Mai Kai - Tiki Archeology

First of all - Props go to Wplugger (Will) for initiating this.

For about a year now Will has been making copies of the Mai Kai tikis from molds that were created some time in the past. He has found newspapers in the molds that date back to the late 50s. Whether or not the date is correct?? - the foresight to create molds of such a large volume of tikis/artifacts was pure genius. The investment that was made in Oceanic Art must have been spectacular. Perhaps the writing was on the wall that the tikis would not last in the humid and hot environment of South Florida. Will roughly estimates that there are at least 100 molds in storage. PLUS - some that were right in front of us every time you walked thru the gardens.

I NEED HELP!
Please show your images of the inside garden...

I also need a picture of the white tiki that led to small dining area inside the waterfall area. More on that later.

When you walked into the inside garden from behind the stage, on the right hand side of the banister was a small non-discript brown tiki. To most it looked like some really funky Pop Tiki - It wasn't! In reality it was a small tiki that had been enclosed in a rubber mold. It had been buried up to his chest in dirt and mulch. Will knew what it was and asked to see what was inside!! Permission granted!!! Here's what it looked like.

The brown skin on the outside is paint on top of a rubber skin. The whole thing was very light and we feared that the tiki inside had been eaten of rotted. Remember the rubber must be at least 30 years old and no one had a clue what was inside. The skin came off with some struggles but the tiki inside was well preserved. Here it is skinned.

The tiki is really unique. Any help identifying it would be greatly appreciated. The tiki apparently was painted. The paint had turned to dust/dirt but the wood was in decent condition. This guy had some damage that had been repaired - we guess for the mold making process. The skin had preserved the tiki perfectly from when it was placed in the rubber. He needs some help to restore him - but how cool. The skin is still intact and with some work, Will should be able to use the mold. Here are some glamour shots.

There is more to this story. I will update after dinner.

PLEASE HELP WITH THE PHOTOS!!

Ok dinner is done and I can move on with this story.

For years there has been a medium-sized tiki in the OUTSIDE garden that made you look twice - "What the hell is that!" It stood next to a small path that leads into a small courtyard in the Rock Garden. It looks like someone eventually came along and painted the outside - how do we know - there are eyes painted on the outside. Similar to the smaller tiki that was inside it was a wooden tiki with an outside rubber skin. Will and I have looked at this one several times and we really wondered what was inside. When you tap on the outside it sounded solid. Something had to be inside, but what condition was it? The tiki had been cemented onto a faux rock pedestal so it was not something we could check. When we asked what was inside, once again no one knew. Remember these things have been around since the 50's and there is no one left that knows the answers. After some prodding Will talked them into removing it from its pedestal. Here it is...

Look familiar. There were high hopes for this one, till it was loaded in the van, ANTS came pouring out the bottom. Oh crap! Well, the bottom was soaking wet and very soft. We started peeling and our fears were NOT met. The inside had been perfectly preserved!!!! Even though the tiki had been outside so SO LONG, the rubber skin had kept the moisture out and the ants were only in the base. So we peeled and peeled and peeled and peeled... That rubber had been on it for DECADES and it wasn't going to release easily. Here are some progress pictures.

Looks pretty nice! Will and I are so pumped that we intentionally made ourselves stop and regroup every few minutes. We had two goals: 1) remove the tiki from its rubber tomb 2)preserve the rubber for future casting. My fingers hurt so bad right now, from working the rubber off the wood and out of every little crack. 3 hours later we had reached the end. here is the treasure that we found...

The wood is rock solid and gorgeous! The tiki had been so well preserved that there are even pencil marks on him from when it was carved! He had been in that skin for DECADES and he looks like he was just carved. We are very stoked at this point. He needs very little cleanup to get some of the more stubborn rubber off and maybe some rejuvinating oil. Here are some detail shots...

Any info on this guy is welcome as well. This was a blast and a lot of work! This was my first opportunity to do some urban archeology and it has gotten me more enthusiastic to give Will more help in his restoration project. I hope that everyone gets a chance to check him out after the final cleanup is done. Well that concludes our tiki treasure quest.

If you have any pictures of either tikis in their spots please post them.

