Also tappa. [Com. Polynesian tapa (in dialects which substitute k for t, kapa).] A kind of unwoven cloth made by the natives of Polynesia from the bark of the Paper Mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera).
1823. Byron, Island, II. ii. In summer garments be our limb array’d; Around our waists the Tappa’s white display’d.
1845. J. Coulter, Adv. Pacific, xvii. 268. The beating out of the tappa or native cloth.
1898. F. T. Bullen, Cruise Cachalot, 296. All … were furnished only with a ‘maro’ of ‘tapa,’ scanty in its proportions, but still enough to wrap round their loins.
b. attrib. and Comb., as tapa-cloth, -kilt, -mallet, -mat; tapa-shrouded adj.
1853. Househ. Words, VII. 135/2. This tappa cloth is made by beating a part of the bark … with a sort of wooden mall.
1866. Treas. Bot., 172/2. An exceedingly tough cloth, called tapa or kapa cloth.
1870. Meade, N. Zealand, 305. The unpleasant sound of the tappa mallet.
1891. Stevenson, Vailima Lett., iv. (1895), 47. With blacked faces, turbans, tapa kilts, and guns, they looked very manly.
1899. Blackw. Mag., Nov., 671/2. The tapa-shrouded, slumbering forms of the few native passengers.
1906. Macm. Mag., April, 479. Sitting cross-legged on the tappa-mats.
