Wauke--How Kapa Is Made (Bernice Akamine)

The wauke plant was brought with the Hawaiians. The brought it over because they knew they were going to need clothing, and that was their primary source of bedding and clothing. The men would plant and harvest the wauke. The women would peel it off of the sticks. They would process it. The Hawaiians were known for their bark cloth because they used a fermentation process. So you would take the outer bark--you could scrape it off on the wauke itself after it was cut. You could remove all the leaves, scrape the outer bark off, slice a slit all the way down the stick of wauke and then peel it off. You would use that section. That's the bast. Bast is basically the inner bark. They would take the inner bast--well, the bast--of the wauke plant and they would ferment it and then beat it out into kapa. They would do a first beating on the kua pohaku, the stone, using a hohoa made by the men. The men made the tools. The hohoa was the round beater, grooved, that was used for initial beating. Then, they would switch over. They would ferment and then they would switch over to the kua, which was a wooden anvil and they would use a ie kuku. So, the ie kuku was really used for spreading the fibers, and you would have just grooves or you could have a watermark on your ie kuku for finishing. And the Hawaiians were the only group of people that put watermarks on their kapa, so that was one of the ways of distinguishing their kapa.