Antoni Judit: Tapa, a fakéreg művészete. Válogatás Ignácz Ferenc gyűjteményéből. (Távoli világok emberközelben I. Gödöllői Városi Múzeum, 2006)

are prepared from the phloem of three different trees: from that of the mulberry tree providing the Chinese paper, from that of the breadfruit tree and from that of a third one which is similar to the wildly growing fig tree of the American islands. The most beautiful and whitest fabric is obtained from mulberry tree they call auta. This is what the persons of high rank of the island wear; it is fastest for red colour. This description holds true even today: the most important raw material is the paper mulberry tree, Broussonetia papyrifera by its Latin name. The plant is of Indo-Malay origin, it is native also in China and Japan according to certain botanists. Paper mulberry tree does not grow by itself: its dissemination in the islands could be possible only by human help, in a purposeful way, and it needs quite a good deal of care after being planted. In those islands where the use of tapa was replaced by the appearance of the European textile and therefore the planted trees became neglected, the plant died out and disappeared, so much so that in Tahiti, for example, another plant, the linden-leaf hibiscus (Hibiscus tiliaceus) took over its original name (aute). Cook could still see in Tahiti true mulberry tree plantations and he tell us that the local people nurse with great care the trees (mostly the mulberry tree) that provide the raw material of the above bast fabric. The following plant Cook mentioned was the breadfruit tree (uru in Tahitian) from which the second kind of tapa is prepared: it is not up to the former one in whiteness and in softness, and mainly the Tahitians of lower rank wear it. This plant was described and named after his first voyage: Artocarpus altilis Forster. The homeland of origin of the tree widespread everywhere in the tropics is probably the Malay Archipelago. Again, the dissemination of this plant in Oceania is owing to the ancestors of the Polynesians, just like the multitude of the variants experimented and improved ever since: garden cultivation and plant improvement is a very favourite occupation in Polynesia even today. According to a Polynesian legend, bread-fruit came into being thanks to a poor man, who could not keep up his family and in his ultimate despair, he dug himself into the soil and streched his imploring arms towards heaven. His body switched into the trunk of the tree, his arms became the branches and on the branches appeared the fruits which henceforth meant the main source of food for the islanders. Every part of the plant contains milky sap the native use, among others, as glue even nowadays. In addition to the fruit, every part of the tree is utilized, for example, the trunk Is used as mainstay in house building, and boats are also prepared from it. As to tapa making, they use the young branches of the plant cultivated and known in the Polynesian islands under different names: it is called uru and maiore in Tahiti, kuru in Rarotonga, ulu in Samoa and Hawaii and mei in the Marquesas Islands. Polynesian people have improved several variants of their favourite tree: the best material for tapa was provided by the one called "puupuu" in Tahiti, for, its whitish colour was a rival of that of the mulberry tree. Our chronicler, Cook notices that the third kind of tapa is worked out from the phloem of a Ficus species: it is rough, hard and is of a colour just like the very dark grey paper; and although its appearance and touch are less pleasant than those of the other two, it is the most useful among them, for, unlike the others, it is waterproof. This kind is generally scented, and the Tahitian chiefs wear it during funeral ceremonies: it is relatively scarce, by the way. The Ficus prolixa, which is known in Europe under the names rubber-plant, fig tree or eventually banyan tree, is in general a 25-30 m high tree with a very large crown and with a vast number of aerial clinging roots looking like a curtain and of which roots, very often, new trunks develop. Its home of origin was presumably India or Malaysia, but it became widespread mainly in tropical Asia and in the islands of Oceania. Similarly to the two former plants, it contains a sticky milk-like sap, which makes it easier to stick together the layers during tapa manufacturing. The fact that the tapa made of it was waterproof, and that the material made of the other two dried quickly, proved to be very advantageous in tropical circumstances. When the local native population gave up wearing tapa for the sake of the new textile fabrics around 1840 upon the influence and pressure of European missionaries and of textile merchants, tuberculosis became more and more frequent among the islanders because of the drawbacks of the clothing less adequate to the climate. Tapa is made from the young branches and roots (not thicker than 3-5 cm) of the banyan called aoa in Samoan and in Marquesas language. The material is of light brown colour: they used to cover beds with it and the statues of gods erected in the sanctuaries were also wrapped in it.