Decoration in Samoan plaiting

Check. In close check plaiting each weft stroke forms a square with its sides equal to the width of the weft. Without change of color, each square looks the same whether it inclines to the right or the left. The only possibilities of pleasing the eye in this technique are the regularity and fineness of plait obtained by splitting the wefts evenly and getting them as narrow as the material will allow. With objects of ordinary use, utility comes first. Wide wefts are easier to handle and the object is more quickly made. When we pass from floor mats to sleeping mats of the same material, the wefts narrow until they diminish to 0.2 inches. Further advance necessitated a special technique in preparing material to render it possible to obtain narrower wefts. Fine weaving thus reached its highest development in the check technique of fine mats where, owing to the lau'ie material being split into two layers, it was possible to split wefts as fine as from one-fourteenth to one-twenty-second of an inch. The aesthetic value of a fine mat is due to narrow wefts, but the technique, though difficult to work with the fingers and trying to the eyes, remains the simple, common check in universal use. In the use of the check, Samoan technique specialized in the direction of increasing the fineness of the weft and the alternate decorative possibilities to be obtained by using change of color was not exploited to any extent.

Twills. With twill strokes, it is possible to get change of appearance with materials of one color. Aesthetic value was not primarly influenced by reducing the weft width as in check, and different patterns appear early in material made with coarse coconut leaflet wefts such as wall screens. Structural decoration due to change in the strokes made with the foundation wefts appears as an early form of decoration.

In joining together two or more coconut leaf midrib strips to provide two distinct sets of crossing wefts, the Samoans found that a commencing line of horizontal twilled twos was the easiest and quickest form of technique. Horizontal lines of twilled twos were continued up on the body and are probably the oldest pattern. Any departure from horizontal lines created a new pattern and a further decorative effect. Vertical lines of twilled twos thus became popular on the wall screens and laulau platters as a departure from the common pattern produced by ordinary plaiting.

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In the ola fish baskets it was easier to continue with the ordinary technique of horizontal twills but in the more pretentious round baskets vertical twills were preferred. Twilled twos also developed into twilled threes, fours, or fives and combined with check or lesser twills as the desire for variety dictated. In coarse floor mats the working check was retained but in sleeping and baby mats the more decorative twills were used. In fine mats the check was retained, as aesthetic value was supplied by the fineness of the plait and a change to twill would have complicated an already difficult technique as regards manipulating the fine wefts. Changes in the direction of the lines of twill led to zigzag patterns termed fa'api'opi'o (crooked).

Further advance in structural decoration was made by raising groups of three or more dextrals and altering the order in which they were dropped to cross with a similar number of sinistrals. This has been seen in the wall screens and has become associated with them in name, as lalanga fa'atalafale (plaiting like the wall of a house). The geometrical figures produced mamanu of sumu, names also applied to sennit designs worked on wall posts, beams, and canoes. They are regarded as important forms of decoration. There is pride in the voice of a craftswoman when, as she starts a combination, she says, "Mamanu." Similar pride is expressed by a man when he points out the sennit design on a wall post or beam, and says, "Mamanu." The pride that a Samoan woman takes in the geometrical pattern of a wall screen made out of coconut leaflets shows that she obtains pleasure from the structural decoration which is unassisted by change of color. Hence, when she adopted the geometrical patterns on floor mats where color could have been easily employed, she was so satisfied with the plain structural decoration that Samoan plaiting remained in that stage of decoration and advanced little, if at all, until more recent influences opened up the possibilities of employing colored elements to enhance the appearance of the geometrical motives that had come into use.

Structural geometrical motives. The motives used in the mats examined were the two used in the wall screens with modifications regarding the bounding of them with lines of check or twill, and one other, also probably used on wall screens. (See fig. 123.)

Colored wefts. A restricted use of colored wefts is now in vogue but owing to the satisfaction derived from structural twill decoration in the color of the natural wefts and the high value of fine check plaiting, it is probable that the technique is of fairly recent development. Color contrast may be obtained by using two shades of the weft material or a distinct color from some other material, such as a dye.

