148 NATIVE CLOTH COOKING. 
a-week, no fish, meat, or poultry will be found 
to grace the board, but yams, and sweet 
potatoes, and such humble fare as has been 
prepared by the females of the family. For the 
women have their daily tasks to perform ; some 
preparing the ground, taking up yams, and 
doing other work requiring diligence and 
strength. There being no servants, the wives 
or daughters make and mend the clothes, and 
attend to all the requisite household affairs. 
The women also manufacture tappa, or native 
cloth, from the bark of the "Ant'i," or paper- 
mulberry, which is rolled up, and soaked in 
water, and then beaten out with wooden mallets, 
and spread forth to dry.* The author has in 
his possession a piece of beautifully wrought 
white tappa, given him by Mrs. Heywood, and 
bearing a label, which states that it was made 
by the wife of Fletcher Christian, from the bark 
of the paper-mulberry-tree. The piece from 
which this portion was taken, was entrusted by 
her, when at a very advanced age, to Captain 
Jenkin Jones, when he visited 'the island, in 
her Majesty's ship Curagoa, in 1841 ; he having 
been desired to give it to Peter s wife. Isabella, 
Fletcher Christian's widow, was a native of 
Otaheite, and died in September, 1841. 
The cooking is performed by the females. 
Their cooking-places are apart from their dwell- 
ings ; and there are no fireplaces in any of the 
houses. Baked, not roasted, meats are the 
substantial luxuries of the table at Pitcairn. 
* For a full account of the mode of making tappa, see 
Cook's Voyage in 1777, &c. vol. i. p. 201. Ed. 1784. 
