172 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
feelings, especially if it be is recollected that there were 
few seasons when a human body was not suspended from 
some of the branches, to propitiate the deity of the place. 
The aoa was not entirely devoted to the nurture of that 
debasing superstition by which the people were oppressed. 
With the thin slender twigs or young branches of this 
tree, a strong kind of cloth was made, which they called 
ora, or aoa, and which, on account of its durability, was 
highly esteemed. 
Garments made with the bark of a tree constituted the 
principal article of native dress, prior to the introduc¬ 
tion of foreign cloth. It is manufactured chiefly by 
females, and was one of their most frequent employ¬ 
ments, The name for cloth, among the Tahitians, is 
ahu. The Sandwich Island word tapa, is, we believe, 
never used in this sense, but signifies a part of the 
human body. In the manufacture of their cloth, the 
natives of the South Sea Islands use a greater variety of 
materials than their neighbours in the northern group : 
the bark of the different varieties of luauti, or paper 
mulberry, being the only article used by the latter; while 
the former employ not only the bark of the paper mul¬ 
berry, which they call auti^ but also that of the aoa and 
of the bread-fruit. 
The process of manufacture is much the same in 
all, though some kinds are sooner finished than others. 
When the bark from the branches of the bread-fruit or 
auti is used, the outer green or brown rind is scraped off 
with a shell; it is then slightly beaten, and allowed to 
ferment, or is macerated in water. A stout piece of 
wood, resembling a beam, twenty or thirty feet long, 
and from six to nine inches square, with a groove cut 
in the under side, is fixed on the ground; across 
