1769 DYEING CLOTH 151 
stalks of it through their teeth, or between two little sticks 
until all the green bark and the bran-like substance which 
lies between them is gone. In a covering of these fibres, 
then, they envelop the leaves, and squeezing or wringing 
them strongly, express the dye, which turns out very little 
more in quantity than the liquor employed; this operation 
they repeat several times, as often soaking the leaves in the 
dye and squeezing them dry again, until they have suffi- 
ciently extracted all their virtue. They throw away the 
remaining leaves, keeping however the mooo, which serves 
them instead of a brush to lay the colour on the cloth. 
The receptacle used for the liquid dye is always a plantain 
leaf, whether from any property it may have suitable to 
the colour, or the great ease with which it is always 
obtained, and the facility of dividing it, and making of it 
many small cups, in which the dye may be distributed to 
every one in the company, I do not know. In laying the 
dye upon the cloth, they take it up in the fibres of the 
mooo, and rubbing it gently over the cloth, spread the out- 
side of it with a thin coat of dye. This applies to the 
thick cloth: of the thin they very seldom dye more than 
the edges; some indeed I have seen dyed through, as if it 
had been soaked in the dye, but it had not nearly so elegant 
a colour as that on which a thin coat only was laid on the 
outside. 
Though the etow leaf is the most generally used, and I 
believe produces the finest colour, yet there are several 
more, which by being mixed with the juice of the little figs 
produce a red colour. Such are Tournefortia sericea (which 
they call taheino), Convolvulus brasiliensis, Solanum latifoliwm 
(ebooa). By the use of these different plants or of different 
proportions of the materials many varieties of the colour 
are observable among their cloths, some of which are very 
conspicuously superior to others. 
When the women have been employed in dyeing cloth, 
they industriously preserve the colour upon their fingers 
and nails, upon which it shows with its greatest beauty ; 
they look upon this as no small ornament, and I have been 
