Traditional+Colours+and+their+Sources

There were four colours of fibres used by Maori weavers; 5 __undyed__, and three principal dyes: __black__ - iron-tannate: __yellow__ - __Raurekau__ bark, __and red/brown__ - Tanekaha bark. Vividly coloured clays such as k ō k ō wai (red ochre) were used as paints and dyes.
 * TRADITIONAL M** **Ā** **ORI DYING**

**Can you find pictures of these plants and work out what colours they were used to make? **

**//Harakeke seed pods//**

**//K//** **//ō//** **//whai petals//**

**//P//** **//ū//** **//riri bark//**

**//P//** **//ī//** **//ngao//**

**//T//** **//ā//** **//nekaha bark//**

**//H//** **//ī//** **//nau bark//**

**//Swamp mud (repo)//**

**//Black Dyes//**

The method used by the Maori weavers for black dyeing was to soak the //P. tenax// fibres or muka (extracted from the leaf by scraping off the green epidermal layer) in an infusion of bark that had been simmered in water for sev- eral hours. The fibres were dried without rinsing and a coating of tannin is formed on the fibres. The fibres were then covered in a fine-textured mud, //paru// - which has a high iron content - for several hours. The excess mud was removed and the fibres, thoroughly rinsed with cold water to remove the remaining paru, were then exposed to sun- light to develop the black colour.



 **//Golden Yellow Dye//**  When raw muka is placed in a boiling infusion of the bark stripped from raurekau (//Coprosma areolate//) for several hours, the fibres are dyed to a rich golden yellow. The dye molecules in raurekau belong to the anthraquinone fam- ily, as described above for madder. Although most anthra- quinones are red at neutral pH, those present in raurekau give a more yellow hue.



 **//Red/Brown Dyes//**  Tanekaha (//Phyllocladus trichomanoides//) bark produces a tan colour. It is collected and treated in the same manner as that for hinau bark. Muka is soaked in the tannin solu- tion for 12 hours whereupon the fibres are a rusty-brown colour. They are removed from the tannin solution, rubbed into warm wood ash (alkaline potassium compounds) while still moist and then exposed to sunlight for up to an hour before being thoroughly washed and left to dry.