Barkcloth and Feathered Capes | Graphic Design in the Arts of Hawaii at the British Museum

Feathered Cape | *Kipuka*
© The Trustees of the British Museum

Barkcloth and Feathered Capes

Graphic Design in the Arts of Hawaii
at the British Museum

Curated by Steven G. Alpert

Last month, Art of the Ancestors paid homage to figurative renderings in wood from Hawaiian material culture in the British Museum. In contradistinction to these muscular images, we are pleased to expose another profound aspect of Hawaiian creativity and aesthetics with this month's companion feature that illustrates the Hawaiians' flair for graphic art, or two-dimensional renderings, with a selection of decorated bark cloth and feathered capes. These items are also stewarded and conserved by the British Museum and illustrated on their online database. Given the nature of the materials — think of three Fs: fragile, frangible, and friable — and given their vulnerability, it is impressive that feather capes or specimens of painted bark cloth have survived in some instances for more than two centuries.

Watercolor Drawing; pl.37; cape made of small feathers of golden yellow, with black and red designs. Hawaii. Selected from the International Exhibition London 1862 for Henry Christy.
Drawing by Louisa Leila Waterhouse Hawkins
19th century
Bequeathed by Henry Christy
Am2006,Drg.95
© The Trustees of the British Museum

The knowledge required for the creation of tapa is truly ancient, predating by millennia the introduction of the back-strap loom in Asia. Archaeological evidence in the form of distinctive wooden handled groove beaters for making bark cloth has been found in Southern China, dating back as early as around 8,000 years ago. The etymology of the Proto-Nuclear-Polynesian word 'taba,' meaning 'bark,' is said to have morphed into 'kapa' in Hawaiian, or as it is more commonly referred to in other Polynesian Islands, 'tapa,' hence the derivation of the modern English word for bark cloth.

In Asia, while other trees and woody vines from the Ficus (fig) or the Artocarpus family were used to make cloth, it is the paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera), wauke in Hawaiian, that was most highly prized for this process. When Hawaii was first visited and later settled from the 7th century AD onwards by seafarers from the Marquesas and Tahiti, they carried the essentials for living in new uncharted territory. It has been suggested that as a 'supertree,' the mulberry is perhaps the most transported fiber crop in prehistory. Paper mulberry not only can be employed to produce finely textured bark cloth, but it also provides edible food, wood for carving utensils, rich yellowish dyes, excellent fibrous rope, unguents, laxatives, and other efficacious medicines. Often referred to and revered as 'canoe plants,' the mulberry accompanied the ancestors of early Polynesians on their great voyages of exploration throughout the vast Pacific. In its varied forms and usages, tapa was, and still is in many ways, a powerful expression of material culture and identity within Polynesia.

The British Museum, as well as a number of other English and French institutions and some venerable American museum collections, have a fairly large number of early tapa samples, fragments, and complete cloths. Due to their very nature and size, they are seldom seen or displayed. What impresses one in the examination of early Hawaiian graphics is the quality of line drawing, often combined with asymmetrical shapes in endless combinations on both white and dark grounds. The 228 examples posted online by the British Museum represent a fine sampling of this material. They include early items such as a piece collected in the 18th century during one of Captain Cook's voyages that reminds one of a Rarotongan tapa with its bold right-leaning stems and zigzagging veins set with dotted squares. The overall design is bold, even foreboding, like a gathering sky on a stormy night. Another early visually strong, ever-so-skillfully drawn piece is a fragment of a very old tapa that originally came from the London Missionary Society. Here, the startling use of just black to depict elongated diamonds and sharply pointed chevrons containing varied wave patterns, snaking inner devices, and cross-hatched lines is riveting, drawing not only our attention to the cloth but also sparking our imagination regarding whoever once wore it. Another 18th-century tapa, described as being "stout" in the British Museum's side notes, combines a variety of again eye-riveting designs that utilize triangles, rhomboids, and zigzags in an earthy, off-kilter but absolutely unified and pleasing composition.