[ Edited by: AlohaStation 2007-12-09 18:33 ]

It is in the style of a Papua New Guinea spirit hook. I would tend to say it is a real spirit hook just because the detail is way more than Oceanic Arts or any of them would do. The figure in the head, would probably be a crocodile. Hard to tell in the picture. None of the commercial places would do that kind of detail work. I would bet its a real one, but it still could be a copy. It if was real, it would have been painted with natural pigments. I'd need to see more detailed pics to tell. The symetry is off, which isn't likely for the real thing, and the figure in the head and the tongue don't seem right. Really hard to tell for sure. And, of course, it the base piece is part of the whole, its not the real thing. The hook looks a bit small. I'm not sure from pictures.

Tiki Calendar for 2008

[ Edited by: Swanky 2007-12-09 20:00 ]

There was no paint. The figures on the head are BIRDS. One on top and one coming from the mouth. Hopefully, once it is clean up The Mai Kai will display it somewhere - because it is a very cool carving. Thanks.

Cool!

As for the rubber, we use to use dish soap on the exterior to help with the friction when pulling it off the casts or, originals. I'm sure now days there is some sort of lube made just for that.

Keep up the good work!

Awesome!

That is AWESOME but I'm still a little confused as to your intent. He's not going back IN a rubber cocoon , is he?

Did the mold come off clean enough to cast some more?

RevBen - Thanks for the info, but, that part of the project is done. I wonder if it would have worked because the rubber had been on there for so long. There are small boogers that are hanging on - is there an easy way or chemical solution to clean those off?

Pappy - the intent was to free a tiki from its rubber tomb. AND have a mold that duplicates can be cast from. A lot of work went into creating these molds.

C&A - the mold has a few small issues but it is in great shape for casting.

Dug out this pic of him from a few years ago in his original location

You kanes absolutely are rocking the Mai Kai.
I love it. Wish I could help paint or peel or mix drinks or something.

Unbelievable. You guys ROCK! That is so cool! The unearthing of King Tut had nothing on this. :)

Isn't it wierd/odd how rubber encased tikis ended up out in the gardens in the first place? Sounds like maybe when the Mai-Kai first bought all these tikis and someone made molds of them, some of the rubber encased tikis got set aside in storage and maybe forgotten about. Then someone pulled it out of storage when the original tikis needed replacing and plopped it in the garden, not knowing it was encased in rubber. Just a theory. I guess you guys have found the ultimate way to preserve a tiki outdoors... mummify it in rubber!

I'm with pablus. Wish I could be there to help out in some way. I sure hope they display that guy in the INDOOR gardens this time.

Here he is yelling "Let me out! Let me out!" to a group of unsuspecting diners.

And, by the way, that first tiki you unearthed is quite the looker too. Especially the profile.

Is this the "white" Tiki? My night at the Mai Kai got a little foggy


I think this is the area behind the stage. over to the right? Hope this helps out.

OH MY GAWD...THOSE LOOK AH-MAZING!

I will be taking my very first trip to the Mai Kai from Orlando at the end of January. I am going to make a weekend of it.

I am so excited to finally get to the Mai Kai!

TikiTackett
http://www.tikitackett.com

What a great story of Polynesian pop archeology! Unearthing mint condition artifacts from their "cocoons"! And finding OVER 100 MOLDS of cloned South Sea ancestor art, that is like the opening of King Tut's tomb!

I have to wait to get home from Africa til I can delve into my slide archives but I know I have some pics of the Mai Kai's interior garden. That "crude" Tiki you show first sure looks like a personal attempt at primitive art, but perhaps I will find it in my vintage primitive art book library, maybe HERE: That PNG spirit hook is so detailed, it might very well come from THE most influential book in mid-century Tiki style:

"Oceanic Art", published in 1954 by Pantheon N.Y.
http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?qwork=4795159&author=Hewicker%2C+Friedrich&browse=1&qsort=p&matches=5&cm_re=works*listing*buyused

This book, with its full page, crisp black and white photos by Friedrich Hewicker was one the few books available at the dawn of the Tiki period. In fact, it was the name-giver to the fledgling Oceanic Arts in Whittier at that time. Consequently, quite a few pieces from their catalog were based on the photos in the book, which sometimes showed two views of a carving, facilitating more accurate copying in lieu of the original. And so, art copied from the book could be (and still can be) found in many Tiki Temples all over America.

