Post #134674 by bigbrotiki on Sun, Jan 9, 2005 10:50 AM

The four at the Kon-Tiki Portland are all different, so not machine carved. The Islands San Diego panels are so identical, they must have been machine carved (by O.A.?, for The Luau?), traced from an original. The machine to do that is a lathe (?spelling?), it traces the lines of an original sculpture and exactly translates them onto soandso many copies. Not a cheap process either nowadays, according to O.A.

Benzart, the first photo (of the meeting house interior) is from the one in my hometown's anthropolgy museum. Rauru is the most amazing meeting house standing outside of New Zealand, it was officialy blessed by Maori elders to be in this location. Rauru has an interesting history, it was immediately sold after it's completion, because the young chief who had it built laughed off the taboo of smoking in it while it was being constructed. But he lost his sense of humor after three consecutive wifes died on him, and got rid of it (it took that many to convince him it was a bad luck pad!)

It kind of became Hamburg's first Tiki Lounge when the British Allied Forces command turned it into their officer's club for a while right after World War II. My mom had a romantic love affair with the officer in charge of the local BBC. Early influences...

Check out the 3rd panel from the left, it is a fairly modern, more literal interpretation of the usual "small Tiki betwen the legs= birth" carving, the top figure is female, but where does the bottom figure have it's head? :0