"Tapa, Painted Bark, Oceanic Art, Tribal Art, Primitive Art, Tonga, Oceania"
Fragment of a huge "Ngatu" tapa collected from the Tonga Islands in Polynesia. Tapa is the first fabric available in the Pacific. Its uses were varied: clothes, shrouds, blankets, mosquito nets, bags, prestige currency. Tapas made in Tonga are made from the bark of the paper mulberry tree. The bast from the bark is extracted and left to ret before being threshed and dried. The bark is struck using a mallet or tapa beater which compacts the fibers and welds them together. The patterns drawn abstractly and symbolically evoke important events, ancestral myths and legends. In Europe, the tapa is to be considered as a painting that we put on the wall. Beaten bark and natural pigments based on mangrove roots. 
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