In the University of Glasgow's project, Situating Tapa, an esteemed group of world experts on the subject opined: "The kapa of Hawai'i was – and still is – unquestionably the most technically sophisticated and aesthetically diverse tradition of Pacific tapa – and indeed, probably the world's most complex barkcloth art. This may seem like an ambitious claim, but more plant species were exploited in Hawai'i for bast, and more for colourants, than the rest of Oceania combined." If one were to take the finest myth-o-magically inspired figurative drawings and designs applied to tapa, the Palme d'Or prize would undoubtedly go to the maro cloths of Lake Sentani and Humboldt Bay in Indonesia. Conversely, if the same would be said for the widest variety and most beautiful abstract creations drawn on bark cloth, the award would go to 18th to mid-19th century painted tapa from Tahiti, the Cook Islands, especially Rarotonga, but most notably of all, Hawaii.

A male mannequin in the National Museum of Copenhagen; wearing a Hawaiian feathered cloak and feathered helmet, carrying feathered pole (kāhili).
Gelatin silver print
Early 20th century
Acquired from the National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen
Oc,B16.14
© The Trustees of the British Museum

Another area where flattened decorative designs of meaning and merit held sway is epitomized by Hawaiian feathered capes or cloaks ('ahu'ula). These impressive garments were among the most important symbols of status and chiefly prerogative. Cloaks were donned by the highest-ranking chiefs on ceremonial occasions and during battles. What a presence a warrior chief must have radiated wearing such a cloak with a tall crested feathered helmet (mahiole huku manu)! Such a sight would have impressed and stunned one's enemies and admirers. On a practical level, wavering colors, folds, and crested designs conceivably obscured body parts, making harming your opponent all the more difficult. The name for these cloaks, 'ahu'ula, (a red garment) thus afforded its august wearer protection in both sacred and dangerous situations. The time-consuming activity of gathering bird feathers, red from the 'i'iwi (Scarlet Hawaiian Honeycreeper/Vestiaria coccinea) and yellow from the 'o'o' (Moho noblis) or mamo (Drepanis pacifica) while not harming their carriers, and then carefully attaching them to a fine overlapping meshing system, is an exceptionally ambitious project. Creating these capes was a purposeful, deeply spiritual exercise as 'ahu'ula were made by specially trained men of high status who observed very strict religious taboos during their period of creation.

*Govenor Boki of Oahu and his Wife Liliha*, pastel drawing based on earlier work by John Hayter, c. 1860. Severson, Don R., *Finding Paradise, Island Art in Private Collections*, University of Hawaii Press, 2002

The British Museum stewards an array of cloaks and capes, offering twenty examples online. Though each one is a marvelous creation, two are mentioned here to encourage our readers to visit the British Museum's well-organized website. The first cloak illustrated was brought to London in 1823 by King Kamehameha II during his state visit to the court of King George IV. Sadly, both the king and his wife died there of measles. Boki, a member of this entourage, a chief's son, and the governor of Oahu is recorded for posterity with his wife in a charming portrait by the court's artist, John Hayter. In the painting, Boki is wearing a feathered helmet and cloak that: "is with little doubt the one depicted by Hayter." (Kaeppler 1978:30-3). Large cloaks like this one are said to be comprised of somewhere between 400,000 - 500,000 individual feathers. The mana of these august gifts was such that they were often given as demonstrations of goodwill and linkage to early European and American visitors to what was then known as the Sandwich Islands. This cloak with its yellow geometric diamond patterns set on a red ground is also very similar, nearly identical, to one sent to England in 1810 as a gift for George III by Kamehameha I while in the process of requesting British protection from other foreign powers, as well as the weapons to expand his own hegemony over the entire Hawaiian Islands. That particular cloak was received by the Prince Regent and later displayed at Windsor Castle. (Royal Collection Trust: 69996)

Hawaiian feathered cloak and cape; cloak has border and triangles around the edge, with two central curved shapes; cape with border, two triangles and a central half circle design.
Photographed by Leopold W B Leave in Windsor Castle
Gelatin silver print
Early 20th century
Oc,B16.10
© The Trustees of the British Museum

The second cloak, and a personal favorite, with its straight neckline and the yellow trim border, is recorded by the late Polynesian-specialist, Adrienne Kaeppler, as one of several Pre-European contact cloaks that were received as gifts in 1778 from Hawaiian chiefs on Maui to Captain Charles Clerke, second in command on Captain Cook's third and final voyage. Set like a powerful rune, or similar in shape to the butterfly joints used to repair and keep heirloom poi bowls from cracking, two dominant triangles merge at 180 degrees and expand into one another in a statement of identification or deep significance. This dynamic pattern is surrounded by two axial semi-circles bordered by bands, smaller circles, and dots that reinforce and further invigorate its center.

