Tapa cloth (or simply tapa) is a barkcloth made in the islands of the Pacific Ocean, primarily in Tonga, Samoa and Fiji, but as far afield as Niue, Cook Islands, Futuna, Solomon Islands, Java, Sulawesi, New Zealand, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and Hawaii (where it is called kapa). In French Polynesia it has nearly disappeared, except for some villages in the Marquesas. In Melville's Typee, the ship Dolly enters the harbor of Nukuheva where it is met by "swimming nymphs ... their adornments were completed by passing a few loose folds of white tappa, in a modest cincture, around the waist."
General
The word tapa is from Tahiti and the Cook Islands, where Captain Cook was the first European to collect it and introduce it to the rest of the world. The cloth is also known by a number of local names, although the term tapa is international and understood throughout the islands that use the cloth. In Tonga, the same cloth is known as ngatu, and it is of great social importance to the islanders, often being given as gifts. In Samoa, it is called siapo, and in Niue it is hiapo. In Hawaii, it is known as kapa. In Rotuma, a Polynesian island part of Fiji, it is called ʻuha and in other Fijian islands it is called masi. In the Pitcairn islands it was called ʻahu, and in New Zealand was known as aute. It is also known as tapia. During voyages of migration the paper mulberry tree (Broussonetia papyrifera) known as hiapo or siapo was introduced from Southeast Asia. Tapa cloth was present in Western Polynesia (Fiji, Tonga and Samoa) by about 1000 AD and then spread throughout the Pacific as people voyaged to islands further afield. Tapa also has the meaning of border or strip. It seems likely that before the glueing process became common to make large sheets (see below) only narrow strips were produced. Tapa can be decorated by rubbing, stamping, stencilling, smoking (Fijian: masi kuvui, "smoked barkcloth") or dyeing. The patterns of Tongan, Samoan and Fijian tapa usually form a grid of squares, each of which contains geometric patterns with repeated motifs such as fish and plants, for example four stylised leaves forming a diagonal cross. Traditional dyes are usually black and rust-brown, although other colours are known. In former times the cloth was primarily used for clothing, but now modern textiles have replaced it. The major problem with tapa clothing is that the tissue loses its strength when wet and falls apart. However, it was better than grass skirts, which usually are either heavier and harder or easily blown apart. Tapa is also labour-intensive to manufacture. Tapa cloth was made by both men and women in ancient times, for example in Hawaii. Nowadays tapa is often worn on formal occasions such as weddings. Another use is as a blanket at night or for room dividers. It is highly prized for its decorative value and is often found hung on walls as decoration. It has been used in ceremonial masks in Papua New Guinea and the Cook Islands (Mangaian masks). It was used to wrap sacred objects, e.g., "God staffs" in the Cook Islands. In some places, artists are reviving tapa-making and creating modern interpretations of the art using new techniques or designs.
Fabrication
Tonga Tapa cloth is or ngatu still a part of daily life in Tonga. In Tonga a family is considered poor, regardless how much money they have, if they do not have any tapa in stock at home to donate at life events like marriages, funerals and so forth. If the tapa was donated to them by a chief or even the royal family, it is more valuable. In Tonga hiapo is the name given to the paper mulberry tree. It is not usually grown in whole plantations, but portions of a yam or other vegetable garden are often set aside for it. Trees are cut down and the bark is stripped off. The strips are about 10 cm wide and up to 180 cm long. The bark consists of two layers; the outer bark is scraped or split off from the inner bark. The outer bark is discarded, and the inner bark, named tutu or loututu, is dried in the sun before being soaked.
After this, the bark is beaten on a wooden anvil (tutua) using wooden mallets called ike. In the beating the bark is made thinner and spread out to a width of about 25 cm (9.8 in). The mallets are smooth on one side and have coarse and fine grooves on the other sides. First the coarse sides are used and, towards the end of the work, the smooth side is used. The continuous "thonk" beats of the tapa mallet is a normal sound in Tongan villages. If several women work together they can make a concert out of it. In that case there might be one who beats the end of the tutua to set the rhythm.
When the strips are thin enough, several are taken and beaten together into a large sheet. A starch paste from the kumala or manioke may be rubbed on places which are unwilling to stick. The resulting sheet of tapa is called fetaʻaki, consisting of two layers of strips in at right angles. Often the women of a whole village work together on a huge sheet of tapa. A donation is made to the church or their chief at an important occasion. Such sheets are about 3 m (9.8 ft) wide and 15 or 30 m (49 or 98 ft), or sometimes even 60 m (200 ft) long. The 15 m pieces are called launima (meaning five-sheet, because the sheet is five squares), and the 30 m pieces are called lautefuhi. The German ethnographer Friedrich Ratzel described the fabrication of tapa in an 1896 publication:
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