Post #568716 by bigbrotiki on Tue, Dec 14, 2010 9:28 AM

While at the Tonga Hut for Tiki Wonderland, I took the opportunity to visit the Roundhouse Train store http://www.roundhouseonline.com/index.htm , which is two shops next to the Hut (and, by the way, owned by the father of my friend Brooke, creator of Boobie Girl: http://boobiegirl.com/ ) Lo and behold, among dozens of others, they had TWO different sets of Preiser nudists in their rotating (!) Preiser display case!

WHY am I carrying on about these little people, and am I not veering off too much from Tiki, you say? Yes and no, actually they are part and parcel of one of my favorite, under-appreciated concepts of Polynesian pop: The miniature island diorama. Not as common as the painted island back-bar mural, it was employed by various Tiki temples, like the Royal Hawaiian in Laguna Beach (I only ever got to see its remnants), and the Bora Bora Room in Encino:

This tradition was perpetuated in the Tiki Revival by the Dreamworks designers who built the wonderful (but sadly ill maintained) banana train island at Fry's electronics in Manhattan Beach:

...and brought back with perfection by Germany's HaiKai:

Tikiphiles like Wendy and Dan use mini natives in their home displays, and here is my Capiz shell hut light setting that I forgot cuz its in my bedroom (which brings my A-Frame hut collection up to 8 ) :

The source of the miniature native village concept does not hail from model train sets, but, like other Tiki temple decor concepts, was first employed in ETHNOGRAPHIC MUSEUMS. Here are examples from the Kunstkamera Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia:

..and the Natural History Museum in New York:

As we can see above, miniature huts and palm trees are wonderful by itself, but it is always the PEOPLE (ideally in scale) that enliven the scene. Luckily, Wacko in Hollywood has been carrying these handy cake figurines for years now:

I will utilize this group in the Lebkuchenhaus set I am planning to build for Christmas :) :