Bark Cloth Sample

Skirt Fragment

A rectangular sample of bark cloth, made of wauke (paper mulberry). The sample was removed from a kapa puakai (red kapa) present at the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum. The kapa is referenced in William T. Brigham’s Ka Hana Kapa. The uncarved portion (mole) of the bark cloth beater (i'e kuku) was used to create this kapa. The surface of the kapa is decorated with red lines. The line designs were created with bamboo kapa liners (lapa). The pigment used to create the red designs is noni (Morinda citrifolia).

Kapa cloth is produced from the inner bark of a tree, typically wauke (paper mulberry), which is cultivated, harvested, and processed through soaking, scraping, fermenting, and repeated beating to form and refine the cloth. Patterned beaters may be used during production to create watermarks that can reflect regional styles or maker affiliations. After drying, the cloth is decorated using natural dyes and bamboo implements.

The kapa could have been either a paʻu or a malo. Paʻu are skirts worn by women, typically constructed from bark cloth. They are generally long garments, worn by wrapping a single length of bark cloth multiple times around the body. Malo are loincloths worn by men and are similarly constructed.

From the eighteenth century onward, European collectors and scholars frequently collected kapa, often removing small samples from larger textiles to facilitate transport, study, and comparison in museum and private collections, a practice especially common during and after Cook’s voyages in the Pacific.