Note the irony: (As you might be able to tell by the photographer's name), the 1954 printing actually was the English edition of a GERMAN book, which was published before in Germany. What is it with those German photographer's and their influence on American Polynesian pop !!? :)

The reason I am harping on this book's historic value is that, after Will was kind enough to seek my counsel on the correct coloration of the casts he was making, he has been sending me pics of his work, and I noticed that 90 % of these molds must have been made from carvings whose originals are pictured in that book! The timing fits perfectly, like I said, from the mid to the late 50s there were just a couple of these kind of books available as source material.

Case in point: Got to page 150 of Tiki Modern: I took that B+W photo of the amazing Rarotongan Tiki from "Oceanic Art". (So are the photos of the Hawaiian drink bowl on page 60, and the Caroline Islands goddess in the first chapter...AND the B/W photo that was the base for the Mauna Loa menu cover in the menu chapter in the BOT). Now here is one of Will's casts:

I already ordered a copy of the book to send to Will in appreciation of his work, to send to him when I get back home. Though he won't be able to tell the exact coloration of the pieces, (because all the photos are in black and white_, now the Mai Kai and its little helpers will have the correct lineage information for them, because all the plates have descriptions in the back of the book!

When I get home, I will post a series of images from the book together with photos of their Poly pop "children". Here is one of a different spirit hook that I happen to have in my computer files. I think Oceanic Arts made a mask from it, does somebody own one and can post it here?:

I wonder if it was George Nakashima who had the idea of having these molds made, or if it was the Thornton brothers. We cannot ask George or Gabe anymore, but maybe Miss Thornton remembers something?

Here's the OA mask version of that spirit hook:

Here are a couple of the ones I have made from the molds. It was the first one I did from them.

Ha! Didn't even know they made that one, too! Great looking pieces, Will.

...I am REALLY getting anxious to get to the bottom of the mystery of WHO were "they"? ...and the exact WHEN, HOW, and WHY of this hoard. Were they maybe done out of country? Did Bob or Leroy ever hear of this specific job being done?

So in the spirit of Christmas (and Starbucks), I am passing the cheer to all T.C.ers with this extensive Tiki archeology post:

First, on a little humorous side note, totally unrelated to what will follow, here is my favorite misspelling of my (first) name on a Starbuck's cup so far !:

...rhymes with "fun"!
So after I got home from Africa, I pulled out "Oceanic Arts" (as mentioned on the first page of this thread) from my book shelf, and lo and behold, the PNG spirit hook that was freed from its rubber cocoon DID come from its pages:

But after thoroughly leafing through this influential tome again, I must admit I overstated some things, such as the fact that almost ALL of Will's discovered casts were taken from the books pages, and that MOST statues in the book are seen from two view...which in fact is rather the exception. But nevertheless, here is an example of a beautiful Tiki that WAS found as a cast (see previous page), and IS shown from two sides in the book:

So here is a treatise on the multitude of Polynesian (and Melanesian!) Pop objects that were inspired by this art book, whose cover looks like this:

It definitely had a major hand in decking the halls of the Mai Kai. Let's look at this shot of the atrium for example:

No, the PNG orator chair statue is NOT in the book (and the Easter Island paddle on the back wall is from "Arts of the South Seas")...but look at this cast of characters, all culled from its pages:

(Please note that the Cook Islands Tiki's EYES and TEETH in the garden photo were painted on later, ...oy vey)

And here is one of the entrances to the atrium (as can be seen in TIKI MODERN):

...and WHO do we have here:

But as I stated earlier, the Mai Kai was by far not the only mid-century Tiki temple whose decor was partially based on the book. Here are two examples from the Kahiki:

I always thought that this shield was too cartoony to be authentic, but apparently it was just that:

I included the carving on the opposite page, because I KNOW I have seen it in situ in some Polynesian posada, but cannot recall which, nor do I have a photo of it. Perhaps the Tonga Room?
Does anybody else here have a shot of it?

