Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Material Culture of the Cook Islands (Aitutaki)

The Beating Process, Tutu

The Beating Process, Tutu.

The bark is removed from the trees or saplings and taken home. Each stage will now be taken under its sub-heading.

Separating the Bast. At home, the inner bark or bast (kiko) is separated from the outer bark (pakiri). This is done by separating them at one of the cut ends with a kahi shell, when the two parts are readily pulled apart.

Soaking in Water. The bast is tied in bundles and soaked in sea water for one day.

Hoahanga Process. The first beating is now done on the wooden anvil. Each individual strip of bast is beaten with the ngao hoahoa face of the beater. This flattens out the strips and brings out the texture of the bark. The process is called hoahanga. The general process of beating bark on an anvil with a beater is tutu, but the particular act of first flattening out the bast is hoa. Therefore this particular part of the beating process is the hoahanga. As coarse heavy ridges are required on the beater to do this preliminary work, that type of grooved surface becomes the ngao hoahoa, the hoa grooves.

Washing. When the individual strips have been beaten enough, they are washed in fresh water to remove the salt from the previous immersion in the sea, and to get rid of sap and green colouring matter, tahe. This cleans and whitens the material.

Draining. The material is left in a rough cocoanut leaf basket, tapora, until next day to allow it to drain. It is then removed and wrapped up in the leaves of the kind of taro called puraka. The puraka has a larger leaf than the ordinary kind but not so large as the wild kape species. It is left for three days before the next stage is commenced.

Alternate Process. Some women do not soak the bast in salt water for a day. They commence the hoahanga process immediately after pealing off the outer skin. The page 80dry strips are beaten, soaked in fresh water for 24 hours and then wrapped in puraka leaves, as in the last process.

Papahanga Process. The material is removed from the puraka leaves, laid on the anvil, and beaten with the medium-grooved surfaces of the beaters. The ngao papa surface is used until the right width, kapu, is attained. The slightly finer ngao iheihe surface is used to further spread out the material. A number of women are engaged along the 12 feet length of the anvil, the edges of each section are overlapped and beaten into a continuous sheet, papa. Hence the process is the papahanga, or sheet process, and the grooved surface of the first beater used is named the ngao papa.

The Finishing Process, hakaotinga. The cloth is finished off, hakaoti, with the finest-grooved surface of the beater, ngao tahakaieie. This renders the cloth manea, or beautiful. Some islands use a perfectly smooth surface to finish off with, but the Aitutaki women did not recognise this procedure.

Drying, ka tauraki ki te ra. The beating technique having been finished, the cloth was spread out in the sun to dry. The edges were kept down with the heavier dark stones known as pohatu Maori. Selected stones were kept for this purpose. The cloth was exposed to the sun for three or four days to render it strong, pakari.