Curator's Corner - Polynesian Tapa Collection

On Wednesday, July 29th, from 10 am – 12 pm, Rachel Delovio, the anthropology collections manager, will highlight the Museum’s Polynesian tapa collection with artist Jackie Pias Carlin. In 2022, Carlin donated a tapa that she processed and decorated titled, “My Neighborhood: Pinion Hills, Carson River, Cottonwoods”, documenting her migration from Hawaiʻi to Carson City. Carlin first exhibited the tapa at the 2021 First Lady Presents Inaugural Exhibition at the Governor’s Mansion.
Tapa (or kapa in Hawaiian) is the common name for cloth made from the inner bark of trees, usually the paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera). Tapa is made by beating strips of bark together into a larger fabric, using a tapa beater (iʻe kuku). Plain tapa is usually white or cream colored and can be decorated by freehand painting and/or printing designs using a bamboo printing stick (ʻohe kāpala). The museum’s collection includes an example of both tools. Tapa is used for clothing, bedding, floor coverings, as well as for ceremonial purposes.
The majority of the Museum’s Polynesian artifacts (i.e. shell necklaces, tapa, and tapa working tools) are from the Dr. S. L. Lee collection, donated to the state in 1934. This donation of approximately 7600 items became the basis for the Nevada State Museum’s collection when it opened in 1941. Dr. Lee (1844-1927) was a prominent Carson City doctor and Union Army veteran as well as a Victorian-era collector of historic and ethnographic artifacts and natural history specimens.