Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Barkcloth (hiapo)
Not on view
An important way to signal the sacred status (mana) of a chief’s body was to swathe it in barkcloth. These patterned textiles acted as a second skin (similar to tatau, or tattooing) that contained the sanctity of the body.
Hand-painted monochrome textiles from Niue are renowned for the loose, fluid geometry of their designs, which were understood to be animate rather than simply decorative. Motifs include a diversity of botanical references such as bulbs, leaves, plants, and seeds. The regularity of such designs is often disrupted by subtle reconfigurations of the repeat tucked within the larger pattern, a formal subversion that creates dynamic optical effects.
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