In closing, Hawaii's finest painted tapa and gorgeously feathered cloaks rise far beyond any modern or contemporary notion of flair or fashion. The items illustrated here derive from a time when individuals of status ornamented themselves in ways that radiated not only power but projected beauty to further pronounce their lineages, relationships, and simple appreciation for small island environments with inspired designs that are Olu'olu (ka makani) — "as refreshing as the wind."

— Steven G. Alpert, founder of Art of the Ancestors

1

Barkcloth

Bark, pigment

Acquisition details unknown

Oc,HAW.195

2

Barkcloth

18th-century

Bark, paint

Transferred from Victoria and Albert Museum in 1952

Oc1952,01.48

3

Barkcloth

18th-century

Bark, pigment

Field collected by Captain James Cook

Donated by Sydney H Tonks in 1896

Previously owned by Mrs. M. J. Adams

Oc1896,1012.2

4

Loin-Cloth

18th-century

Bark, pigment

Acquisition details unknown

Oc,HAW.24

5

Barkcloth

Paper mulberry bark, pigment

Donated by London Missionary Society, 1921

Oc1921,1005.13

6

Loin-Cloth

circa 1790-1810

Bark (Māmaki), plant extract

Acquisition details unknown

Oc,HAW.19

7

Barkcloth

18th-century

Bark, pigment

Acquisition details unknown

Oc,HAW.201

8

Feathered Cape | Kipuka

Before 1824

Yellow ʻōʻō feathers, red feathers, (possibly i'iwi), olonā fiber net

Associated with Kamehameha II (Liholiho), King of the Hawaiian Kingdom

Donated by Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks in 1892

Oc,+.5769

9

Feathered Cloak | 'Ahu'ula'

18th-century

Honeycreeper feathers, honeyeater feathers, olonā fiber

Associated with Captain James Cook

Previously owned by Captain Charles Clerke?

Oc,HAW.133

10

Feathered Cape | Kipuka

18th-century - early 19th-century

Honeycreeper feathers, honeyeater feathers, olonā fiber

Acquisition details unknown

Oc,HAW.135

11

Feathered Cape

18th century-early 19th century

Honeycreeper feathers, honeyeater feathers, olonā fiber

Acquisition details unknown

Oc,HAW.141

12

Feathered Cloak

Late 18th century-early 19th century

Cock feathers, red (i'iwi) feathers, yellow feathers (o'o), olonā fiber

Purchased from Miss Ethel Royds in 1903

Oc1903,0620.1

13

Feathered Cape | Kipuka

Before 1817

Red (i'iwi) feathers, yellow feathers (ō'ō), black feathers (ō'ō), olonā fiber

Field collected by Adm Von Kotzebue

Previously owned by Harry Geoffrey, Kamehameha I, and Namahana Pi'ia

Donated by Irene Marguerite Beasley in 1944

Oc1944,02.2109

14

Feathered Cape | Kipuka

Before 1892

Red (i'iwi) feathers, yellow feathers (ō'ō), black feathers (ō'ō), olonā fiber

Donated by Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks in 1892

Previously owned by Mrs. Harriet Sowley Vinter

Oc,+.5897

15

Feathered Cloak | 'Ahu'ula'

Before 1869

Red feathers, yellow feathers, vegetable fiber netting

Field collected by Sir H Chamberlayne

Associated with Kamehameha II (Liholiho), King of the Hawaiian Kingdom, King of Sandwich Islands

Donated by Henry Christy between 1860-1869

Oc.1174

The British Museum

Great Russell St, Bloomsbury, London WC1B 3DG, United Kingdom

All artworks and images presented in this feature are the property of the British Museum.
© The Trustees of the British Museum

Curations, News 15Steven G. AlpertJune 27, 2024Art of the Ancestors, Steven G. Alpert, Asian Art, Island Southeast Asian Art, Oceanic Art, Asiatica, Ethnographica, Ethnographic Art, Art Collection, Fine Art, Primitive Art, Indonesian Art, Tribal Art, Eyes of the Ancestors, Dr. Reimar Schefold