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When a sufficient quantity is prepared, the leaves of the Etou are well wetted in it, and then laid upon a plantain leaf, where they are turned about till they become more and more flaccid, and then they are gently squeezed, gradually increasing the pressure, but so as not to break them; as the flaccidity increases, and they become spungy, they are supplied with more of the liquor; in about five minutes the colour begins to appear upon the veins of the leaves, and in about ten or a little more, they are perfectly saturated with it: They are then squeezed, with as much force as can be applied, and the liquor strained at the same time that it is expressed.
The red colour is produced by the mixture of the juices of two vegetables, neither of which separately has the least tendency to that hue. One is a species of fig called here Matte, and the other the Cordia Sebestina, or Etou; of the fig the fruit is used, and of the Cordia the leaves.
Though the leaf of the etou is generally used in this process, and probably produces the finest colour, yet the juice of the figs will produce a red by a mixture with the species of tournefortia, which they call taheinno, the pohuc, the eurhe, or convolvulus brasiliensis, and a species of solanum, called ebooa; from the use of these different plants, or from different proportions of the materials, many varieties are observable in the colours of their cloth, some of which are conspicuously superior to others.
For this purpose, the boys prepare a large quantity of the Moo, by drawing it between their teeth, or two little sticks, till it is freed from the green bark and the branny substance that lies under it, and a thin web of the fibres only remains; in this the leaves of the Etou are enveloped, and through these the juice which they contain is strained as it is forced out.
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