Te Pito Te Henua, or Easter Island, by William J. Thompson, , at
sacred-texts.com The costume of the natives is at present made
up of the cast-off clothing obtained from ships of all nations
that have called at the island, but principally old uniforms of
the French, Spanish, and English vessels of war. Brass buttons
appeal strongly to the native love for adornment, and many were
made happy by the liberal contributions from the Mohican. Very
little tappa cloth is made on the island at present, but
specimens of the ancient handiwork are treasured up in every
family. The mode of manufacture is quite similar to that
practiced on the various groups of the South Sea, but the
patterns are much less elaborate. The bark is stripped from the
branches of the Hibiscus, in a manner to obtain the greatest
possible length, and rolled into coils with the inner bark
outside, in order to make it flat and smooth. It is then scraped
with a piece of obsidian to remove the bark, the coils being
occasionally soaked in water to remo