Bag

A flat rectangular bag (kete muka) made from New Zealand flax fibre in yellow and pale gold colours, with purple running threads. There is a wide fringe around three sides on the back and front, and two twisted fibre handles in purple and undyed fibre. This bag was made by finger-weaving or twining and the main technique is single-pair twining, which forms the wefts (aho). This began at the top edge with a selvedge, and finished at the bottom where the warp threads (whenu) were left loose, and are covered by the fringes. There are five or six warps per cm, and the wefts are 14 mm apart. The fringe warps are joined by a line of single-pair twining and sewn onto the bottom and side edges. There is one fringe on the back of the bag and one on the front. There are purple running threads on some wefts. Every seventh or eighth warp loop around each other in pairs to form a cross-diagonal pattern in two blocks of three rows. This pattern is repeated on the back of the bag. Acquired by Wellcome from the Sir Wilfrid Peek collection.