Post #78350 by bigbrotiki on Sat, Feb 28, 2004 11:09 AM

On 2004-02-27 20:29, Cool Manchu wrote:

....I know that those totem pole mugs from the North East aren't Tiki, but you can always find them labled as such in antique stores and eBay.

Aaaah, my pet peeve! My often repeated motto is:
IF IT SAYS TIKI ON IT, IT SHOULD HAVE TIKI IN IT!

Now where would we end up if we would go by e-bay naming standards!

The insidious naming of items that have no shred of Tiki about them is doubley reproachable because it is an example of not only ignorance, but ignorance mixed with the desire to gain a commercial advantage from invoking the name of the god.

As I said before, Benihana was never a Polynesian restaurant, and while I adore Japanese, it is in no way Tiki. Other theme mugs, like the Harevey's Fog Cutter and the Fu Manchu, are simply named by their cocktail or their look, but they are NOT Tiki mugs, just because they were used in Tiki bars.

Otherwise we would have Tiki forks and Tiki spoons.

If it depicts a Polynesian idol (or any Oceanic godhead) it's a Tiki mug, nothing else is.

The Book of Tiki defines Tiki style as the period from the mid 1950s to the late 60s when the Tiki figure became THE logo of Polynesian Pop. Everything else before or after is Polynesian Pop or Hawaiiana at best, or generic tropical pieces of hacked wood at worst.
The decline of Tiki style happened in large part because of the indifferent watering down of the iconography of the style with non-specific imagery and terminology.

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki on 2004-02-28 11:33 ]