30 Ka Hana Kapa. 



Taheitee; and it seemed the quantity was likewise inconsiderable, for, instead of being 

 wrapped up in that number of pieces, so common among the luxurious chiefs of that 

 island, the\- onl}- wore a single ahoiv or cloak, which covered them from the shoulders 

 to the knees."" 



Judging from the drawings of Marquesan tatuing that are before me, these 

 splendidh' formed natives preferred the decoration on their actual bodies, rather than 

 on the more perishable cloths they sometimes covered their bodies with. Their 

 patterns thus applied were striking, and constitute a distinct class among Polynesian 

 designs. On tapa they would have been as popular as on carved bowls, cups or 

 paddles, but among the few Marquesan cloths in my collection, while all are well 

 made, none are figured. It should be remembered that from the tedious, if not verj^ 

 difficult process of imprinting tapa, the use of this finer kind was confined to the 

 chiefs, and these seem to have only displayed their fine feathers to strangers of another 

 race with whom thev were well acquainted, as in the case of the Tahitians with \\hom 

 Cook tarried long and was verv intimate, and also the Hawaiians, who looked upon 

 him as their long absent god Lono, and in their worship offered him their choicest 

 possessions. The absence from Cook's collecT:ions of the figured tapa does not prove 

 that the groups or islands where he made short or unfriendl}' visits made nothing 

 of the kind. 



\\'ith all Cook's discoveries the wonderful Fijian or \'itian group was not 

 explored: only a very small islet, A'atoa or Turtle Island, of the more than two 

 hundred composing the group, was noticed." No one of the early explorers of the 

 Pacific has given us any details of the domestic manufadlures of this fine race, com- 

 posite in parentage as in language and manners. Strongh- imbued with Tongan blood 

 it was to Tongan influence that Thakombau, the Kamehameha of the southern group, 

 gave up, with his strong taste for human flesh, his ancestral religion, and in place of 

 Ndengei accepted the Trinit}- of the missionaries. 



It would be vastly interesting to compare the early work of the Fijian tapa- 

 makers with that of the Tongan and Tahitian, so well illustrated in Cook's colleAions 

 still extant. The qualit}- of bark-cloth made and used in recent years is so good that 

 Tongan influence is suggested. But Fijian specimens are comparative!}' rare in collec- 

 tions, and confined to the delicate white material used as turbans, and the carefulh' 

 stamped waist cloths or likn. PI. lo. 



'°G. Korster, A Voj-a^e round the World, II, 30. 



"'Captain Cook was by no means ignorant of the Fijian ; he saw not a few at the FriencUy Islands as he called 

 the group now called Tongan. " It appeared to me," he writes, "that the Feejee men whom wc now saw were much 

 respected here: they seem to excel the inhabitants of Tongataboo in ingenuity, if we might judge from several 

 specimens of their skill in workmanship which wc saw; such as clubs and spears, which were carved in a masterly 

 manner, variegated mats, earthen pots, and some other articles; all of which had a cast of superiority in their 

 execution." 



