Four separate layers: bottom layer undecorated, two middle layers watermarked with parallel diagonal lines, top layer watermarked with diamonds and colored red. Bark of paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera) beaten into sheets, one layer colored by beating in red fibres, watermarked with patterned beaters. 4 sheets "sewn" together at one edge w/twisted white kapa "cord". The outer cover, a very popular style has red fibers beaten onto a white sheet and covered w/an extremely gauzy overlay of white.
Donor:
Alaska Commercial Company, Benjamin Bristol, and Older University Collections
Collection place:
Island of Hawai'i, Hawaiian Windward Islands, Hawaiian Islands
Culture or time period:
Hawaiian
Collector:
Alaska Commercial Company
Collection date:
1889
Materials:
Tapa (bark cloth)
Object type:
ethnography
Object class:
Textile samples
Function:
4.1 Dwellings and Furnishings
Accession date:
1904
Department:
Oceania
Dimensions:
length 252 centimeters and width 180 centimeters
Comment:
Native name and meaning: "Kapa Ku'ina" = sewn together kapa; "kapa moe" = sleeping tapa; "Kilohana pa'i'ula" = (red outer cover)". Comments: "The finishing beater used was a "i'e kuku ho'oki" of the "'upema pupu" pattern (p. 173, Buck). Sheet #2, plain white: first "i'e kuku" appears to have been a "pepehi" surface followed by one with a "ho'o pai" surface forming an all-over cross hatch design on the kapa. Sheet #3, plain white, appears as #2 (pepehi) followed by one with a "pepehi" or "ho'o pai" on a diagonal to the sewn edge (170-171 Buck). The bottom sheet, plain white, beaten with an "i'e kuku ho'oki" with the "'upena pupu" pattern. Sheets are graduated in thickness with the heaviest being the outer ("kilohana"). This may be a child's or adolescent's "kapa moe" - or it may have been trimmed after collected. Most were larger, e.g. 9 feet wide by 7 feet long and 8 feet wide by 6 feet deep (Buck p. 211)." "Made by women". References: Kooijman, Simon, 1972 "Tapa in Polynesia" Bishop Museum Press, Honolulu, Hawaii pp. 114, 122, 123. Hiroa, Te Rangi (Peter Buck) "Arts and Crafts of Hawaii", Bishop Museum Press, Honolulu, Hawaii. Fide Barbara (Kanani) Burns, November 16, 1984.