The method of using two shades of the same material is the most common and is probably as far as color use went in olden days. The laufala has a natural brown shade which gives the general color to all mats. If some of the page 229material is cooked in an oven and bleached in the sun, it becomes lighter in color and forms a distinct contrast to the darker normal color.

One set of wefts (dextrals) is provided from one shade of material and the crossing elements from the other shade. In check plaiting, a draft board pattern is produced in small squares the width of one weft. In this pattern all the white elements run in one direction and the dark elements in the opposite. In the baby mat described with the longitudinal open slits, the change in direction of two wefts on every third sinistral changed the direction of every alternate dextral and every alternate sinistral. The pattern then changed from colored checks to thin oblique lines running to the right (see Plate XVII, B, 2), which were formed by the alternate arrangement of color throughout, resulting in the sinistrals of one shade crossing over the dextrals of the same color. After a sufficient depth of this pattern, the direction of the oblique lines was reversed by plaiting a single horizontal row of sinistral twilled twos. Any twilled two stroke will change the direction of the line. By using twilled twos to change direction and mark the angle of the change consecutive squares may be formed.

The slits that may be regarded as part of the decoration were really used instead of a twill stroke to change the pattern. In twill, the horizontal lines of twill naturally arrange into the different colors of the dextrals and sinistrals. Vertical colored lines and zigzag lines can be arranged by simply following the stroke technique described. It is, however, with the geometrical figures that the two colors are principally used to accentuate the design, as in the baby mat (Plate XVII, B, 3, and fig. 123 c). Here the lines in twill and check are used as bounding motives to the more elaborate geometrical motive.

The use of the black outer skin from the base of plaintain leaves (soa'a) is claimed as old. If so, it is not so extensively used as in the Cook Islands. The outer, black skin of the soa'a is stripped off and scraped on the inner surface to make the material as thin as possible. It is then split into wefts page 230of the same width as the foundation wefts of the mat. In soa'a material, the black color is on the outer surface while the inner surface is brown.

The method of using soa'a wefts is by overlaying them on the foundation wefts with the black surface upwards. Two methods of overlaying may be used: 1, Structural overlaying consists in laying the soa'a element on the sinistral foundation wefts as they function at the working edge. When the working dextrals complete their movement over the sinistral in the shed, the soa'a element is fixed on the working sinistral and the parts not covered by the working dextrals which cross over it, show up. Thus each sinistral so treated is black on the upper surface but no color shows on the under surface. Structural overlaying is not much used by the Samoans. The only specimens seen formed horizontal lines of twill. 2, Inserted overlaying is more common than structural overlaying but is little used. The completed structure of the mat is then decorated by pushing single strips of soa'a under crossing wefts over the course of selected wefts. Thus in the sleeping mat (Pl. XVII, C, 1) zigzag lines in black run close to the serrated edge, while further in, lines are crossed so as to form a series of rectangular figures, tilted on one corner, and merely outlined at their margins.

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Though well acquainted with the use of native dyes in coloring bark cloth, dyed pandanus material did not figure much in the craft of mat making. It is doubtful if it did until after the more extensive use of foreign dyes in making kilts for tourists. The stimulus given to dyeing kilt material extended to mat material, not for trade but for their own use. The elaborate mat in Plate XVII, C, 2 has all the sinistral wefts dyed with the black native lama dye. The same geometrical motive used with the two natural shades (Pl. XVII, B, 3) are used here with effect and interspersed with squares worked in twill arranged in four triangular segments (fig. 123 c). Though plaited by Samoans with motives that could easily be derived from their own craft, one feels that the idea of such elaboration is as foreign to their own native culture as the colored worsted fringes around the edges. In Samoan plaiting, therefore, the importance and value of the fine mat ('ie tonga) directed the attention of craftswomen in the direction of fine check plaiting and restricted the development of other forms of decoration.