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Tapa fragment dyed a red/brown with grooves of tightly spaced parallel lines. On one end two pieces of the cloth have been sewn together with a light colored thread using tiny stitches. Probably from Hawaii or possibly Tahiti. Tapa is known as kapa in Hawaii and ahu in Tahiti. 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)
Original To Stephen Phillips House (Salem, Mass.),
Unknown
Pacific Island Group
9 1/8 (H) (inches)
Gift of the Stephen Phillips Memorial Charitable Trust for Historic Preservation
2006.44.3667
full digital copy available on Google Play https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=IKgxAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&authuser=0&hl=en
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