Bark Cloth Sample

Dance Skirt Fragment

A rectangular sample of kilohana (decorated outer sheet), made of wauke (paper mulberry). The sample was removed from a kapa pa'u (skirt) measuring approximately 3 x 9 feet, present at the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum. The kapa is referenced in William T. Brigham’s Ka Hana Kapa. A patterned bark beater with a mole pepehi (deep grooves with wide ridges rounded like an inverted U) motif was used in its production, leaving visible markings in the cloth. The surface decoration is rows of geometric designs in red and black. The designs were created with bamboo stamps (‘ohe kāpala). The bark cloth has been oiled.

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.

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.

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.