books. "This note is dated 1924 in Endowment Funds of Harvard 

 University — June 30, 1947, Clafin, Treasurer, 1948. There is no 

 mention of tapas (bark cloth pieces) in the will, nor is there any 

 record of a gift other than a printed card (unsigned, undated) 

 stating that these seven pieces now in the collection are her gift. 

 When — and even if — she gave them, and how and from whom 

 she could have acquired them, are still unanswered questions, but 

 an obituary notice in the Boston Evening Transcript of August 2, 

 1938, provides an educated guess. Identifying her as a collector- 

 botanist and a biologist at Woods Hole, it also refers to her 

 attendance at the Cambridge School for Girls directed by Profes- 

 sor Louis Agassiz and his second wife, Elizabeth Cabot Cary. 

 Professor Agassiz's son by his first wife, Alexander, then in his 

 twenties, taught at the school. He later conducted several scien- 

 tific expeditions to the South Pacific, where he collected native 

 artifacts. Susan Minns, who continued her scientific associations 

 into her mature years, is said to have performed botanical chores 

 for both Louis Agassiz and Asa Gray. She may have received the 

 pieces of bark cloth as gifts as a result of these associations or, like 

 many residents of maritime Massachusetts at that period, may 

 have received them from relatives or friends who had voyaged to 

 "the South Seas." 



W 



M 



He found two unlabeled packages wrapped in heavy paper. One 



of 



M 



describing bark cloth in general. The other package contained a 

 large piece of bark cloth, folded square, without any obvious 

 identification. At the same time, Wilder found another large piece 

 of undecorated bark cloth. A note folded inside it, dated August 

 17, 1928, signed "J. S. Pray", stated that it had been brought to 

 him from Colombia "twenty years or more ago, and was said to 

 have been made from the inner bark of one of the native trees." 

 The "Minns tapas" have been placed on display in the Nash 

 Lecture Hall of the Museum. The single tapa hangs in the 

 corridor opposite the Director's office. The third "find", now 



55 



