Hiapo (tapa)

Hiapo (tapa). Niue. c. 1850–1900 C.E. Tapa or bark cloth, freehand painting.

• Women's arts historically utilized soft materials, particularly fibers used to make mats and bark cloth. Women’s arts included ephemeral materials such as flowers and leaves.
• Terminology, decorations, dyes, and designs vary through out the islands.
• Generally, to make bark cloth, a woman would harvest the inner bark of the paper mulberry (a flowering tree). The inner bark is then pounded flat, with a wooden beater or ike, on an anvil, usually made of wood. Methods vary per culture. 
• Design illustrations involved geometric motifs in an overall ordered and abstract patterns.
• The most important traditional uses for tapa were for clothing, bedding and wall hangings. Textiles were often specially prepared and decorated for people of rank. Tapa was ceremonially displayed on special occasions, such as birthdays and weddings.
• At times of death, bark cloth may be integral part of funeral and burial rites.
• In social settings, bark cloth and mats participate in reciprocity patterns of cultural exchange. Women may present textiles as offerings in exchange for work, food, or to mark special occasions. 
• The earliest examples of hiapo were collected by missionaries and date to the second half of the nineteenth century. 
• n the 1880s, a distinctive style of hiapo decorations emerged that incorporated fine lines and new motifs. Hiapo from this period are illustrated with complicated and detailed geometric designs. The patterns were composed of spirals, concentric circles, squares, triangles, and diminishing motifs. 
• Niueans created naturalistic motifs and were the first Polynesians to introduce depictions of human figures into their bark cloth. Some hiapo examples include writing, usually names, along the edges of the overall design.
• Still produced today.