Bark Cloth
date: label: Accession Date
content: 1858
label: Collection Date
content: 1838 to 1842
name: label: Donor Name
content: United States Exploring Expedition
notes: label: Notes
content: Tapa with rubbed on "upeti" (design board or tablet) designs; dark lines divide the rubbed designs into rectangular sections; rectangles contain alternating large dark dots and double chevron painted lines added over upeti designs; dark border on outer edges. No Peale number on object as of 2013.
label: Notes
content: Stored in Pod 4 oversize whole unit. Advance arrangements are needed for access.
label: Notes
content: Some of the siapo (tapa) contruction and design information below was provided in 2013 by Regina Meredith of American Samoa, siapo (tapa) maker, artist, and teacher. Material of the siapo (tapa) traditionally comes from inner bark of the paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera). After inner bark was removed from the plant, and left to soak in water, it would have been beaten by a wooden mallet on an anvil, to become a sheet of u'a (one sheet of plain tapa). Many sheets of u'a were used to create this siapo and were most likely pasted together with a traditional natural adhesive, such as arrowroot. One edge of the siapo is without a fringe and appears to be cut, which implies it may have originally been larger than it currently is. Design of this siapo is split into 21 squares with alternating circular and triangular motifs, which are painted on with o'a, a dark red-brownish sap extracted from the locally called Blood Tree (Bishofia Javanica). The circular motifs resemble the traditional symbol of ila, which means birthmark. The background is a series of alternating diagonal long and short lines, which were traditionally applied by rubbing the design onto the siapo with ele, a brown-reddish ocher, and o'a. Tapas with the rubbed design are termed siapo mamanu, which means a siapo with freehand drawn designs. Meredith has previously noted that there is no further significance behind the traditional siapo motifs and that the designs in this historic siapo were chosen randomly.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 1 Jul 2022
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: American Samoa (not certain), Samoa (not certain) / United States (not certain), Polynesia
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Samoan
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 66A00050
label: USNM Number
content: E3446-1
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Barkcloth
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 164.5 cm
label: Width - Object
content: 124 cm