The Legend of El Diablo - General Tiki

K kahukini Member Joined: Mar 28, 2002 Posts: 555	K kahukini Posted posted on Fri, May 10, 2002 12:43 PM Made another amazing find recently that while not Tiki (in my opinion), is definitely Exotica! http://magicmartini.com/diablo.htm According to the carved inscription in the back of this massive, high density wood mask, it was carved in Cuba in 1957 and is entitled "El Diablo" (and even though I thought I knew, I did have public school spanish so I looked it up to make sure - it's "the devil") I taped satin fabric to the back of the mask to imit a funky reflective glow from all of the orifices, and even rigged up a dangling flicker light bulb behind the nose so that the eyes flicker firey orangish red at night! I am quite fascinated by this particular design - I have seen many pale imitations of this, the grandest creation of it I have seen to date... often they are even sold out of Hawaii as "Polynesian" masks! See these auctions: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=868731307 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2101850345 But is this really a Polynesian design? Was this carved for American polynesian popsters vacationing in Havana? It's such a frightening image with a head sprouting from the forehead, I can't imagine what culture first came up with it (but definitely the guys who created Alien are related to them).

Made another amazing find recently that while not Tiki (in my opinion), is definitely Exotica!
http://magicmartini.com/diablo.htm
According to the carved inscription in the back of this massive, high density wood mask, it was carved in Cuba in 1957 and is entitled "El Diablo" (and even though I thought I knew, I did have public school spanish so I looked it up to make sure - it's "the devil")
I taped satin fabric to the back of the mask to imit a funky reflective glow from all of the orifices, and even rigged up a dangling flicker light bulb behind the nose so that the eyes flicker firey orangish red at night!
I am quite fascinated by this particular design - I have seen many pale imitations of this, the grandest creation of it I have seen to date... often they are even sold out of Hawaii as "Polynesian" masks! See these auctions:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=868731307
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2101850345
But is this really a Polynesian design? Was this carved for American polynesian popsters vacationing in Havana? It's such a frightening image with a head sprouting from the forehead, I can't imagine what culture first came up with it (but definitely the guys who created Alien are related to them).

Post #1387 by kahukini on Fri, May 10, 2002 12:43 PM