Bark Cloth catalogue

Alexander Shaw’s Barkcloth Catalogue: From Scientific Curiosity to Contemporary Artistic Revival

A Catalogue of the Different Specimens of Cloth Collected in the Three Voyages of Captain Cook, to the Southern Hemisphere: With a Particular Account of the Manner of Manufacturing the Same in the Various Islands of the South Seas (London: Alexander Shaw, 1787)
Shelfmark: RB.S.1016

This innovative publication not only catalogues the barkcloth production of the South Pacific, but includes samples of textiles from Tahiti, Tonga, and Hawaii collected by James Cook during his three voyages of exploration (1768-1779). Barkcloth is made by beating the inner bark of the paper mulberry, a tree cultivated specifically for the purpose throughout Polynesia and Micronesia. It was used for both domestic and ritual purposes, including gift exchange and friendship ceremonies.

Cook’s voyages married scientific, commercial, and territorial ambitions. He was under instructions to catalogue and collect specimens of local resources and manufactures with a view to future economic exploitation. Barkcloth, particularly valued throughout the region, had always played an important role in inter-island gift exchange and alliance-building. It was in this spirit that Cook received many fine and varied examples of this textile.

Bookseller Alexander Shaw’s catalogue of authentic artefacts from Cook’s voyages reflects the same mixture of Enlightenment scientific rigour and alertness to commercial possibilities. Published in a tiny run, only 66 examples of the book survive. No two copies are alike, for each contains an entirely unique selection of barkcloth specimens. Perhaps paradoxically, these books now provide the earliest examples of barkcloth available to contemporary Micronesian and Polynesian makers and are a source of inspiration for those engaged or continuing in reviving traditional practices.

Some reflections that this publication might trigger include:

  • How might Shaw’s catalogue be placed in the same system of Enlightenment knowledge gathering, sorting, and circulation as Cook’s voyages?
  • Can a parallel be drawn between the classification of barkcloth and the South Pacific islanders’ own desire to tame and categorize the foreign through a system of gift exchange designed to harness a visitor’s potency and incorporate him into their world order?
  • Is the catalogue also a product of the Age of Sensibility, permitting eighteenth-century British readers to imagine Cook’s exotic encounters on an intimate scale? 

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