Revised Jun 21 2021
The women also manufacture tappa, or native cloth, from the bark of the Anti, or paper-mulberry, which is rolled up and soaked in water, and then beaten out with wooden mallets, and spread forth to dry.* This is very hard work. The author has in his possession a piece of beautifully. wrought white tappa, given him by Mrs. Heywood, and bearing a label, which states that it was made by the wife of Fletcher Christian, from the bark of the paper-mulberry tree.. The piece from which this portion was taken was entrusted by Christian's widow to Captain Jenkin Jones, when he visited the island, in her Majesty's ship Curacoa, in 1841. She particularly desired him to give it to Peter's wife. Isabella, Fletcher Christian's widow, was a native of Otaheite, and died, at a very advanced age, in September, 1841.
∗ For a full account of the mode of making tappa, see Cook's Voyage in 1777, &c. vol i. p. 201. Ed. 1784.