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tapa cloth

Barkcloth made in the island cultures of the Pacific Ocean

EntityQ972724

Also known as tapa · masi

Subclass of: barkcloth
2
Sources
1.Stated in Fairchild's Dictionary of Textiles
2.Stated in Art & Architecture Thesaurus
View statement on Wikidata ↗

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

Tapa cloth 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, Sulawesi, New Zealand, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and Hawaii. 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."

Overview

All data

12 statements · 17% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

Indigenous to: Polynesia
Different from: Tapa

On other databases

9 identifiers linking tapa cloth across the web's reference databases

Data quality

statements

17%

externally sourced

Source last edited May 25, 2026. AIDb refreshes this page daily.

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AIDb. (2026). tapa cloth (Q972724). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/tapa-cloth-Q972724