The Cloth That Grows On Trees

Bark cloth, called 'tapa'

       Money may not grow on bushes, but clothing sometimes grows on trees! On some of the islands in the Pacific Ocean clothing made from the bark of trees is a common sight, and the making of.

       It is sometimes called 'tapa' which means 'the beaten thing.'

       Bark cloth is used not only in the Pacific but in several other places around the globe, especially in Africa and in South America, but it reaches its highest development in Polynesia. Its production is gradually becoming a lost art, for when the European introduced cotton or other types of cloth into a tapa area, the native peoples usually prefer these textiles because of the softer textures.

       Tapa cloth in the past was always made by women and children. The wood was be selected carefully, and only the bark from certain kinds of trees was used. The paper mulberry furnished the best quality of bark for cloth, but in some places that of the breadfruit tree was used, and in other places that of a wild fig. The mulberry made the finest and whitest cloth. Breadfruit made cloth less white and soft than that made from the mulberry. It was worn chiefly by people of lower economic class. Wild fig was by far the rarest. It made a coarse, harsh cloth, the color of the deepest brown paper. It was the only bark cloth that resisted water and is therefore was valued highly. Most of it was perfumed and used as a mourning dress.

       In selecting the tree, young plants of one or two years' growth were chosen because they were thin and straight and tall and without large, tough branches. First, the bark was removed, and the outer bark separated from the inner, fibrous layers. It is the inner layers that were used for the cloth. The bark would have been boiled until it resembled a pulp like texture. Then it was placed in a stream where the running water continued to loosen the fibers and washed away any remaining sap. Next, the pulp was beaten with an implement made from the hard wood of the sugar palm. Deep grooves cut into the lower side of the beater left ridges over the surface of beaten pulp and held the mass together. When the pulp began to form a paper-like sheet, it was pounded with flat pieces of stone, also grooved, and having handles of rattan.

       During the beating process, the pulp might dry too fast, so it was constantly sprinkled with water. When the pulp was very thin, it was spread on the ground to dry. Sometimes it was too thin and there were holes left in the sheet, in which case several layers had to be glued together with an arrowroot paste.

       Tapa cloth was usually decorated with simple, beautiful, geometric designs that are either painted on or stamped on. The colors used were native vegetable dyes, principally red, yellow, black (soot), and brown. Certain tapa designs had a religious significance and were only applied for the decoration of ceremonial objects.

       Tapa had many applications other than clothing, some of which were bedding, shrouds for the dead, mosquito curtains, floor coverings, and binding cord. Sometimes large, decorative pieces were hung up as partitions in houses or as ornaments on the walls and porches. White, undecorated tapa was often cut up for bandages, and tapa was even used to make kites! In the early days, missionaries in Hawaii cut a tough, thick variety of tapa for the binding of book covers. Cramer

• See Tapa Cloth online at the Museum of Natural and Cultural History
• Embedded Nature: Tapa Cloths from the Pacific Islands
• Many Examples of Tapa Cloths from Tapapacifica

Making Tapa Cloth, Tongan Style