And here is Michael Tsao (R.I.P.) with a garishly painted Ku, who once looked closer to this:

This guy became headless at Aloha Jhoe's in Palm Springs:

Soooo.... how come all these places all over the states were pulling their pagan idols from this one source? Because Oceanic Arts in Whittier was their supplier, and they had the book! And they made good use of it, be it for lamps...

....or any kind of wall decor, like masks:

The original in the book

The O.A. version, available in three sizes, in the 1970 catalog

An "embellished" (ahem) version for the "Night of the Tiki" show in 2001

The classic stained design, still available at O.A., one of their best deals (this type also hangs at the Mai Kai since its beginnings!)

I could go on and on, but I think I made my point. Hopefully this has not been too de-mystifying, but rather enlightening. Archeology is about tracing things back to their origins, and this post hopefully proves again what an incredible variety of art forms and styles was employed in classic Tiki style, and might encourage today's Tiki artists to go beyond the ever-the-same toothy grinned pop Tiki that is so prevalent nowadays.

In closing, a classic image from the Mai Kai:

Mele Kalikimaka to all!

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2007-12-25 21:55 ]

Thank you so much for sharing these great pictures with us. The carving are really beautiful.

I'm curious to see if any other encased figures will come to light!
The subject of Sepik spirit hooks peaked my interest - decided to post a pic of one I own.

[ Edited by: Fres-tiki 2007-12-26 03:57 ]

Here is the one on the cover of your O.A. book

and another

I've sorta lost count but I'm up to about 60 I've made for them now

[ Edited by: wplugger 2007-12-26 04:37 ]

Good post Sven. And to add to it, let's not forget this Marquesan tiki:

Who can be found at the Mai-Kai here:

(EDIT: I completely missed that you posted a pic of the same Marquesan tiki above (next to the door and the shield). I looked right past it. It looks to be the same one, mounted on the pole, but has either changed locations over the years, or the area around it was remodeled.)

and here:

and today, unfortunately his right arm is missing (carvers, c'mon fix him!):

[ Edited by: gatorrob 2007-12-28 05:02 ]

On 2007-12-26 04:34, wplugger wrote:
Here is the one on the cover of your O.A. book

Hey Will, that Pele tiki is supposed to have a full head of human hair. Any volunteers?! :)

I volunteer Crazy Al.

That's very cool and funny Sven!

Getting back to the top spirit hook, you can see in the book, if you know what it is, that it indeed is a crocodile on his forehead, but the carver, looking at the picture, interpreted it as a bird or something. That makes total sense, and makes my thought more clear. That is a copy, and not an original Papua New Guinea piece, and that's why it looks the way it does. Very interesting!

Think we could get this
in the gift shop by next year ?

Will, that is absolutely hilarious! I would buy one of those in a flash!

Rob, thanks for those great images. I did include that Marquesan guy above, the post that calendar gal is holding onto is pictured here:

That's why books are better than websites, no scrolling past images :) . (Then again, there is never enough space in books, like for all this, so the reproduction of the above photo in Tiki Modern [p.109] is quite small)

I did not include the big Tiki outside because I believed that as a reproduction he is not close enough to the original and as such not the best example for the book-to-carvings link (the tattooed forehead is not as prominent). BUT this (and Swanky's post) bring up another point that I was planning to make with this post:

That big Marquesan, and the other big Tikis at the Mai Kai were done by Barney West I believe, and his carvings were more interpretive than merely exact copies. Herein lies the division between what I would call classic or "authentic" mid-century Tiki Style and Tiki Modern. BOTH fall under the umbrella of Tiki Style (which falls under Polynesian Pop). The Mai Kai with its predominantly authentic Tiki art is a great example of CLASSIC Tiki, while on the other end of the spectrum the Hala Kahiki is all interpretive Tiki MODERN.

