Richard and Hamson, Michael, "Art of the Massim & Collingwood Bay", Michael Hamson, Palos Verdes, CA, 2009.
• Meyer, Anthony J. P., "Les Tapa funéraires des Nakanai de Nouvelle-Bretagne (The funerary tapa-cloths of the Nakanai from New Britain)", Series: Océanie-Oceania No. 11. ", Galerie Meyer, Paris 1992
• Kooijman, Simon, "Ornamented bark-cloth in Indonesia", Series: Mededelingen van het Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, Leiden, No. 16. Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1963.
• Meurant, Georges, and Thompson, Robert Farris, "Mbuti Design: Paintings by Pygmy Women of the Ituri Forest", Thames & Hudson, 1996.
• Wright, Margot, "Barkcloth: Aspects of Preparation, Use, Deterioration, Conservation and Display (Conservators of Ethnographic Artefacts)", Archetype Books, 2001.
• Richards, Rhys, "Not Quite Extinct: Melanesian Barkcloth ('Tapa') from Western Solomon Islands", Paremata Press, 2005.
• Goldman, Irving, "The Cubeo: Indians of the Northwest Amazon", University of Illinois Press, 1979.
• Arbeit, Wendy, "Tapa in Tonga", University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1995.

External links

• Bark Cloth − Then and Now,Quilters' Muse Virtual Museum
• Bark Cloth - Tapa - Mats,The History of Mankind - Ratzel
• Bark Cloth,Kew Gardenswebpage
• Fijian masi-making
• Tapa in Tonga,New Zealand Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs
• Tapa in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
• Tapa Clothasartistic media
• Tapa Samples from Oro Province—Papua New Guinea
• TAPA Unwrapping Polynesian Barkcloth,Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University