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A pāreu or pareo is a wraparound skirt worn in Tahiti. The term was originally used only for women's skirts, as men wore a loincloth, called a maro. Nowadays the term is used for any cloth worn wrapped around the body by men and women.
The pareo in Tahitian and pareu in Cook Islands were the first Pacific islands and original creators of the tapa board patterned prints.
It is not clear where the variant pareo comes from. It might be an old dialectic variant or an early explorers' misinterpretation. But both terms were already used in the 19th century (the Netherlands geographic magazine De Aarde en haar Volken of 1887 had a few South-seas articles, some of them using pāreu, others pareo). Nowadays, however, pareo can be considered as the English-language form of the word (plural pareos), much less likely subject to mispronunciation.
A pāreu can be worn in many ways. Women will usually wrap it around their upper body, covering it from breasts to above the knees. Either they rely on their breasts for it not to slide down, or they may wrap a corner around their shoulder or their neck. In more traditional surroundings the covering of the upper body is less important, but the covering of the thighs is. Then it is worn as a longer skirt. Men wear it as a short skirt, or may even make shorts out of it, especially when fishing or working in the bush where freedom of movement of the legs is needed. But during quiet, cooler nights at home, they may wear it as a long skirt too.
The ends of the pāreu are normally tied in a knot to keep it in place.
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