We have to go back to the heyday of Tiki to understand the difference. Not until the Tiki revival fueled by Tiki News and the BOT was the "interpretative" style of carvers like Milan Guanko and Andres Bumatay appreciated as an art form in its own right. Actually, Oceanic Arts as a supplier PRIDED itself to be able to deliver very-close-to-the-original carvings to its clients, the wacky Witco stuff was looked down upon. Not that they did not also sell it, they used the carvings of, and employed all the good modern carvers at the time, like Barney West, Milan Guanko, Richard Ellis, and Ed Crissman. Here is a catalog page that shows some of their not-so-authentic carvings:

But the fact that Tiki Modern was viewed as bad taste, and the genuine desire to employ "authentic" South Seas art made exact replicas often more desirable for sellers and buyers in the industry. Plus, as can be seen in the above examples like this shield on the right

...and this spirit hook's grinning face

...the actual original art sometimes was so cartoony and modern that it needed no embellishment. These carvings are in fact further (with the others in TIKI MODERN) excellent examples for the reason why primitvism and modernism gelled so well in the 50s/60s.

So, while not quite as creative, classic Tiki style is no less pop art than the more interpretive Tiki Modern, and a good Tiki environment should have samples of both.

While I tend to lean more toward classic style tiki for my personal tastes, I also like a few stylized or interpretive tikis thrown in the mix. That's why I have this big guy (who is a tribute to the Barney West stylized Moai in front of the Mai-Kai) looking in on my home bar to keep an eye on things! This was carved by Wayne Coombs. It's carved from cedar, so that's where it gets it's sunburned face. But the sun will eventually render it a beautiful silver.

And speaking of Barney West, I had an interesting conversation with Leroy Schmaltz once where he told me that he wasn't much impressed with Barney's carving skills. That came as a bit of a shock! I don't think he cared for Barney's carousing ways either, but it does make for good stories. Perhaps, as you said, with Leroy being more of a classic tiki carver, he didn't appreciate Barney's style. But I think that's one of the things that makes the Mai-Kai so great: the mixture of the two. Especially with Barney's carvings being on such a GRAND scale.

He's a beaute! I agree, Barney's forte were the big ones, especially the Moais...but some of his mid-size work at some of the Trader Vic's all over the world contains some nice examples, too.

Leroy's assessment of Barney's style is another clue of how decades of demand for "authenticity" has shaped O.A. (This, curiously, was not reflected in their color choices in the 80s and 90s, though).

On 2007-12-28 09:34, bigbrotiki wrote:

One of WPlugger's new concrete casts in place at the Mai-Kai.

Great thread - I've got to get onto Tiki Central more often!

Fantastic find guys - and thanks for all the additional info Sven.

I'm posting some photos of the gift shop back in the day - the gift shop was housed in what we know as Bora Bora today. In this photo below you can see some of the before mentioned tikis in this thread with PRICE TAGS on them!!! You could actually take them home. This shot is as you enter the gift shop (Bora Bora) and some of those tikis still stand inside the same spot in Bora Bora today:

This is one of my personal favorites and one that I drool over all the time. On the shelves to the right you can see the highly sought after drum mug, tiki salt and pepper shakers, in the back many Aloha shirts and a mannequin dress in no doubt something I would wear and low and behold on the other wall shelves more of the tikis in this discussion with price tags and the awesome table lamps for sale as well. In the bottom right hang corner is a Moai ashtray - no doubt the one that is currently rotting in the gardens:

Yee-Haw & Aloha,

The World of Tiki Kiliki

[ Edited by: tiki_kiliki 2008-01-01 08:30 ]

Get ready to drool - the Mai Kai once sold ALL of their glassware as well as the mugs. You'll see many of them pictured here on the shelves waiting to be taken home to make your own cocktails - among them the Rum Barrel, the Mai Kai stein mug (which I would love to find), the headhunter mug and the coffee grog. Also, one of the lamps I drool over:

A close up of some of the tikis with PRICE TAGS!!!

A close up of more of the tikis and the lamps for sale!

I'll take everything please.

Those are spectacular pictures Kiliki. Thanks for posting them for all to see and drool over.

that's amazing!! thanks for sharing those pictures!
why can't it be like the now?! haha

Holy F#cking Sh*t. Question solved? "Why were all of these molds mage?"

In several of the photos Kiliki posted I see tikis that have matching molds. Perhaps - these tikis were for sale in certsain quantities and duplicates were produced? Makes sense.

