278

ARTS AND MANUFACTURES

of which serves for paste ; but the mucilaginoussubstance of the mahoa root is sometimessubstituted for it: at the same time othersare busy scraping off the soft bark of thecoca tree and the tooi-tooi tree, either of whichwhen wrung out, without water, yields a red-dish brown juice, to be used as a die. The co-bechi, or stamp is formed of the dried leaves ofthe paoongo sewed together so as to be of a suf-ficient size, and afterwards embroidered, ac-cording to various devices, with the wiry fibreof the cocoa-nut husk*; they are generallyabout two feet long, and a foot and a halfbroad: they are tied on to the convex side ofhalf cylinders of wood, usually about six oreight feet long, to admit two or three similaroperations to go on at the same time. Thestamp being thus fixed, with the embroideredside uppermost, a piece of the prepared barktis laid on it, and smeared over with a foldedpiece of gnatoo dipped in one of the reddishbrown liquids before mentioned, so that thewhole surface of the prepared bark becomesstained, but particularly those parts raised bythe design in the stamp: another piece of

* Making these cobechis is another employment of the wo-men, and mostly women of rank.

t The edges of the beaten bark, which is generally hard,knotty, and ragged, are cut off straight.