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Tapa cloth fragment from Samoa or Tonga. This fragment of tapa was cut from a larger piece and was probably part of the outer edge. 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. Tongan tapa cloth is known as ngatu and Samoan as siapo.
tapa (bark cloth)
tapa (bark cloth)
Original To Stephen Phillips House (Salem, Mass.),
Unknown
Pacific Island Group
11 3/4 x 18 1/4 (HxW) (inches)
Gift of the Stephen Phillips Memorial Charitable Trust for Historic Preservation
2006.44.3665
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