Post #646020 by bigbrotiki on Sun, Jul 29, 2012 10:31 AM

Jeffy, one might think what one will about that video, it is after all -ahem- kind of "minimalist" :D ...but I must speak out for the MOAI having very much become a TIKI in American Polynesian pop. From the Book of Tiki, page 40:

"..a new figurehead of Polynesian pop emerged: The carved native idol commonly referred to as Tiki. Notwithstanding the fact that the term did not exist in the Hawaiian or Tahitian languages, or that the stone sculptures of Easter Island were actually called Moai - in Polynesian Pop, all Oceanic carvings became members of one happy family: the Tikis."

Somewhere later, I mention the fact that because of the popularity of Thor Heyerdahl's "Aku Aku" published in 1958, they were sometimes referred to as "Aku Tikis", but in Tiki style's heyday, the term "Moai" was never used. The fact that nowadays we know better, and most of us do call them Moai, is a credit to the expanded horizon of the Tikiphiles and Polynesiacs of the Tiki Revival. While the revival has in many ways happily adopted the unreflected, naive ways of our forefathers, some advances in cultural awareness are just too hard to ignore. :)