Until the surge of European and American contacts following 

 Cook's three voyages ( 1 768, 1 772, 1 776) and into the early years 

 of the nineteenth century, cloth made of beaten bark was the only 

 fabric used in all but a few islands of Polynesia. On these few, the 

 leaves of Patulanus, laboriously prepared, were plaited into a 

 mat-like fabric as well as into mats of various types and uses. 



Bark cloth was used for clothing and wall hangings, house 

 partitions and bedding; it was also an integral part of ceremonial 

 observances. In its manufacture, traditional techniques, carried 

 out with traditional tools, went back for many hundreds of years. 

 Implements, as well as the bark cloth itself and its decoration, 

 were made from plants, with the single exception of a reddish clay 

 used as a dye found on some islands and traded to others. 



Culture change, initiated principally by Protestant missionar- 

 ies, brought about the diminished importance of bark cloth (espe- 

 cially in eastern and marginal Polynesia) due in most cases to the 

 abandonment of motives and occasions for its use. Today, bark 

 cloth survives on some islands, principally in western Polynesia. 

 It is still made for community use (e.g. weddings and burials) for 

 which it is made and decorated according to tradition. Tradition 

 also survives in formal academic events at the University of the 

 South Pacific at Suva, Fiji, where academic regalia include a 

 stole, the design of which features patterns of bark cloth together 

 with decorations used on other native materials from islands 

 where that univerity has branch campuses. 



BARK CLOTH FROM POLYNESIA 

 IN THE BOTANICAL MUSEUM 



The teaching collections of the Botanical Museum include nine 

 pieces of bark cloth, a book of bark cloth samples, and a beater. 

 The problem faced by the Museum has been to establish proven- 

 ance and to employ supplementary means of identifying this 

 material. The Museum has been fortunate in enlisting the interest 

 and assistance of Professor Simon Kooijman of the Rijksmuseum 

 voor Volkenkunde, Leiden, in the establishment of provenances 

 and in the availability of his publications on bark cloth. Origi- 

 nally approached with one specific query, Kooijman suggested 



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