Tapa cloth

Tapa cloth (or simply tapa) is a barkcloth made in the islands of the Pacific Ocean, primarily in Tonga, Samoa and Fiji, but as far afield as Niue, Cook Islands, Futuna, Solomon Islands, Java, New Zealand, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and Hawaii (where it is called kapa). In French Polynesia it has nearly disappeared, except for some villages in the Marquesas. In Melville's "Typee," the ship "Dolly" enters the harbor of Nukuheva where it is met by "swimming nymphs ... their adornments were completed by passing a few loose folds of white tappa, in a modest cincture, around the waist." (Typee, 1968: Evanston and Chicago, Northwestern University Press and the Newberry Library, pp. 14-15.)