Bark-cloth Makers of the Pacific

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 136, 11 June 1938, Page 6 (Supplement)

Bark-cloth Makers of the Pacific

by Olwyn M. Rutherford

T; I; M a i »::-!■ ii wlni mmo wit ii : !i. b: m> i-cafaiiTs from the ii i'ii .nil accustomed tliein-ielve-f - i 'j ■:.■ !;ly l<l tiic new conditions of :i i I r.i ii'_!c l.i ml i!i<l tmt tii vwi\|. rlotln-i from flax Ixvniw they eiijiiycil t'i.' dilli.'tilt priM'i~-s, t,v

because they were following a new fashion. They were driven by necessity to meet the need for warm clothing, and in this land they eoiil<l nut uMain the material they had been used to in their former Pacific home*. On the voyajre they had liroiiuht with them the plant which had hitherto provided them with j;arnient* which were easily made anil attractive, and which were adequate protection in a warm climate. They planted it ih the new soil and did ell they could to strengthen its feeble L'lowth in this colder climate in which they soon realised it could never thrive. In tne warm Inlands of Polynesia, where tne plants grow luxuriantly with verv little care, the women still make tapa cloth in the same way as did their ancestresses and those of the Maori women hundreds of years ago. In epite of the fact that the

graceful and licaltliy native clothing has Wen replaced by factory-made garments and coloured prints, the ancient art o f tapa-iiiaking ha.-, not ili'.'d out. an<l the drumming of the wooden lii'rttvr.-* as the women work is ji familiar accompaniment to life in si>:n« native villages. How Tapa Is Made. Tlie wiiniiin wlni mak<*s a paperlike «heet fur a garment, and even covers it with a printed pattern, lias ;i light task if we compare it with the tedious process which the Maori woman was forced to develop. The tapa makers cut twigis from the young paper mulberry trpi'x growing in neat and linefully tended cultivations and *trip the bark from the slender *eotionn. The lengths of bark are ■-onked in water for several davs before the lacy, inner layers are ready to be scraped away with shell*. The women spread them now on a springy log flattened a little at the top. and Wat them with heavy, wooden mallets. A tapa beater is grooved on three of its flat sides, on each of which the lines are of different width and depth to be used in the process of spreading the fibre*. A etrip of bark can be beaten out till it forms a piece of cloth nine timee the width of the little piece upon which the woman begins to work but, of course, its length decreases as it widens. With the smooth surface she mate al! the fibres together in a firm, tough fabric with a slightly crinkled texture which looke almost like weaving, for the grooves of the lieatere leave their mark. When a pile of strips have been finished they are ready to be joined together in a long sheet. Sometimes sticky taro frtdrch is U3ed to gum the edges together, or they are merely lapped and beaten till the n'linly matted in a smooth join. When the cloth is dried and bleached in the sun it ie creamy white, but the women have found a way to print it with patterns in brown, black and red. The dyee are found in the forest for, like the Maori, the women have had to depend upon colours made from plants. In different parts of the Pacific the method of applying the pattern varies slightly, for in some islands it is stencilled, in other*

stamped or printed from a block. Some of the people u«se more than one method in printing a piece of cloth, and perhaps stencil the bold colours of the border, and print the main pattern. When the first method is used the pattern is cut in leaves, which are pressed on the surface of tiie cloth while the artist rubs over them a pad dipjied in dye. The process is the *ame as the stencilling we do and the design can be repeated indefinitely. The Hawaiian* inaile delicate stamps from strife of bamboo with a short section of pattern finely carved nt the end. Had we never seen a piece of Hawaiian tapa these beauti-fully-made tools would tell us that it must be of l>eautiful quality, finely patterned, for **ndi stamps could only We the work of artists. I , ens. with two or three are curved from bamboo to draw the lines which form such an important part of the. pattern of most tapa. An ingenious method of printing the cloth is that of making a pattern of palm-leaf midribs laid on a board. When they f«ill into a tracery which pleases the artist, she lays the cloth over them and rubs it with a pad full of dye. Only the part* of the material which are raised by the palm .•strips take the colour and reproduce the underlying pattern. In Fiji a similar method is used, but more trouble is taken, for an elaboratelycarved board forms the block. The artist has not the advantage of being able to alter the design every time she makes a dress, as can be done by the designers of midrib patterns. ' The cloth made by the Polynesians is soft and firm, but to the westward

the dark-skinned, warlike Melanelinns make a i:iiu-h coarser material with open iibres. ■ It is dyed in brighter colours —red, brown and yellows— with sprawling patterns of wavy lines and dote in darker «hadee of brown or black. In the Solomon Islands the tapa is dyed a soft and lovely blue, unbroken by any pattern. In district* where the paper mulberry does not grow easily, bark from the fig tree is substituted. The tapa of the Pacific once 'took the p]a«e v>f woven cloth for clothing and head-dresses; it was iwed for ornaments and presents. The people of Samoa and Fiji made large .sheets of it for mosquito nets, but they seem to have been the only ones to put their product to such practical use. To-day the natives of m<h*t of the island* have little, use for a material which has been replaced by Kuropean products. A chief no longer wears «. dress 180 or more yariU in length wrapped about his sacred body, but it still rinds its place in nome <,f the ancient ceremonies which survive even iti these timee of change. Judging by the quantities of tapa brought back by visitors to the Pacific it seems that the drumming of the beaters will l>e heard as long iirN there ore tourists seeking variety in ''The Tropical Fairyland of the l'iK-ilic."