The Coconut is an indispensable ingredient in Polynesian life, it is also dried into cobra or used in cooking oil or body oil. But most of all it is the base of nearly all Traditional dishes in the Polynesian
dine.
Taro Leaves are like spinach mixed with Onions and Corn Beef, it is wrapped in banana leafs and the coconut milk is added last.
The bundles are placed in an underground oven or a umu along with Taro roots or Yam, when it is full the umu is covered with banana leafs and old mats to keep in the heats hours later the bundles/food is removed from the umu.
Pieces of Cloth Pieces of Culture, Tapa Making and Community Collaboration
The Tongan islands lie 23 degrees south of the quitter in the pacific a tropical nation comprising over 100 islands Tonga still has its own king who is not only head of state but his head of the state church, Tonga was never formally colonised by any European nation and therefore its cultural practises today reflect ancient tradition and modern Christianity.
In 1773 Captain James Cook a British explorer described and named the Tonga island as the friendly islands, one of the greatest embodiment of Tongan history culture and religion is Tapa Cloth.. Tapa Cloth is a treasured textile which is made from Natural materials that grow in the Tongan islands no religious ceremony is complete without tapa cloth.
Tapa Cloth is especially prized as a covering for the casket of a deceased person, after a funeral ceremony has been conducted. The casket will be taken to a burial ground.
( Tapa Cloth are made by Bark, The inner bark is taken from several types of trees or shrubs, often mulberry and fig, and designs are applied with paints and vegetable dyes of light brown, red, and black ).
