Serie (Cherie) Barford
Making Siapo
1. Peeling the bark
small plantations of mulberry trees
are tended like growing children
pruned and nudged into alignment
they sprout straight toward heaven
without branches or strange notions
to mar the finished product
when village babies toddle into walking
saplings from the same birth-moon
are cut or bitten around the butt
the bark stripped from them
like clothing
peeled from wet bodies
determined pulling
some grunting and wrestling
finally accomplishing the deed
2. Peeling the bast
the bark is rolled around a hand
flattened and subdued
soft and pliable
a knife prises the bast
from the coarse outer bark
I’ve seen women do this
with a Madonna smile
hair softly drawn back
lava-black and piled high
fixed with plastic turtle-shell combs
they sit
legs to curled to one side
wielding knives from ample hips
illuminated by tropical flowers
sewn quietly into dresses
bit by bit
inner and outer bark
are peeled from each other
if the bark were a mouth
it would be screaming by now
3. Scraping the bast
I’ve mistaken the pouring of water
over a sloping board
for a wash day
then realized the board
accommodated strips of bast
and siapo was in the making
sometimes an old canoe suffices
it is an inclined surface that is required
running water
and something sharp
shells or bamboo or a knife
that can scrape away
remnants of the coarse outer bark
that eluded the bast peeling
clung stubbornly to its soft inner flesh
4. Beating the bast
the dull thud of a beating
churns my stomach
triggers adrenalin
my legs pump a getaway
out of any door or window
but the fight has gone from bundles of bast
it’s been pressed out with excess water
by deftly applied shells and open palms
the bundles submit to wooden anvils
are evenly beaten
by grooved and smooth faces
there’s a rhythm to it all
and when it’s over
sheets of cloth are stretched out
on mats or mown grass
weighted down with stones
left to dry like parchment
5. Dying siapo
dye is made from candlenut trees
the shoots of coconut palms gathered
in woven baskets with turmeric roots
dried and powdered mountain clay
mixed with seeds and the sap of plants
sought by hurricanes uprooting the coast
and the cut trunks of towering bananas
shading clusters of ripening fruit
reds
blacks
browns
yellows
ochre
my hair’s the colour of siapo
whiffs of white peeping through
with random smudges of grey
blotted by immersion dying
the free-hand painting of highlights
the rubbing of youthful promise
into an aging scalp
my great-grandmother
wrapped herself in siapo
in the days when whalers plied
antipodean coastlines for loot
she was a taupou
escaped and bore a child to a man
old enough to be her grandfather
sometimes when I’m combing
anti-frizz emollients into my hair
pulling it back and up into a bundle
to fix with plastic turtle-shell combs
I think of Fiapaipai
her fall from grace
the village curse
my own life
and smile or weep
depending on the day
