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Tapa fragment, light brown ground with a darker 2 1/2 inch wide band, outlined in dark brown paint, running at an angle across the tapa. Roughly square-shaped, two edges are serrated and two are straight. This piece of tapa was made in Samoa or Tonga. Tapa is called siapo in Samoa and ngatu in Tonga. Tapa is a cloth made from the inner bark of certain trees and is widely used in the Pacific for clothing and bedding, as well as secular, sacred, and ceremonial uses.
tapa (bark cloth)
tapa (bark cloth)
Original To Stephen Phillips House (Salem, Mass.),
Unknown
Pacific Island Group
Gift of Stephen Phillips Memorial Charitable Trust for Historic Preservation
2006.44.3630
Originally published by University of Auckland in 1997
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