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Kerchief made of tapa cloth from the Pacific Islands. Triangle shape with border and dots across a tan field. Kerchiefs were introduced to the Pacific Islands by missionaries in the early nineteenth century. Probably a souvenir item from Hawaii. Tapa is cloth made from the inner bark of certain trees (usually the paper mulberry) and widely used throughout the Pacific Islands for clothes and bedding, as well as for other secular, sacred and ceremonial purposes.
tapa (bark cloth)
kerchiefs
tapa (bark cloth)
Kerchief
Original To Stephen Phillips House (Salem, Mass.),
Unknown
Pacific Island Group
32 x 23 (HxW) (inches)
Gift of the Stephen Phillips Memorial Charitable Trust for Historic Preservation
2006.44.3662
Full digital version available on Hathi Digital Trust website. http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015018681802#page/n4/mode/1up
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