oil before being smoked (Thompson 1940). The immersion 

 method consists of soaking the cloth in oil mixed with powdered 

 mangrove root and drying it indoors to develop a burnt orange 

 color. 



The black coloring matter used in Fijian stenciling is a mixture 

 of kesa, a liquid dye extracted from the roots of the gadoa tree 

 (E/aeocarpus Storckii) and soot. In former times, this soot was 

 produced by burning the kernels of candlenuts (Aleurites moluc- 

 cana) in a smoldering fire over which was suspended a large shell 

 or a sheet of tin rubbed on the under side with the bark of 

 Hibiscus tiliaceus to make it sticky. The thick, oily smoke thus 

 produced accumulated as soot. 



This method has been superseded today, with few exceptions, 

 by the use of a kerosene lamp turned so high that the wick smokes, 

 placed in a biscuit tin with one side removed. The soot accumu- 

 lates in thick layers on the side of the tin (Kooijman 1977). 



Accession number 8614: 



Economic Botany Library of Oakes Ames (rare book case; RB49) 

 Sample book, approximately 14" X 9 X A" (36 X 24 cm). Original 

 binding (Russia leather, in poor condition, replaced 1981). 



Examined when it had its original cover, this book was found to 

 contain some fifty leaves of bark cloth samples, approximately 

 13 ! /£"X9". Most of the pieces are patterned. Undecorated leaves, 

 when viewed with back-lighting, show the "watermarking" made 

 by the geometric patterns on beaters especially characteristic of 

 Hawaiian bark cloth. On the first page is written, "From George 

 G. Kennedy, M.D., Milton, Mass. This gift to the Harvard Botan- 

 ical Museum was received May 29, 1906." 



Originally pasted onto the inside front cover and now reat- 

 tached there, is a clipping apparently from an unidentified sale 

 catalog: "1 198-Sandwich Islands [Hawaii]. Tapa cloth or natural 

 lace made from the inner bark of one of the lace-bark trees, 

 Broussonetia papifera [sic]. A volume containing 56 leaves of this 

 cloth in different thicknesses and examples of the patterns dyed 

 with the vegetable dyes such as are used by the natives. Size of 

 leaf, 9 X 1 3 ! /2 inches, bound in half russia. Evidently a collection by 

 some traveler or missionary. Exceedingly interesting, and 

 unknown to many people." 



72 



