Post #682 by Frenchy Polynesia on Sun, Apr 14, 2002 12:27 PM

Hmm.. this is an interesting little dilemma. If I’m clear on this, the Moai supporters want there to be a complete end to all use of Moai heads as icons evocative of Tiki culture? It’s pretty obvious that everybody in this club ‘gets it’ about the whole Tiki-pop thing. Most of us probably know something about the original cultural background and are completely sensitive (even apologetic) to the struggle of the natives, now and in the past... None of us want to be missionaries - we all want to be NATIVES. :) Still, for every one of us there’s a hundred or more out there in middle America that won’t ‘get it.’ Ever. You can lead them to culture, but you can’t make them think - so to speak. That goes for the 50s AND the '00s. What's the bit about 'The more things change...?' It’s pretty depressing, but on the bright side - it’s not like anybody, be they prole or cognocenti, are slamming Moai imagery in the same way African-Americans were slammed by the minstrel shows in the 1900s. We at least had the sense to realize that that truly was wrong. We’re not saying, ‘ha ha look at the big, stupid heads, ha ha ha.’ It’s more like - ‘wow, those are mysterious and cool and even if I don’t have the attention span to read about the history, I’d like a replica of that for my home, bar, office, etc.’ They encourage us to dream about exotic things, perhaps to learn. As for the carvings themselves, I’m sure all of us would LOVE to hire a traditional stone-carver to shack up at our houses/apartments for a few months and carve us a true image. Unfortuantely, most of us will have to make do with styrofoam. We’re being affectionate toward the culture in the only way we know how - hewing our own interpretations for everyday use. Isn’t that sort of what the original natives did, anyway? Taking the Moai/Tiki imagery out of an already corporatized, whitewashed cluture will just make it overall MORE bland, MORE incensitive, and more just-plain-dumb. The Easter Islanders should be happy that there are at least people like us who get it, and are for better or worse supporters of their culture and our own culture’s interpretation of it. It’s hard to believe that there are people who want to be so selfish as to not share, especially since we’ve been playing nice with the concept since it was introduced.