Post #56196 by Kono on Tue, Oct 21, 2003 7:25 PM

How's this for a "find?"

Pretty nice take for a day's shopping!

Here's the caption:
"Easter Island Contributes Half a Ton of Curios to Shrewd Yankee Traders. Easter's people have lost their ancestor's art of carving colossal statues (page 18). Instead, they fashion small imitations and sell them to passing vessels. Because no yacht had stopped at Easter since the last Yankee visit in 1940, crew members found bargaining easy. The traded soap, perfume, candy and old clothes for stone images, wooden swords, hats, canes and carved animals. Arthur Johnson, himself a collector, admires the trophies."

That was from the January 1949 issue.

From January 1962...Easter Island (obviously).

From January 1950:
"Goggle-Eyed Images Reflect Hiva Oa's Pagan Days. The author saw many toppled tikis, or gods, some measuring nine feet. This centuries-old stone figure is believed to represent a woman in childbirth."

A Marquesan tiki from the December 1974(?) issue.

A Tahitian couple dancing the tamure, whatever that is. Tiki to the left as you can see. From July 1962.

From an April 1962 article on New Zealand.

1961-62 had a slew of Polynesian/South Pacific articles.

Lots of great pics and articles. The earliest Polynesian article I looked at was from 1911. Highly recommended.