56 Ka Han a Kapa. 



typical of mucli of the design of New Guinea and the New Hebrides. Although the 

 Loj-alty and New Hebrides groups were nearest to the Fijian, nearly west, the cloth 

 and its ornamentation seems quite distinct from that of the eastern groups. 



We ma}' quote Codrington, whose knowledge of these natives was most con- 

 siderable for his time, although he gives us mainh- the names, leaving us to other 

 sources for the wa\-s and means, and whether the travelers in these regions have cared 

 less for the process now interesting us, or the natives were less willing to communi- 

 cate to strangers their domestic and peaceful works, little is to be gathered from the 

 printed stor}'. He tells us: — 



" Bark-cloth, tapa^ hammered out from the bark of paper-mulberry is made, but 

 roughh', in Ysabel, and worn in Florida; it was made till lateh' in Ulawa and San 

 Cristoval; a rough kind, made perhaps alwaj-s from the bark of banj'an figs, is used 

 in the New Hebrides. When such cloth was in use the name of it, e. g., ti:'i in Ysabel 

 and Florida, sala in Ulawa, was ready for European cloth. In Kwxor 2. gavu and in 

 the Banks Islands nearest to Aurora _^c7^77r7^, is used for cloth, no doubt identical with 

 the Maori kaliit and kakaliii. In Mota the word siopa was applied at once to European 

 cloth, which as the natives knew nothing of tapa, was surprising. The native explana- 

 tion is, that the Tongaus, who for two years visited the Banks Islands and made a 

 short settlement at Qakea, were clothed with siopa. They have in fact shifted the 

 vowels in siapo., hiapo (the Maori fiiako, bark), the name of bark-cloth in Tonga and 

 Samoa. In Motlav, again, the word inahani was applied to cloth, of which the first 

 syllable is no doubt the common inalo of Fiji and elsewhere." ^^ 



So little is reall}' known of the Flora of New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, the 

 New Hebrides and the Bismarck Archipelago, and hardly more of their manufac5lures, 

 that after gathering all that the explorers can tell us, we are compelled to turn to the 

 specimens of the cloth in hand and question them. From two German doctors who 

 have lately explored the little-known New Ireland ( unfortunatel}' renamed by the Ger- 

 man Government Neu Mecklenberg), we get the following facts: — "Der Baum, von 

 dem das Bastzeug gewonnen wird, ist der Brodfruchtbaum (Ar/ocarpns /nr/sa). Ein 

 junger Stamm von Armesdicke wird in vollem Safte abgeschnitten nnd von einem 

 etwa 1^2 m langen Stiicke wird niit den Schale einer Perlmuttermuschel die Rinde 

 abgeschabt. Nun wird der Bast so lange geklopft, bis er sich von Stamme abstreifen 

 lasst. Mann legt ihn zum Quellen'ins Wasser, zieht ihu moglichst weit auseinander 

 nnd liisst ihn in dann an der Sonne trockuen. Die ganz Arbeit wird von Weibern 

 besorgt, uud von ihnen Sind audi die Stiicke erworben. Das Bastzeug ///(///{ sieht 

 gelblich-weiss bis braunlich aus, ist schlauchformig, und die Fasern sind stark ausein- 



" Codrington, The Melanesians, p. 320. 



