Cloak

A rectangular cloak (korowai) made from New Zealand Flax fibre, with black tassels over the main part of the cloak, kiwi feathers around three edges and a black tassel fringe along the fourth (neck) edge. This garment was made by finger-weaving or twining without the use of a loom. The technique used is double-pair twining, which forms the wefts (aho). This began at the bottom with the loose ends of the warps forming a fringe and finished at the neck edge with the warps folded over. There are four or five warps per cm, and the wefts are 10-11mm apart. The black tassels are twisted, two-ply and dyed black. Over the main part of the cloak they are inserted sideways, at the neck inserted the right way up to form the fringe. The feathers are inserted about six at a time, vertically, and were then bent over and the ends cut off. There are three grouped extra wefts (aho poka) at each side of the shoulder area to provide shaping. The warp threads at the neck edge have a rolled finish and small fringes at the ends, with extra tassels twined in. The side edges have twined warps with two sets of two-ply threads, one set of which is yellow. Two string ties are attached. Both back-dyed flax tassels are fragile. Two wefts are broken near one side.