Tapa

This is for Blousey Brown who has been doing some really interesting art work based around the patterns to be found on bark (or tapa) cloth traditionally made in the Pacific Islands where weaving was never invented. Instead the inner bark of the paper mulberry tree was pounded, layered and dried to produce something that resembles cloth. 
You can read a short description of the process here or a longer one here.

These pieces come from my father's collection of ethnographic items.  From childhood he was an eager collector  of unusual and esoteric things. Although he studied anthropology and ethnography he did not travel overseas to barter precious objects for worthless novelties and return laden with spoils.  Instead his forays were limited to antique shops and bric a brac stalls. He had  the ability to recognise something unusual and authentic amidst a heap of junk. He would delight in the acquisition of an object that had escaped anyone else's notice simply because it was too unusual for most people to have any knowledge of.  I don't know how he came by the tapa cloth. It may have been brought home by a South Seas sailor or one of the missionaries who helped to subvert the culture of the Polynesian people. Ignorant or careless relatives may have consigned it for disposal after its owner died.

Now, museums are under pressure to return items taken from where they belonged - see this report in the news today. This tapa cloth and other items in my father's collection have no definitive provenance:  where they were originally acquired, how and who by is unknowable. They float in the mists of time like untethered space trash and have little value save to the curious and the romantic. If they can inspire creativity in some that's even better.

Postscript: it's possible these are not actual tapa cloth but woven bark cloth.  Clearly, I need to get an expert opinion.

Update. It now appears that these  textiles  were woven from palm leaf fibre (aka raffia) by the Kuba people of Central Africa. The material is woven by men but embroidered and decorated by women who also employ the technique for producing the raised pile areas.  You can read about it here.  Enormous thanks to Blousey Brown for discovering the provenance of this cloth.