KA HANA KAPA. 



The Story of the Manufacture of Kapa ( Tapa ), or Bark-doth, in Polynesia and 

 elsewhere^ but especially on the Hawaiian Islands. By William T. Brigham, Sc.D., 

 Honorary Fellow of the Ro3'al Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 

 Director of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum. 



AS the chief matter of the following description is taken from the work of Hawaiians 

 in their share of the tropical manufacture of cloth, or more properly paper, 

 "^ primarily intended for clothing but developed into many other uses, it will be 

 illustrated largely from the colleAions of the Bishop Museum, which are rich in the 

 choicest products of this industry as well as in the tools used, and the nomenclature 

 will of necessity be largely Hawaiian. The Hawaiian orthography of the name Kapa 

 (pronounced tapa) has been generally retained, although many of the Polynesian 

 groups have called their bark-cloth by other names or other forms of this name. The 

 etymology of the name is simply ka = the, and/rt = beaten or the beaten thing. 



While the Bishop Museum has a great number of kapa specimens derived from 

 the beloved Alii in whose honor the Museum was founded, and to whom, as the last 

 of the royal Kamehameha line, many had descended, the Director has added to these 

 for the purpose of study specimens of nearly all that Cook's three expeditions colleded, 

 those of \'aucouver and other early voyagers as well, and the generosity of other 

 and older museums has placed at his disposal their chiefest treasures. May the pages 

 that follow be in some measure a return for the kindness ! 



The illustrations of these have generally been photographed by the author, 

 except those from the British Museum and the United States National Museum ; while 

 the colored plates have been made from the actual specimens by Lowy of Vienna, 

 which should assure their fidelity to the originals. 



It will not be forgotten that kapa-makiug is fast passing into oblivion all 

 through the regions where it once flourished, and at present exact knowledge of some 

 of the processes, simple as they usually were, is already lost. There is no living 

 source whence we can make up our deficiencies, for even where the poor relics of the 

 manufadlure still exist, they are so affected by foreign additions, not to say corrup- 

 tions, that they are of little help. Even the names of the tools are not always to be 



