Post #531979 by bigbrotiki on Mon, May 24, 2010 10:28 AM

A good question, and not an easy one to answer. To understand the answer, one needs to have the ability to differentiate, and not expect a black & white solution. To define something, one has to delineate its boundaries, and separate it from what it is not. MY definition of Tiki Style as a pop culture, the main reason why it is special, unique and funny to me, is

A.) That it is a pop culture REMOVED from the source: A mainland invention/interpretation of what the Polynesian/South Seas islands should look like. To make that clear, I kept 97% of the Book of Tiki free of Island/Hawaiian pop culture. Hawaiian tourist culture, "Hawaiiana", as endearing as it is, is not a singular phenomenon: Lots of other countries have had a very varied and active tourist industry that created many many souvenirs, fashion accouterments, and paper ephemera like brochures, postcards, and posters.
This theory of mine is supported by the fact that the main creators of the style, Don The Beachcomber and Trader Vic, and later Stephen Crane, created their versions of Polynesian pop on the mainland first, and after that moved these to the islands.
It is also supported by the following:

B.) That the main sign of Tiki style is the Tiki figure, and that the Tiki was, compared to the mainland, used very sparingly in the islands, and not artistically stylized as often, out of respect for the religion of the native. It really only became the icon of Polynesian pop in mainland USA.

So the simple answer would be that the hat, being a tourist culture item, is not "Tiki". But it would be absurd for me to say (as some folks have interpreted me wrongly) that Polynesian tourist items are no PART of Tiki culture on the mainland, of course they played a role in it. So the hat is fine to wear or decorate your home hut with. The islands WERE the main inspiration for Americans to build their own islands at home, they are just not IT by themselves, meaning American Tiki culture.