wo processes of bark cloth making and netting together,
as being the only forms in which material is made in pieces of
substantial size.

Bark cloth is used for making perineal bands, men's caps,
illness-recovery capes, bark cloth head strings, mourning strings and
dancing aprons and ribbons. Netting is used for fishing and hunting
nets, sleeping hammocks, the various forms of carrying bags and the
mourning vests worn by the widows of chiefs.

Bark Cloth Making.

Bark cloth is made by both men and women out of the bark of three
different kinds of tree; but I do not know what these are. They strip
the bark from the tree, and from the bark they strip off the outer
layer, leaving the inner fibrous layer, which is about 1/8th of an
inch in thickness. They have no method of fastening two pieces of
bark or cloth together, so every garment has to be a single piece,
and the size of the piece to be made depends upon the purpose for
which it is wanted. The cloth is made in the usual way by soaking the
prepared bark in water for about twenty-four hours, and then hammering
it with a heavy mallet upon the rounded surface of a cut-down tree
trunk (Plate 79).

The mallet used (Plate 51, Fig. 3), however, differs from the wooden
mallet of Mekeo and the coast. It is a heavy black roller-shaped
piece of stone, tapering a little at one or both ends, and being
broader at the beating end than at the holding end. It varies in
length from 10 to 18 inches, and has a maximum width of about 2 or
2 1/2 inches. The beating surface is not flattened, as is the case
with the Mekeo beaters, but it is rather deeply scored with a series
of longitudinal and transverse lines, crossing each other at right
angles, or nearly so. This scoring generally covers a surface space
of about 3 inches by 1 or 2 inches, and is done with pointed pieces
of similar stone, or with the tusks of wild pigs.

As the hammering proceeds the bark becomes thinner and larger in
surface, and when this process is finished, the cloth is hung up
to dry.

The colouring of the cloth, if and when this is added, is done by men
only, and, like body-staining, is nearly always in either red, yellow,
or black. The red stain is obtained from the two sorts of earth used
for red face and body-staining, being, as in the other case, mixed with
water or animal fat, so as to produce a paste. Another source of red
stain used for cloth is the fruit of a wild tree growing in the bush,
which f