Large piece of tapa cloth, from Samoa (or possiblyTonga). Tapa - or barkcloth - is called siapo in Samoa. Heavily decorated over its entire surface, the design was made by rubbing barkcloth on a upeti, or patterned form, creating a very fine and intricate pattern. Tapa is fabric made from the inner bark of certain trees and widely used throughout the Pacific Islands for clothing and other everyday purposes, as well as for ceremonial uses.
tapa (bark cloth)
tapa (bark cloth)
"4.50" (small paper label stapled onto piece with "4.50" handwritten in pencil)
Original To Stephen Phillips House (Salem, Mass.),
Unknown
Pacific Island Group
71 (W) (inches)
Gift of the Stephen Phillips Memorial Charitable Trust for Historic Preservation
2006.44.3674
full digital copy on Google Play: https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=IKgxAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&authuser=0&hl=en
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