Polynesia

Art Historical Description

Although the Polynesia-Melanesia distinction is open to question, there are recognisable traits in each region which are useful to a discussion of barkcloth style, materials and manufacturing techniques. Polynesian traditions of barkcloth production have strongly favoured paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera) almost everywhere, while exploiting a small range of other fabric plants for special purposes or out of necessity. The barkcloth art of each Polynesian society has also developed a wide range of named traditional fabric types in each society; a broad set of bast processing and composition techniques; and (to a greater or lesser extent) a diverse palette of colourants and decoration methods.

Images

Making Barkcloth

Characteristic Materials

Characteristic Techniques

bark removal; spreading and homogenisation; post-completion conditioning

Characteristic Fabric Types

Barkcloth within Polynesia – Western Polynesia

The Maori anthropologist Te Rangi Hiroa was the first to observe, in 1944, that the tapa-making traditions of Polynesia differed significantly on either side of an imaginary line drawn between Samoa and the Cook Islands. To the west of that line in Polynesia lie Samoa, Niue, Wallis & Futuna, Tonga, Fiji, Tokelau and Tuvalu. Tapa seems to have been historically unimportant in the latter two nations, but Hiroa argued that the others shared a manufacturing method founded on the dry removal of the cortex (outer bark) from the bast and the glueing of large double-layer tapa sheets together with starch paste. On a superficial level this is basically true, but here we show that different local techniques and fabric types to the east and west of Hiroa’s line mean the distinction was much more blurred.

Nations

Fiji; Tonga; Samoa and American Samoa; Wallis and Futuna; Niue

References

• Hiroa, T.R. (Buck, P.H.) (1944). Arts and crafts of the Cook Islands. Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press

Barkcloth within Polynesia – Eastern Polynesia

The Maori anthropologist Te Rangi Hiroa was the first to observe, in 1944, that the tapa-making traditions of Polynesia differed significantly on either side of an imaginary line drawn between Samoa and the Cook Islands. To the east of that line in Polynesia lie the Cook Islands, Society Islands, Austral Islands, Marquesas Islands, Hawai‘i, the Pitcairn Island group, the Tuamotu Archipelago, Mangareva & the Gambier Islands, and Rapa Nui (Easter Island). As Aotearoa New Zealand was settled from Rarotonga in the Cooks, and the ancient Maori carried an essentially Rarotongan tapa technology with them when they migrated far to the south-west, it is also considered an ‘Eastern Polynesian’ society for our purposes here. Tapa does not seem to have been produced historically in the Tuamotu Archipelago (for lack of agricultural land). Hiroa argued that the other Eastern Polynesian societies shared a manufacturing method founded on the retting of the tree bast in water and the ‘felting’ of cloths together by beating (here we use the term ‘fusing’). On a superficial level this is basically true, but here we show that different local techniques and fabric types to the east and west of Hiroa’s line mean the distinction was much more blurred.

Nations

Cook Islands; Society Islands; Austral Islands; Marquesas Islands; Hawai‘i; Aotearoa New Zealand; Rapa Nui

References

• Hiroa, T.R. (Buck, P.H.) (1944). Arts and crafts of the Cook Islands. Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press

Version

Entry created on 28 August 2020