LEPAU: The Painted Barkcloth of the Santa Cruz Islands

Oct 6

3 min read

Lepau painted barkcloth, Santa Cruz Islands, Solomon Islands. Kiwa Art collection. 1560 × 330–370 mm.

Among the most distinctive barkcloths of the western Pacific are the narrow painted cloths known as lepau, made in the Santa Cruz Islands of the southeastern Solomon Islands.

This example was recently acquired by Kiwa Art. Its surface is organised into two long columns of geometric decoration separated by a narrow undecorated strip. Within them are densely worked fields of chevrons, lattice patterns, diamonds and repeated fine strokes.

The effect is remarkably graphic. At a distance the cloth reads as a strong architectural arrangement of dark and light. Closer inspection reveals much variation within apparently repetitive patterns. The drawing is controlled but refreshingly irregular.

Upper section of the Kiwa lepau, showing the two parallel decorated fields divided by a narrow undecorated strip.

Barkcloth in Santa Cruz

Lepau belongs to a distinctive Santa Cruz tradition of decorated barkcloth. Bark was beaten into cloth and the surface subsequently marked with geometric designs. The term lepau, or lirpau in Natügu, is one of several local names recorded for this form of cloth.

Historic examples survive in a relatively small number of museum collections. Their long, narrow proportions distinguish them from many of the much broader barkcloth traditions elsewhere in Oceania.

Lepau were associated particularly with dress and ceremonial presentation. Museum records also identify closely related cloths as men's dance garments.

Manufacture

Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century accounts record barkcloth as an established part of material culture on Nendö. Bark was taken from several trees, including paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera), breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis) and species of Ficus. The inner bark was separated ,soaked overnight in seawater and beaten into cloth before being dried and painted. Joest’s observations and collections from Nendö in 1897, followed by Graebner’s 1909 study and Speiser’s fieldwork at Graciosa Bay in 1912, provide the closest documentation for the period in which surviving historic lepau were made and used.

Woman beating barkcloth near Graciosa Bay, Nendö, Santa Cruz Islands. Gerd Koch, 1967.

Detail of the Kiwa Lepau showing chevrons, crosshatching and densely worked painted bands. Small losses and edge wear remain

Early collected examples

An important group was collected on Nendö in August and September 1897 by the German ethnographer Wilhelm Joest. Several of these are now in the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum in Cologne.

The proportions of some are particularly close to the Kiwa example. RJM 3984 measures 1460 × 400 mm, while related Joest examples measure 2050 × 400 mm and 2190 × 520 mm. Their documented collection in 1897 provides an important historical reference for the long, narrow Santa Cruz format.

A cloth in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, donated by Alexander Turnbull in 1913, provides another early documented comparison. Although broader in format, it shares the use of pale divisions separating densely worked rectangular fields of fine geometric decoration.

Painted barkcloth, Santa Cruz Islands. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, FE000824. Gift of Alexander Turnbull, 1913.

The Kiwa Art lepau

The Kiwa cloth has considerable age with use visible in its surface. The edges are irregular and there are a number of small losses, but the painted decoration remains unusually complete.

It comes from an old Auckland family and is known to have been in the family household by the mid-1920s. The family's Grandfather was an Anglican closely associated with the Melanesian Mission in Auckland, providing a plausible historical route by which the cloth reached New Zealand as the Mission was very active in Santa Cruz.

Lower section of the Kiwa lepau, showing the repeated chevron, lattice and crosshatched bands, together with age-related losses.

This provenance does not tell us precisely when the cloth was made. It does, however, establish that it was already in New Zealand by the first quarter of the twentieth century. Together with its form, condition and comparison with securely collected nineteenth-century examples, it strongly supports its place within the historic Santa Cruz barkcloth tradition.