Post #478853 by ChuckM on Sun, Aug 23, 2009 2:07 AM

Wow, quick reply, thanks! We got this cool carving in a small village a day's journey north of Baguio City, in a hilly area of North Luzon in the Phillipines, in 1969. I am under the impression that places like the Phillipines and Indonesia fall outside of official "Tiki territory", but this statue seems to have a few things in common with the more classical Tikis, both in appearance and possibly in the use or purpose of the carving. What happened was this truck pulled into town with these two tremendous carvings on the back, and as a lark my father began bargining with the carver in sign language and pidgen English to buy them . That's pretty much it as far as where it came from and who carved them. I'm fairly sure that they are Mahogony; carvings were typically made of Mahogony there in those days- it was not in short supply in those jungles in the late 60's. It's actually a huge mask, some four foot high maybe two feet wide (the mask is not here as I write this, but you've got me motivated to go pick it up tomorrow!) perhaps the mask shape allowed water to run off better than a more typical figure would, and the mahogony was resiliant enough to survive the decades, I certainly hope so.
Thanks for your response, I'll try to get this carving over here tomorrow and let you know what I discover. Thanks again, Chuck