Abstract:
In the decades since Tamahori demarcated the material characteristics of plant-based ngatu production there have been small adjustments made by Tongan women who beat paper mulberry bast into supple sheets and then paste these into layered cloths decorated with plant- and soil-based pigments. Commercially prepared dyes and pastes are sometimes used; the repertoire of kupesi has greatly expanded; and the manufacturing process that separated fuatanga from other types of Tongan barkcloth is no longer an essential part of the making of this chiefly cloth. Moreover, the specificity of the barkcloth hierarchy described by Tamahori has diminished as, for example, fuatanga and ngatu ‘uli are increasingly made and mobilized by Tongans without the circumscription of ‘eiki women, and have become available for purchase in Tonga and its diaspora. But the biggest change to Tongan barkcloth manufacture, and one that Tamahori could not possibly have foreseen, is the substitution of synthetic fabric for one or both layers of beaten bark that constitute a ngatu. This essay draws from my thesis and other recent publications to augment the painstaking research and detailed analyses made by Maxine Tamahori, by tracing recent material changes that have been incorporated into—and which, I suggest, are ratified by—the time-honoured barkcloth-making process of the koka‘anga.
