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The Material Culture of the Cook Islands (Aitutaki)

Black Strips in Coloured Borders

Black Strips in Coloured Borders.

(1).Skin of the Plantain, ha vehi. This dye was provided by Nature, or as the old lady put it, "Na te Atua i homai" (God gave it). The butt ends of the plantain leaves, ha vehi, are covered with a shiny black skin. These are cut off where the colour is deep and the outer skin peeled off. Any spongy matter that adheres to the inner surface is scraped off with a shell. The strips are hung up to dry in the wind and then stored for use. The black colour is on the outer side only.

The plantain is called vehi in Aitutaki and hutu in Rarotonga. Vehi corresponds to the fei of Tahiti, which when eaten, is supposed to produce the same disinclination to seek other climes as the lotus did to the lotus eaters of European myth.

(2).A Native black dye, in which human assistance was required, is described in Rarotonga. The inner bark of the candlenut, tuitui, was scraped into a bowl and pounded with a beater. The liquid was then expressed through cocoanut palm kaka. to form the dyeing solution. In this papa strips were soaked for three days. It was then fixed by heat in an earth oven as in the preparation with the native red dye. When placed in the oven on one day, it was taken out on the following morning.

The next stage was to immerse the strips in the mud of a taro swamp for four to five days. The strips were afterwards washed, dried and then folded for future use. The colour was a deep black right through the strips. An alternative name for the candlenut tree is tuiti.