British Museum Tapa. 213 



It seems probable that the designs on the Hawaiian beaters marked no sudden 

 late renaissance, but existed before the time of Cook's visits, developing by degrees. 

 It may be added in regard to the kapa in the Cook collection that the bulk of the 

 pieces from the Hawaiian Islands came from the southernmost, Hawaii, with a few 

 from the island of Kauai (at which he first touched) and none from Oahu, Molokai 

 or Maui; the two former being noted for the good quality of kapa made there. 



I regret that the illustration of the British Museum kapa. Fig. 131, does not show 

 the details as sharply as the original photograph sent to me from the British Museum, 

 but the regret is stronger that a specimen of the original kapa is not in my possession, 

 for the "Thin Tapa stamped in white, black and brown" is a very remarkable piece. 

 The photograph shows it to be a portion of a pa'u or malo (we have no scale); if the 

 former, the width must be at least thirty inches ; if the latter, not less than nine or ten. 

 In either case the photograph is greatly reduced, and the original would be far easier 

 to understand, being on a much larger scale. This kapa was well bleached and very 

 white (the Hawaiians had no white paint so far as known), and the broad dark longi- 

 tudinal bands (in the figure) are composed of closely ruled transverse undulating 

 lines; similar but larger lines in black form the lighter bands, while the lines of what 

 appear to be white dots in the darker bands are punctures in diamond-shaped pieces 

 of the same brown as the transverse zigzags (possibly these are black, as the photo- 

 graph does not sufiiciently differentiate between a rusty black and a faded brown), and 

 these pieces seem to be pasted on or beaten in to the white kapa. Unfortunately these 

 tiny pieces do not appear in the figure. 



Whatever the process used, and I do not say that the actual kapa would not 

 bear a different interpretation from this made from a photograph so greatly reduced, 

 the specimen, however made, shows great skill and patience in the chiefess who decor- 

 ated this bark-cloth ; would that her name might have been preserved as the names of 

 the old carvers of wood among the Maori are preserved ! 



It need not be supposed that the thirty or more yards of cloth sometimes com- 

 posing a pa'u were all decorated with such painstaking care; only two or three yards 

 which appear on the outside when the garment was worn need be so decorated. 



