Object Status:
Unlocated
Accession Date:
January 25, 1794
Primary Source Reference:
Dunlap's American Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia), 25 Jan 1794
Additional Source Text:
"By pounding the bark on this instrument of wood, it produces the ribs which resemble threads: the perfectly straight and equal lines made in this extreme hard wood, by men without use of iron, are curious and wonderful."
Notes:
Tapa cloth is made from the bark of the paper mulberry tree. After the inner bark, named tutu or loututu, has been separated from the outer bark it is dried in the sun before being soaked. After this, the bark is beaten on a wooden tutua anvil using wooden mallets called ike. (Wikipedia, s.v. Tapa cloth)
The donor was "of Charleston, S.C."
