Tuno, or tunu, is a traditional textile material made from the inner bark lining of a tree related to the latex/rubber tree. It is prepared by the Mayangna (also known as the Sumu) and Miskito people of eastern Honduras. The Mayangna and Miskito homeland also extends into eastern Nicaragua.
This material, which before the arrival of trade cloth, was the raw material for native clothing and bed clothes and is similar to Costa Rican tribes' mastate bark cloth used for the same purposes.
Tuno, directly off the tree is unusable. The fibrous bark lining needs to undergo a process before it acquires the required softness. In a measured and repeated process, the raw material is pounded, washed, sun dried and then dyed with mostly natural dyes if colour is desired. The majority of tuno artists are women who process, design, cut and mount the finished pieces.
The designs created with tuno range from semi-representational to fully representational scenes and designs (which the Tawahka favour making), to symbolic and highly stylized designs as well as pictographic (pecked rock drawings) motifs from the many pictograph archeological sites that are to be found in the interior of the Honduran and Nicaraguan Mosquito Coast (La Miskitia). Many of the Miskito artisans' works are copies and interpretations of their ancestor's original designs.
The tuno pieces that Namu is offering are the fruits of the creative efforts of women, both Miskito and Mayangna, of the village of Wampusirpi in the Mosquitia region of eastern Honduras. These women are members of their community group called Mairin Asla Daukanka.