Update Our ticketing, donations, and membership sales portal is down for scheduled maintenance on the afternoon of 4/11.
Fragment of white kapa cloth from Hawaii. Creamy white color has been lightly rubbed with a light gray substance, possibly charcoal. Very thin but has a crinkley texture. The kapa is embossed with closely set circular shapes. Possibly a layer of a kapa moe, or multi-layered sleeping cover. Kapa (the Hawaiian word for tapa) is a cloth made from the inner bark of 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)
"10755" (handwritten in pencil on lower left corner)
Original To Stephen Phillips House (Salem, Mass.),
E10755
Unknown
Pacific Island Group
13 1/2 (H) (inches)
Gift of the Stephen Phillips Memorial Charitable Trust for Historic Preservation
2006.44.3657
Originally published in 1920. Full digital copy available at Hathi Digital Trust
Historic New England is committed to implementing reparative language description for existing collections and creating respectful and inclusive language description for new collections. If you encounter language in Historic England's Collections Access Portal that is harmful or offensive, or you find materials that would benefit from a content warning, please contact [email protected].
Sign up to our newsletter for our latest news and events
