Alaska Commercial Company, Benjamin Bristol, and Older University Collections
Collection place:
Island of Hawai'i, Hawaiian Windward Islands, Hawaiian Islands
Verbatim coll. place:
Hawaii
Culture or time period:
Hawaiian
Collector:
W. D. Armes
Collection date:
unknown
Object type:
ethnography
Object class:
Textile samples
Function:
8.3 For Manufacturing
Accession date:
1904
Department:
Oceania
Comment:
Description: "Kapa pa'i'ula (barkcloth with red bite pounded in). This is a "kapa moe" (sleep bark cloth) top sheet, or "kilohana". Bed clothes come in 4-5 sheets sewn together at one end. Generally only the top sheets are highly decorated. This is a typical pieces, not rare, but well made. Red dye beaten/boiled out of European "turkey red" trade cloth and used to dye "kapu". This has indigo blue dyed "kapa", too. Beaten onto a natural colored thin "kapa" undersheet. Finished with an "ie kuku"-finishing beater having a flat, smooth surface, "mole". "Kapa" made of paper mulberry inner bast, or "wauke". Made by women" (Fide Barbara (Kanani) Burns, October 1985). Remarks: "W.T. Brigham, "Ku Hana Kapa", Bishop Museum, 1911. Simon Kooijman, "Tapa of Polynesia", Bishop Museum.
Loans:
S1961-1962 #25: Department of Geography (UC Berkeley)/D. I. Blumenstock (November 15, 1961–November 15, 1961) and S1994-1995 #10: SFO Museum (April 7, 1995–July 26, 1995)