Making Tapa (Courtesy Professor Roger Neich)
The various techniques of barkcloth manufacture practised in the Pacific are all variations on a central theme.The method commences by stripping the bark from the tree, seperating the inner from the outer bark - which is discarded - and then beating the inner bark on an anvil, usually with wooden beaters, to spread the fibres.
Where beaters with different gauges of grooving are used, beating begins with the coarsest grooves and progresses to the finest grooves, sometimes to a smooth-surfaced beater or a patterned beater for the final effect. Water may or may not be introduced at certain stages of this process, and in some cases soaking, or even a degree of fermenting, is allowed to soften and macerate the fibres.To produce larger pieces, thin sheets can be layered and felted together during beating, gradually extending the size of the finished sheet. This felting technique was more characteristic of tapa made in the islands of eastern Polynesia , whereas in western Polynesia larger runs of tapa were usually made by pasting sheets together at their edges.Throughout the Pacific Islands, much wider variation developed among the different techniques employed for applying colour and designs to this cloth. Some of these colouring and patterning techniques were carried out as part of the sheet-making process, while others were applied to completed plain sheet.

Tapa is the word associated with Pacific barkcloth that was first seen by Europeans from the time of the explorers and whalers to the present day where it is used worldwide to describe the regional traditional barkcloth that has so much History, Culture and meaning...

Tapa from the Pacific is made from the inner bark of the Paper Mulberrry Tree (Broussonetia Papyrifera)
and also in some cases the Breadfruit Tree (Artocarpus)........About Tapa

Within the Pacific are the two groups Polynesia and Melanesia both with their own Tapa and in general terms this Tapa is often referred to as both Barkcloth and Tapa by Europeans.

The term Tapa is in fact, Samoan in origin and is taken to describe the undecorated piece itself or undecorated area.In Samoa it is called Siapo, Tonga it is Ngatu, Fiji it is Masi, Hawaii it is Kapa, Niue it is Hiapo,
New Zealand it is Aute.

Pacific Tapa has been made traditionally for hundreds of years and it holds a special place in World Culture as being indicative of the region itself.

Tapa is the word associated with Pacific barkcloth that was first seen by Europeans from the time of the explorers and whalers to the present day where it is used worldwide to describe the regional traditional barkcloth that has so much history, culture and meaning...