Cloak

A rectangular cloak (kahu huruhuru) made from New Zealand Flax fibre with green, white, brown and blue-black feathers covering all of the outer surface in squares and rectangles. This garment was made by finger-weaving or twining without the use of a loom. The main technique is double-pair twining, which forms the wefts (aho). This began with the loose ends of the warps (whenu) forming a fringe at the bottom edge and finished at the neck edge with the warps folded over forming a roll. There is a thick two-ply brown warp along each side edge. There are four warps per cm, and the 'wefts' (aho) are 8-12 mm apart. The feathers are attached vertically. Some are loose. There are four grouped extra wefts (aho poka) on each side at the shoulder area to provide shaping. The warps at the ends of the neck edge form small fringes, and the ties are two-ply cords. The green feathers are probably kereru (New Zealand wood pigeon Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae), the brown kaka (Nestor meridionalis), the white and blue-black tui (Prosthermadera novaeseelandiae), with kiwi feathers (Apteryx sp) along the top and bottom edges.