Clothing

The clothing of the Melanesians seems to justify Peschel's law that clothing varies among men inversely as the darkness of their colour. The darker Melanesians are in general less clad than the lighter Polynesians. - Their ornament is all richer and more various, and the woolly hair especially brings with it a greater variety of hairdressing. We find men in Melanesia very scantily clad, and there are not lacking trustworthy reports of some who are completely naked. The Adamic costume of the men in the Banks Islands, however, standing in sharp contrast to their skill in weaving mats, places them very low in the estimation of their neighbours, though among these also, so far as they are Melanesians, limited clothing is the rule. Where clothing is more complete we are sure to find traces of Polynesian and Malayan influence.

Wigs of human hair worn in battle, from Vanna Levu.
(Frankfort City Museum.)

The foundation of the Melanesian man's dress is a belt, either platted or made of bark, passing from the hips between the legs; while the women wear one or two aprons of fibre from grass, palm, or pandanus leaves. These elements recur everywhere, and the idea of what is becoming and respectable in clothing is essentially concentrated upon them. But the notions of modesty are extremely various. The people of Massilia on the Finsch coast wear a broad bark girdle passing twice round the body. Of a higher kind of dress, which may be called that of the Polynesian colonies, Fiji affords the best examples. Here the tapa material renders a richer style of clothing possible. The wrapping which passes between the thighs is of such breadth and length that it extends to a couple of hundred feet. The usual measure is of 12 to 20 feet; it is wound several times round the loins in such a way that the ends hang down to the knee in front, and lower behind.

Pattern of Polynesian Tapa (From Cook's collection in the ethnographical Museum, Vienna.)
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In West Melanesia, also, tapa is indeed made in the Southern Solomon Isles from the paper mulberry; in the New Hebrides and New Guinea from the sacred fig-tree. Instead of the printed pattern, as shown in the cut of carved wooden plaques, we here find the stuff streaked with colour and moistened with the tongue or teeth.

Carved wooden plaques, used as stamps, from the Fiji Islands. (Godeffroy Collection.)