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1886.1.1251

Barkcloth, yellowish in colour

On display

1886.1.1251

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Collection type
Object
Description
Barkcloth, yellowish in colour
Long description
Barkcloth, yellowish in colour, made from several layers felted together to form two thicker layers which are joined along one long and one short edge. [JU 25/09/2012]
Date / Period
Date made: Before 04/06/1774?, uncertain
Date collected
Between 17 August and 18 September 1773, or between 22 April and 4 June 1774?
Acquisition information
Transferred: 19/04/1886
Materials and processes
Material Bark Fibre Plant, Material Mulberry Bark Plant, Material Bark Cloth Textile Plant, Process Beaten
Dimensions
Length: max 3040 mm, Width: max 1300 mm
Object numbers
Accession number: 1886.1.1251 Other numbers: Forster 14
Research and responses

Kooijman, in 'Tapa in Polynesia' (Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin 234, Honolulu 1972) p.15 describes this kind of tapa as ahu, compared by Banks to broad-cloth and by Forster to flannel. This type of tapa is made from ‘a combination of felting and pasting techniques by which thin, very carefully prepared pieces of tapa were worked into a thicker but still pliant sheet.’ [JU 16/11/2012]

Associated publications
Listed according to the 'Forster list' numbering system in 'From the Islands of the South Seas 1773-4: An Exhibition of a Collection Made on Capn. Cook's Second Voyage of Discovery by J.R. Forster- -A Short Guide (Oxford: Pitt Rivers Museum, no date[1970]). The text from the 'Forster' manuscript is followed by the following notes: 'In two sections. Dimensions: 304cm. x 190cm.; 304cm. x 130cm.' Listed as one of number 3 under ‘Tahiti...Bark Cloth’ on page 130 of 'Artificial Curiosities': Being an Exposition of Native Manufactures Collected on the Three Pacific Voyages of Captain James Cook, R.N. at the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, January 18, 1978 - August 31, 1978 on the Occasion of the Bicentennial of the European Discovery of the Hawaiian Islands by Captain Cook - January 18, 1778 (Bernice P. Bishop Museum Special Publication 65), by Adrienne L. Kaeppler (Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press, 1978): '3. Oxford (8-22 [sic; this last number is incorrect and should read 20]), 13 pieces from the Forster collection including three pieces belonging to the mourning dress and a turban used to fasten the large helmet.' [JP 23/7/2002] Listed on page 472 of 'Appendix A: Catalogue of Society Island Objects with Secure Eighteenth-Century Provenance' in 'Shaping the Body Politic: Gender, Status, and Power in the Art of Eighteenth-Century Tahiti and the Society Islands', by Anne Elizabeth D'Alleva (New York: Columbia University, Ph.D. thesis, 1997). She describes it as follows: 'Piece of felted yellow-white bark cloth, composed of at least four layers. No red edges.' [JP 31/7/2002] Published as part of the Forster Collection on a dedicated website at www.prm.ox.ac.uk/forster (from February 2001). [JC 7 7 2005] For an account of the history of the collection of which this is part, see 'The Cook-Voyage Collections at Oxford, 1772–1775', by Jeremy Coote, in Jeremy Coote (ed.), Cook-Voyage Collections of 'Artificial Curiosities' in Britain and Ireland, 1771–2015 (MEG Occasional Paper No. 5), Oxford: Museum Ethnographers Group (2015), pp. 74–122. (Copy in RDF: Researchers: Jeremy Coote (Cook-Voyage Collections).) [JC 9 6 2016]

Search terms: Barkcloth

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