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Easter Island
The tapa cloth figure is one of only three such figures which survive. It is one of the most striking images of Easter Island, the most remote of all the Polynesian group. It is made of folded rushes covered in barkcloth painted in black designs with orange on the face and head. Red European cloth has been folded and stitched to the head to provide ears. The significance of these small figures is not known but it is thought that the painted designs are similar to the Islanders’ tattooing patterns.
Image: Tapa cloth figure, Easter Island, Polynesia. Collected by Gordon Augustus Thomson c1836.