|aLondon ;|aNew York, NY :|bBloomsbury Academic,|c2017.
300
|axxi, 227 p., [16] p. of plates :|abill. (some col.), maps ;|c24 cm.
504
|aIncludes bibliographical references and index.
505
0
|aIntroduction. Pathways ; Blurry edges ; Structure of the book -- Part one: Encounters: Awakening European minds. European impressions ; The quest for barkcloth names ; The ancestry of barkcloth -- Creating barkcloth. The story of a tree ; The substance of color ; Rubbing boards ; Sticky stuff ; Supersizing it ; Working together -- Collecting barkcloth. Enticing cloth ; Barkcloth appropriationsthe Alexander Shaw books ; The "Spanish Lake" ; Lost collections? ; Decreasing interest ; Beachcombers, merchants, and whalers ; Missionaries ; Collecting souvenirs -- Part two: Creativity: Creativity in shapes and forms. Tongan-style barkcloth ; Barkcloth design through time ; Barkctoth 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 ; Barkclotha way of being in the world -- Part three: Female agency. Capturing the "female essence"?. Enveloped by ngatu ; Defining koloa ; The value of koloa ; Are koloa gendered? -- A feast for the senses. A modern dynasty of royals ; Royal ceremonies-a wedding, two funerals, and a coronation ; Characteristics of barkcloth ; Conflated sensations ; Conclusionencounters, creativity, and female agency ; Encounterssurprising and vital concurrences ; Creativityingenious imagination ; Female agencyprestigious mediation.
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|aTongan 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.
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. A nuanced narrative of past and present barkcloth manufacture, designs and use, Unwrapping Tongan Barkcloth demonstrates the importance of the textile to Polynesian culture both historically and today.
Fanny Wonu Veys is Curator Oceania at the National Museum of World Cultures, The Netherlands. She is President of the Pacific Arts Association Europe and has been a research fellow at the Musee du quai Branly in Paris, France and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, USA.