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The Material Culture of the Cook Islands (Aitutaki)

1. Hapaha

1. Hapaha.

The pahoa cloth prepared from the bast of the Broussonetia, when dyed yellow with dye obtained from the page 81roots of the renga, nono, or kawapiu, was called hapaha. Of these dyes that from the renga was the best.

Yellow Dye. The roots of the renga were washed and then scraped on a stone or rubbed (oro) with rough coral. In the case of the nono, the outer bark of the roots was removed with a kahi shell, and the scrapings of the inner part of the roots utilised. The roots of the kawapiu were like the renga.

The scrapings of whichever root is used, are placed in a wooden bowl and thoroughly mixed with water by working with the hands. The insoluble material was strained off, tatau, by scooping it up with dried strips of hau bark and wringing the fluid out as in the preparation of kava in Western Polynesia. The colour is brightened by squeezing a lime into the liquid. On my suggestion that limes were a recent introduction, an old man said that in his youth he had noticed old women adding sea-water, when limes were not obtainable.

Treatment. The pahoa cloth was placed in a large wooden bowl paroe, and immersed in the dye. It was kept in until examination showed that it had reached the right depth of colour. This was a question of individual judgement. The cloth was removed and spread out to dry.

Use. Hapaha is the correct cloth to spread over a mother after child-birth. When the after-birth has been disposed of and the mother washed, she is placed on a clean bed in another part of the one-roomed house and a sheet of hapaha cloth spread over her as a quilt. This is still being carried out as the nurse who attended confinements informed me. Another appropriate bed-spread on such occasions is the hora cloth made from the banyan.