Post #201328 by I dream of tiki on Fri, Dec 2, 2005 5:56 PM

We all know of the Polynesian tapa and have a pretty good idea of how its made. Well, there is also specific tapa design styles from New Guinea.

For the mean time, enjoy the pics.

"Tapa cloth has been and continues to be used in many ways in the Pacific. It can take the form of a blanket, a room of a ceremonial mask, or loose clothing. It is tradition in the Islands for people to exchange textiles during special ceremonies. The work each piece represents and the good "mana" of the woman who created it testify to the significance of the gift and provide the recipient with good luck. Today it is still customary at weddings for the bride and groom to be given large quantities of finely woven mats and tapa cloth, which are often worn around their bodies in layers as a sign of community blessing. Other passages of life that often involve the ceremonial exchange of textiles are births and funerals. Barkcloth dance capes and laplaps worn by, Papua New Guinea, below."

"Nearly 3,000 Maisin live in nine villages spread along Collingwood Bay, their ancestral lands in the north eastern part of the island of New Guinea. Maisin villages retain a traditional culture and subsistence economy. The villages lie far from roads. Villagers continue to garden, fish, hunt and gather wild foods and materials using the techniques of their ancestors. The vast majority rely on outrigger canoes and houses constructed out of materials from the rainforest. Maisin take pride in their customs, such as the initiation for first born children, marriage exchanges, the elaborate facial tattooing of adolescent girls, and the making of beautiful tapa paintings. Although each culture has their own distinctive visual style, tapa manufacture is fairly consistent throughout Polynesia. The inner bark of the Paper Mulberry tree is stripped, soaked and beaten with a wooden mallet on a flat topped wooden anvil (a tutua) to produce sheets of raw tapa. These pieces are then joined and decorated in ways specific to each area. Functional uses include clothing room dividers and bedding. Ceremonial use of tapa includes dance costume, mat coverings, as ceremonial carpet, as gifts at funerals and weddings and formal occasions associated with the state or royalty, and as room dividers on important occasions such as funerals. Contemporary use is limited almost entirely to the ceremonial situations and associated costume. Detail of barkcloth sheet (wan) made from mulberry tree bark, probably from the Maisin people of Collingwood Bay, Oro Province, Papua New Guinea. The open linear diagonal designs are accentuated with dots (sufifi). Their young women's traditional facial tattoos use similar patterning, right."

Barkcloth (tapa) from Oro Province, Papua New Guinea (Further information)

Oro Province dancers display the drama of barkcloth design. Barkcloth is made in New Guinea for ceremonial costumes and exchanges as well as for sale. Designs are specific to clans. Individuals may reinterpret traditional designs or create new ones. The rights to a design are often owned.

Barkcloth was widespread throughout Polynesia and parts of Oceania at contact. It was used for clothing and other everyday items and for ceremony. The generic term tapa probably came from the Hawaiian term kapa. Store cloth has replaced barkcloth for daily use, but it continues to be made for ceremonies. Tapa makers in the Pacific range from select groups of royal Polynesian women, to village women in craft cooperatives, to a single Highland man beating out his hat.

Cultivated paper mulberry is the preferred bark, although breadfruit and other forest trees are used if they have suitable thick, fibrous inner barks. Strips of bark are soaked, scraped and beaten out on logs or special tables/anvils with tapa beaters. The beaters are made of stone or heavy wood and are sometimes beautifully carved and patinaed from use. Damp, glutinous pieces of bark are over-lapped and beaten together to form large sheets. Sheets are folded and beaten out, refolded and beaten out yet again and again to make a uniform cloth without holes. Early explorers wrote that villages resounded with groups of chanting women beating barkcloth. Tapa can be made as thin and fine as lace or layered into lengths with the consistency of thick felt. Plain tapa, sometimes bleached to pure whites, was often important in traditional Pacific island ceremonies, but it was seldom collected by outsiders. Pattern books of tapa made in the colonial period were very popular. Pattern, whether traditional or contemporary, adds meaning to barkcloth beyond decoration. Alfred Gell writes in Wrapping in Images: Tattooing in Polynesia, Oxford University Press, 1993, that both barkcloth and tattoo designs are seen as an additional layer of skin wrapped around the individual.

Tapa patterns are created by staining, painting, stamping and stenciling. In New Guinea, the designs are hand painted. Traditional colors come from local clays, native plant dyes and charcoal."

Tapa Cloth and the Rain Forest
"The Maisin live on the edge of a rain forest. It is the source of much of their daily needs and the home of the spirits of their ancestors. Over the past fifteen years they have been approached by both forestry officials and representatives of foreign logging interests to consider selling the rights to this land. Villagers at first flirted with this idea, but soon Maisin in other parts of the country began to call for caution. They had seen the devastation caused by industrial logging in other areas, and had seen several companies renege on payments and agreements to invest in local infrastructure and development. They were also concerned about rising levels of alcoholism and violence in these areas. After extensive consultation in the villages, Maisin leaders last year declared their unwillingness to allow extensive logging on their lands. Instead, they are asking the national government to declare part or all of the area a national park.

The Maisin face two types of pressures. The first is economic. The village population is growing but there are fewer and fewer paying jobs available. As money becomes scarce, the Maisin are looking for other opportunities. Their villages are too far from markets for cash-cropping to be viable. Instead, they are hoping to increase the market for tapa cloth. Made from the pounded inner bark of the paper mulberry tree, tapa cloth is a traditional item of clothing and wealth made across the Pacific. Maisin women make the finest tapa in Papua New Guinea. This exhibition at Berkeley's University Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive provides the Maisin with an opportunity to introduce this art form to a North American audience.

The Maisin and other rural Papua New Guineans are also under increasing pressure from foreign logging companies and their allies in the national government. The Parliament is currently considering legislation that would make it easier for the government to permit logging over the objections of local landowners. Having largely destroyed the rain forests of southeast Asia, loggers are now slashing the forests of Papua New Guinea and threatening the future of the communities who depend on these resources at a frantic pace. The Maisin are attempting to forge a different path which can be an example for Papua New Guineans and westerners alike. They bring the message that the future of their rain forest--and the rights of the indigenous peoples who live in them--should concern every one of us."

[ Edited by: I dream of tiki 2005-12-02 20:04 ]