Handled bag made of tapa cloth, from Samoa or Tonga. Bag is heavily decorated with triangles, chevrons, curved lines, diamonds, and circles. Patterns have been rubbed into the fabric, some areas are highlighted with a heavy brown overpaint. The inside of the bag is lined with cotton. The bag was probably made as a tourist item. Tapa, known as siapo in Samoa and ngatu in Tonga, 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.
bags (costume accessories)
tapa (bark cloth)
tapa (bark cloth)
Bag
Original To Stephen Phillips House (Salem, Mass.),
Unknown
Pacific Island Group
10 1/2 x 13 (HxW) (inches)
Gift of the Stephen Phillips Memorial Charitable Trust for Historic Preservation
2006.44.3686
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