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Rectangular tapa fragment (lepau) from the Santa Cruz Islands. Thin, stiff cloth with a highly decorated front side of black geometric designs on a cream ground; plain back. Front decoration is divided into ten rectangles, each outlined with a black line and filled with different patterns of chevrons, diamonds, and triangles. This fragment was cut from a larger sample. 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. This fragment is from the Santa Cruz Islands, probably Nendo. Tapa is known as "lepau" in the Santa Cruz Islands region.
tapa (bark cloth)
tapa (bark cloth)
Original To Stephen Phillips House (Salem, Mass.),
Unknown
Pacific Island Group
12 1/2 x 12 1/4 (HxW) (inches)
Gift of the Stephen Phillips Memorial Charitable Trust for Historic Preservation
2006.44.3669
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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