MATERIALS FOR CLOTHING. 351 
strips of bamboo, on which the colour is placed, and the 
tops pressed ; indeed, the fundamental principle is the 
same as that of our printing books, the little strips of 
bamboo standing in the place of our types. The chief 
dye employed is the juice of the Lauci (Aleurites triloba, 
Forst.), and the pattern, though rudely executed, often 
displays much taste. It is stated that in times when the 
Malo plantations have failed to produce a sufficient 
quantity of raw material, recourse is had to the Baka 
(Ficus sp.); but this is only a makeshift, whilst the bark 
of the Breadfruit-tree seems never to be resorted to as 
in other parts of Polynesia. 
When the men have no native cloth of any sort, they 
make a dress by splitting a cocoa-nut or plantain leaf 
in halves, and tying one of these parts around their 
waist. There is an old monkish tradition that our first 
parents, when adopting dress in the garden of Eden, 
availed themselves of the leaf of the plantain, hence 
called Musa paradisiaca ; and it must be owned that a 
Fijian, having assumed this dress, presents a most pri- 
mitive appearance, the more striking because his move- 
ments are entirely free from any approach to indecency, 
which a European who has never lived amongst races 
going naked would naturally fancy associated with so 
scanty a garb. It is, perhaps, the most simple form of 
an article of dress much worn in Fiji, and called “Ziku,” 
consisting of a number of fringes simply attached to a 
waistband. The length of these fringes is subject to 
certain rules of custom. Men can wear them very long; 
but women, particularly young unmarried ones, must not 
have them longer than two or three inches. Liku is 
