Encyclopedia, 1973, Vol. 4, some species of stingray inhabit 

 Pacific waters. One of these, Taeniuya Lymna (sometimes over 

 six feet long) frequents shallow waters at night, where it is a 

 hazard to bathers and divers. Since animal forms are known to 

 appear in some tapas as well as in tattoo designs, this stingray 

 theory may well be valid. Professor Kooijman (pers. comm.) 

 would agree if there were evidence of folk experience with rays 

 reflected in folklore or sayings. Nelson 1925 and Schultz 1945 list 

 a popular Samoan saying: "The stingray (fai) escapes but it leaves 

 its barb behind/' which expresses a common conviction that "the 

 evil a man does lives after him." In his Narrative. . .(1853, Vol. I) 

 the Rev. William Ellis, enumerating South Pacific sea fishes, 

 mentions "a great number of the ray species, from the large 

 'diabolus 1 to the smallest kind . . . . " 



Case 409: 5'9" X 3' ( 1 73 X 90 cm); black and brown on ecru. "The 

 tapa of 409 is unmistakingly Fijian. The one in my photo collec- 

 tion nearest to it is the tapa from the Smithsonian Institute 

 [Institution] collected during the Wilkes expedition (T.i.P. Fig. 

 348). The latter was probably acquired on Vanua Balavu. I should 

 hesitate however, similarly to locate your tapa. There are quite a 

 few tapas with this kind of patterning which are only generally 

 localized 'Fiji 1 and we do not know whether this type may have 

 had a wider distribution." 



Note: Plate 12 in Brigham 1976 shows a Fijian example of this 

 same design of "hairy diamonds" alternated with conventional- 

 ized birds in the outer border (collected at Suva, Fiji by Brigham 

 in 1896). Birds also appear in Kooijman 1972, Figs. 337 and 409. 

 The absence of birds in the Botanical Museum example may or 

 may not alter provenance. 



Case 410: 4'7 , / 2 "X 33" (140 X 82 cm); black and brown on ecru. 

 "As to 4 10, 1 tend to ascribe it to Uvea(Wallis Island). The Bishop 

 Museum in Honolulu is in the possession of a collection of Uvea 

 tapas, some of which were published as illustrations in T.i.P. 

 Figs. 229 ff. In my files in the Museum I found the photo of 

 Bishop Museum C 5101 (32737), the pattern of which in its 

 general design looks like the one of 410.*" 



66 



