Unwrapping Tongan barkcloth : encounters, creativity and female agency / Fanny Wonu Veys.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Veys, Fanny Wonu, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Tapa--Tonga.

Tapa.

Tapa--Social aspects--Tonga.

Women--Tonga--Social conditions.

Women.

Material culture--Tonga.

Material culture.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (273 pages) : illustrations, tables, maps

Distribution:

London, England : Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020

Place of Publication:

London, England : Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2020.

Summary:

Tongan barkcloth, made from the inner bark of the paper mulberry tree, still features lavishly in Polynesian ceremonies all over the world. Yet despite the attention paid to this textile in exhibitions, by anthropologists and by art historians, very little is known about its history. This book provides a unique insight into Polynesian material culture by exploring the rich cultural history of barkcloth. Arguing that the manufacture, decoration and use of barkcloth are vehicles of creativity and female agency, it places the materiality of textiles at the heart of Tongan culture. Based on extensive ethnographic and archival research over twelve years, Veys uncovers stories of ceremony, gender, the senses, collecting, religion and nationhood, from the 'birth' of barkcloth in the 18th century right up to contemporary Polynesian culture today, revealing not only how Tongans made (and still make) barkcloth, but also how it defines what it means to be Tongan. Extending the study outside of Tonga to explore the place of barkcloth in the European imagination, Veys addresses the museum collections of Tongan barkcloth held worldwide, from the UK to Italy, Switzerland to the USA, addressing the bias of the European 'gaze' and challenging traditional gendered understandings of the cloth.

Contents:

pt. 1. Encounters: Awakening European minds

European impressions

The quest for barkcloth names

The ancestry of barkcloth

2. Creating barkcloth

Story of a tree

Substance of color

Rubbing boards

Sticky stuff

Supersizing it

Working together

3. Collecting barkcloth

Enticing cloth

Barkcloth appropriations

the Alexander Shaw books

"Spanish Lake"

Lost collections?

Decreasing interest

Beachcombers, merchants, and whalers

Missionaries

Collecting souvenirs.

pt. 2. Creativity: Creativity in shapes and forms

Tongan-style barkcloth

Barkcloth design through time

Barkcloth circulation

Imagining and forging the tongan land

Between the cross and the cloth

Before missionary arrival

Missionary failure and uncertainties, 1797-1827

Triumphant Christianity, 1828-1860

"Civilizing mission," gender, industriousness and economic policies

Creating beautiful and moral bodies

Missionary attitudes and an east-west divide

Wesleyan and Marist competition

Barkcloth-a way of being in the world.

pt. 3. Female agency

Capturing the "Female essence"?

Enveloped by ngatu

Defining koloa

Value of koloa

Are koloa gendered?

A feast for the senses

A modern dynast of royals

Royal ceremonies-a wedding, two funerals, and a coronation

Characteristics of barkcloth

Conflated sensations

Conclusion- encounters, creativity, and female agency

Encounters-surprising and vital occurrences

Creativity-ingenious imagination

Female agency-prestigious mediation.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

9781474283335

1474283330

9781474283311

1474283314

9781474283304

1474283306

OCLC:

1201426667