Tapa Cloth Beater (l'e kuku)
Unknown Artist
before 1930
Medium
wood
Dimensions
h. 38.7 cm
Classification
Sculpture
Department
Oceania
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Thomas Munro
Accession Number
1971.152
About this artwork
To make tapa, a decorated bark cloth, Hawaiian women used the four-sided beater to pound the inner bark of the paper mulberry tree, softened by a week of soaking in sea water. The cloth was beaten in several stages, starting with the most coarsely grooved side of the mallet and gradually reaching the finest grooved side. Although many Polynesian groups produced tapa cloth, only Hawaiian tapa cloth beaters were incised with a variety of "watermark" patterns. The prepared cloth was decorated with ...