Polynesian Barkcloth

The Polynesian islands lie in an equilateral triangle in the vast expanse of the Pacific. The inhabitants were famed for their barkcloth, or tapa, which had aroused the admiration of the early European travellers. The main source of material is the paper mulberry tree, which is of Asian origin and was introduced into the Pacific by the ancestors of the Polynesians. Tapa was put to a wide variety of uses, ranging from ordinary daily clothing to elaborately ornamented ceremonial pieces....
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The Polynesian islands lie in an equilateral triangle in the vast expanse of the Pacific. The inhabitants were famed for their barkcloth, or tapa, which had aroused the admiration of the early European travellers. The main source of material is the paper mulberry tree, which is of Asian origin and was introduced into the Pacific by the ancestors of the Polynesians. Tapa was put to a wide variety of uses, ranging from ordinary daily clothing to elaborately ornamented ceremonial pieces. Although the manufacture and decoration of barkcloth in Polynesia had a number of common elements, there were differences between the work in central and northern Polynesia and that in the islands in the west. About the author Simon Kooijman was appointed Curator at the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde (National Museum of Ethnology) in Leiden, where he was in charge of the Oceanic Department. He has written books on the barkcloth of Indonesia and Polynesia, the art of Lake Sentani and the Mimika area in Irian Jaya and on the material culture of the Star Mountains in the Central Highlands. He has now retired from the Leiden museum.