Post #304580 by PremEx on Mon, May 7, 2007 8:45 AM

The area around Disneyland's Enchanted Tiki Room has live flame tiki torches burning bright.

And as someone else has already mentioned...tons of spots in Hawaii still have them, especially in pubic areas around Waikiki. Many resort hotels throughout the islands there have tiki torch lighting ceremonies every evening. For anyone not familiar with those, it usually involves one or more young shirtless Hawaiian locals running from torch to torch lighting each with a hand-held torch that he carries and twirls...while another person usually is standing somewhere blowing on a conch shell to signal the end of daytime.

Some of these ceremonies include entertainment before and/or after the torch lightings.

One of the most elaborate and spectacular of these was the tiki torch lighting ceremony that used to be held at the old Coco Palms resort on Kauai (this was the hotel where much of Elvis' "Blue Hawaii" was filmed, including the famous "Hawaiian Wedding Song" scenes). The entire Coco Palms resort was laced with hundreds of tiki torches lining several canals that wove throughout the property. They had an elaborate ceremony with entertainment culminated by several "runners" lighting all the torches. Not only was the sheer number of torches burning in the night something spectacular to see...but their reflection in the waters of the canals, very dramatically added to the effect.

That and much of the rest of the Coco Palms, remains some of my most vivid memories of Hawaii in my youth.

Personally, I think the best still running today, are the ceremonies that run along the shoreline and cliffs of a few resorts hotels. The Sheraton Maui used to do one atop Black Rock (assume they still do). And my favorite...the Napili Kai's on Napili Bay on Maui, come to mind.

IMHO, tiki torches blazing in the night are one of the main bits of romanticism associated with the Poly-pop culture. To me they sort of represent the promise of something wild and primitive to come. I love 'em.

All of the very early published references to them that I've found, refer to them as just "Torches" or "Torch Lighting Cememony"...without the "Tiki" in there. At some point I assume...the use of the term "Tiki Torches" became a popular name for them. I was first exposed to that name by the retail "Tiki Torch" boxed sets that were sold in stores for backyard luaus and such, sometime in the 60's. But I notice that much of the time in Hawaii still...they don't use the term "Tiki Torches" and refer to them as just "Torches."

Edited to Add: Ooops! I was working on my post on-and-off before naugatiki made their post preceding mine. Sorry about the duplication of some info. :)

[ Edited by: PremEx 2007-05-07 08:59 ]