I am soaking up the oldest Samoan cultural traditional art form called Siapo (tapa) while here in American Samoa. Siapo has been passed down through generations and had international attention when a tapa was presented to Lady Bird Johnson in 1966. My instructor at the American Samoa Community College is Regina Meredith. She is also related to the women who brought this to international attention (see www.siapo.com for more details).

I prepared my siapo board using a starch arrowroot paste: glued 2 plys of u’a (paper mulberry or bark paper that comes from the skinny tree being wet, hammered over and over until it creates a cloth). This was even used for clothes before cloth as we know it was brought into the islands.

Our brush is the pod or key from a pandanus bloom trimmed with a scissors to a point of desired thickness. The pointed end holds the dye better than any other type of brush. The 4 dyes are
• Brown: made from the bark of the blood tree. It has a tannic acid that is also used to tan leather, for example.
• Black: made from the candlenut tree bark, burned and turned to soot. Since this is a time consuming process, we used India ink.
• Red: from the loa tree, also known as the lipstick tree, comes from the berry. This was not in season (not used).
• Yellow: the only dye from a plant root, the lega plant that has turmeric. The root is orange similar to a carrot and has a very pleasing smell. Once grated it is squeezed to extract the yellow dye.
• Both yellow and brown also had medicinal properties: helped cure upset stomach or constipation and the yellow was rubbed on sores.
• We rubbed our boards with a glass jar to burnish or smooth the surface to prepare it for the dyes.
I used traditional motifs or symbols to create my tapa:
• Net (Fa’a ‘au’upega) crossed lines, nets used to catch turtles and pigeons.
• Trochus shells (Fa’a ‘aliao): triangle shapes in numerous formations.
• Sand piper (Fa’a tuli) and also their footprints (Fa’a vae tuli).
• Starfish (Fa’a ‘aveau).
• Snmall lines or wavy lines (Tusili’i): midrib of coconut leaves used in household items like making brooms or needles.
• Male pandanus bloom ( Fa’a sigago): narrow petals with cluster of sharp points.
• Breadfruit leaf (Fa’a lau ulu).
• Banana pod (Fa’a tumoa).
• Rolled pandanus leaves (Fa’a masina).
• Centipede (Fa’a atualoa).

Images may be grouped or sized an any combination. My overall image also forms what should look like a mask. Interestingly, the various islands in the Pacific have different names for this art and use different materials to make dyes and some use stencils to form their motifs.