CLOTH MANUFACTURE. 
179 
obtain their subsistence, and construct their dwell¬ 
ings, their apparel claimed attention. This, 
though light, required, from the simple methods 
by which it was fabricated, a considerable portion 
of their time. Cloth made with the bark of a 
tree, constituted a principal article of native dress, 
prior to the introduction of foreign cloth. It is 
manufactured chiefly by females, and was one of 
their most frequent employments. 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 wauti , or paper mulberry, being almost the only 
article used by the latter; while the former employ 
not only the bark of the paper mulberry, 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 placed on the ground; across 
this, the bark is laid, and beaten with a heavy mal¬ 
let of casuarina or iron-wood. The mallet is 
usually fifteen or eighteen inches long, about two 
inches square, and round at one end, for the pur¬ 
pose of being held firmly. The sides of the mallet 
n 2 
