Waistband

Description

Narrow rectangular section of white-cream barkcloth, decorated down the centre of one side with black lines and a black grid pattern: Rarotonga, Cook Islands, Polynesia, early 19th Century

Museum reference

A.UC.480

Collection

Oceania

Object name

Waistband

Production information

Rarotonga, Cook Islands, Polynesia

Date

Early 19th century

Materials

Barkcloth

Physical description

Very narrow rectangular section of barkcloth with one cut edge, thin and papery with crisp texture and fine parallel and horizontal beater marks down the length of the cloth, a white-cream in overall colour with decoration down the centre of one side consisting of two narrow panels - one with seven evenly spaced black lines and the other made up of a grid-like pattern resembling a fence or film-strip with a short triangular and rectangular patterned section at one end, with grey and slightly red-brown discolouration in places.

Associations

Cuming, Hugh, 1791 - 1865

References

Cook Islands Art / Dale Idiens. - Shire Ethnography Series, 1990, p. 44