Bag

51.68.158

Information

A flat rectangular bag (kete muka) made from New Zealand flax, in dark brown/ black and undyed fibre. There is a wide fringe around three sides on the back and front in undyed fibre, and two twisted fibre handles in both colours. This bag was made by finger-weaving or twining and the main technique is single-pair twining, which forms the wefts (aho). The twining began at the top edge with a selvedge and finished at the bottom where the warp threads (whenu) were left loose and covered by the fringe. There are six warps per cm, and the wefts are 14 mm apart. The fringe threads are joined by a line of single-pair twining and sewn onto the bottom and side edges on the back and the front. The main warps are very dark brown with pale, undyed extra warps twined into the wefts five warps apart. These cross over in pairs between the wefts, forming vertical columns of crosses.