112 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
But the best kind of cloth made with the culti¬ 
vated plant is the wairiirii , which is made into 
paiis for the females, and maros for the men. The 
pails are generally four yards long, and about one 
yard wide, very thick, beautifully painted with 
brilliant red, yellow, and black colours, and 
covered over with a fine gum and resinous varnish, 
which not only preserves the colours, but renders 
the cloth impervious and durable. The maros are 
about a foot wide, and three or four yards long. 
The colours they employ are procured from the 
leaves, bark, berries, or roots of indigenous plants, 
and require much skill in their preparation. One 
or two kinds of earth are also used in mixing the 
darker colours. Since foreigners have visited 
them, they have found, upon trial, that our colours 
are better than theirs, and the paints they purchase 
from ships have superseded in a great degree the 
native colours, in the painting of the most valuable 
kinds of cloth. 
Their manner of painting is ingenious. They 
cut the pattern they intend to stamp on their cloth, 
on the inner side of a narrow piece of bamboo, 
spread their cloth before them on a board, and 
having their colours properly mixed, in a calabash 
by their side, dip the point of the bamboo, which 
they hold in their right hand, into the paint, strike 
it against the edge of the calabash, place it on the 
right or left side of the cloth, and press it down 
with the fingers of the left hand. The pattern is 
dipped in the paint after every impression, which 
is repeated till the cloth is finished. 
The tapa in general lasts but a little while, com¬ 
pared with any kind of wove cloth, yet, if kept free 
from wet, which causes it to rend like paper, some 
kinds may be worn a considerable time. The 
