Post #588633 by bigbrotiki on Tue, May 10, 2011 7:03 PM

It was fun to spend the time with Al and chat Tiki - but I was a little disappointed that nobody else showed.
Louie the Fish has had an amazing life story, he has been everywhere in Polynesia, and lived the primitive life on remote islets, going more "native" than most born islanders! Louie actually revived the art of bone carving in some of those places. AND he plays a mean blues harmonica!

The museum itself was, well, a SURPRISE...
First of: The mural painting on the outside is amazing!:

Upon entering we are greeted by this great display of Tapwanu masks:

(Poly pop reference:)

The same room had other interesting exhibits...

...like one about Palau men's club house storyboard paintings.

And then...to my surprise...that was IT?...!

The museum is in fact one big room only. I naively expected something on the scale of the Museum of Latin American Art, which is just across the street:

MOLA is a modern complex with a lobby, several exhibit spaces, and a restaurant attached. Well, PIEAM is more like an art gallery in size. I felt humbled by the realization that more than ever, today Pacific islanders really ARE a minority, a small group of people, and they need all the support they can get to have their culture survive. GO to this place, become members, and support it!

In addition to their exhibit inside, PIEAM's sculpture garden is wonderful to explore:

My favorite modernist carvings: Caroline Islands gods/goddesses

A more naturalistic goddess:

MY goddess Naomi with Yap money stones:

And two more Tapwanu masks:

with a nice, simple description of their tradition:

...and then, last not least, this lady (no, she is not the "goddess of the motorhome"!):

She had already greeted us as a painting over the entrance door (in a more chaste form -see Trader Vic's 80s menu):

Here is an original:

These statues traditionally sat over the entrances of Palau men's houses (below), representing the priestess (?) that the men's "club" would choose to serve them for a limited time, a year or so...

This was all codified in ritual meaning, as far as I understand, but here is a more down to earth report about the tradition:

"The men’s house of each village had their own ‘mistress’ who was the only female allowed to enter. This woman was usually not well liked by the other women of the village, as aside from her duties cleaning the men’s house she also pleasured all the men; in strong contrast to Palau’s more matriarchal society. To the relief of the village women, the Germans successfully stopped this practice by putting forward the practical suggestion that this habit posed a real health risk as well as being immoral!"

Those uptight Germans! In defense of my people I have to say though that at the same time in Germany (around 1900- 1910) the same sexual freeness impressed the German avantgarde artists, like Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, to create wall hangings for his bohemian studio such as these:

However, just like the "hung" Tiki statues, these carvings seemed to have been too risque to find use in mid-century American Tiki temples.

But back to PIEAM:
After seeing it, I quickly forgot my idea to ask them to do a Poly pop exhibit there. They need every inch they have for their own art and history, a Tiki exhibit would have made sense in one of several galleries - if they would have those. But here in their only room, it would be too loud.