Post #524846 by bigbrotiki on Mon, Apr 19, 2010 3:02 AM

Looking at the protruding lines around the nose and eyes, they look exactly like the North-Pacific mask Mister N. posted. I would never view this as a "mistake", it just generally confirms that Tiki Style was part of Polynesian pop, yes, but it was also part of Pop Primitivism, as I tried to explain in Tiki Modern: The 60s (and the 70s) saw an unprecedented appreciation of ALL Primitive Art, in America and in Europe, and artists all over took inspiration from a variety of native cultures. The fact that the iconic Tiki Bob Tiki is based on an African mask is programmatic for the fantasy world that Tiki Style was.

The exposed, clenched teeth motif is not only a mark of Tiki, but appears in all kinds of primitive art and artifacts, like these Maori heads:

This death-grin (and the protruding lines mentioned above) hail from the human skull:

It has to do with the widespread Pacific tribal custom of ancestor worship and head hunting, in which the skulls of the deceased and of the vanquished were kept as the seat of mana, for ritualistic purposes.

Decorated skull relics were not only used in the South Seas...

but also in Catholic churches:

(this one I photographed in Southern Bavaria)

The KORVAR statue that Zeta posted above are one of the more curious examples of the South Sea skull worship custom: They are built to hold a human skull inside the carved head of the statue:

That's all, folks! :D