Tongan Ngatu (Barkcloth)
Barkcloth of Tonga, made by beating the inner bark of the hiapo (paper mulberry) into strips and pasting them together with starch into large sheets, which are then decorated in working parties called koka'anga. Women rub brown and black dyes over carved kupesi rubbing boards to print repeating geometric motifs — chevrons, zigzags and diagonal bands — that carry the patterns of their families and districts. Ngatu is given at weddings, funerals and royal ceremonies, used as floor mats, wall coverings and dance costumes, and the largest ceremonial pieces, some hundreds of metres long, are presen