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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Taupou, post: 44034, member: 45&quot;]No, not Native American, not rawhide.&nbsp; This is a piece of tapa cloth, from the South Pacific.&nbsp; Tapa is made from the bark of the paper mulberry tree, which is stripped off in long strips, peeled, scraped, pounded thin and flat on a wooden anvil, and made into sheets of tapa cloth.&nbsp; The process is a lot more complicated than that, but that&#039;s the short version.</p><p><br /></p><p>It is still made in Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa, and by a very few contemporary artists in Hawaii.&nbsp; Each island country has its own name for tapa, and a distinctive style and method of decoration which can determine where it was made. </p><p><br /></p><p>This particular piece is from Samoa, where tapa is called <i>siapo</i>.&nbsp;&nbsp; Samoan siapo can be either painted freehand (<i>siapo mamanu</i>), or &quot;printed&quot; by rubbing over a pattern board and then highlighted by hand (<i>siapo tasina</i>).&nbsp; There are 10-13 basic design elements (each of which has a name, and is based on natural forms) used in Samoan siapo, which are combined to make unlimited patterns. This is siapo mamanu, and is a good example of the use of 4 of those design elements.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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