Yeah, that makes more sense than our initial guess that the molds were made to restock any lost/deteriorated Tiki decor. Just like mugs, fresh Tikis for the shop shelf, Voila!

NOW someone has to find one of those original castings! :) It would be interesting to see how they treated them. It seems they did quite a thorough job with aging them to make them look authentic. For example, it looks like they put "dust" in the creases and folds of these statues.

And the question still remains: WHO carved the master carvings (from the book) that the molds were made from?

Interesting. That pedestal mug was for sale in the gift shop? (Lower right on the shelves.) I have only seen one of those anywhere. It is featured on December in Tiki Daze. How these things didn't survive, I do not know, but that mug and that barrel mug are rare as all get out. The drum survived better. I know of several in collections. I guess it just looked prettier and people hung onto it and the others went in the trash along the way. It does help you understand how they ever ended up in someone's home.

But you also know the Mai Kai sells this stuff now when they have it. They ordered new lamps for one of the rooms and sold the same lamp in the gift shop. I have one. They have/had souvenir tikis, but not these obviously.

Maybe this will answer your question, bigbro. This is from Bob and LeRoy at Oceanic Arts:

Most of the carvings shown in the Tiki Central threads are carved by Barney West. He also carved many large masks. While Barney's carvings were crude in looks, they had a lot of character just like Barney. We loved the old guy and had some good times with him.

Some of the figures shown are authentic primitive arts we imported from New Guinea and sold to Jack Thornton. They have mostly been repainted. We also carved hundreds over the years of the Candle Table Lamp Bases. They were finished by the Mai Kai. Under the direction of George Nakashima we carved many wood moldings and pieces for their various themed rooms.

I think some of the figures and pieces were bought by Jack during his travels. Also many figures were carved by Demitrio Chavez for Carter who sold them to the Mai Kai. OA introduced Demitrio to Carter as we did not have the funds for carvings in the early days.

Interestingly, Jack Thorton never mentioned making molds of the Tiki's.

So to sum it up----OA did not carve any large tiki's for the Mai Kai. Once we introduced Demetrio to Carter, Carter had some masks made from the New Guinea museum designs from the book Oceanic Art. When Carter moved to WestWood OA had many more patterns carved by Demetrio.

And for the 99.9% of TCers who don't know who or what "Carter" is (myself included until now), here's an elaboration from Bob:

Robert H. Carter of Cargoes by Carter was perhaps the first importer of tropical decor and sold to Donn Beach and Victor Bergeron in the late 1940's. He was based in Whittier, CA and was a very small operation, selling Gift Ware as well as the basic tropical decor such as mattings, tapa cloths, and tikis's he had carved in Western Samoa.

LeRoy and I sold for him and carved 100's of Shields, Masks and Tiki Rail Posts for him to sell to restaurants. He later moved to Westwood, CA and we went full time expanding OA. He passed away during the late 1970's.

That is great info, Robert, thank you for inquiring. I have been meaning to go over to O.A. since I got back, but first I have to pluck all the material they lent me for from the Tiki Modern folders that Taschen returned to me! :)

Proves that there are chapters and persons (like Demitirios Chavez) in Tiki history that have yet to be uncovered!

Robert Carter apparently was the grandfather of mid-century Tiki art. He worked with Eli Hedley, and "fathered" Bob and Leroy. I know nothing else about him. Here are some ancient scrolls from the O.A. archive:

This feather stone head that now rests in my front yard looks like it possibly could be from this Tiki forge:

(but it also COULD be from Mike Gildea's shop:)
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=22886&forum=2&vpost=284481

Oh, I forgot this little PS from Bob:

p.s.: Carter also got the job of carving the large Aku Aku stone figures for the Aku Aku at the Stardust in Las Vegas. He and Eli Hedley worked together on them along with Vince Buono.

And that, along with the magazine pictures you've posted, makes me wonder if Carter was the one who carved the stone moai that used to sit in front of the Mai-Kai before the road was widened.

Are there any photos of that Mai Kai Moai? I have only seen them in renderings, and there that right one sure looks like some of those guys in the article:

And what's really great about that picture (other than the obvious) is that it's dated, giving some sort of timeline. So few pictures are dated like that.

From 1961 to about 1964.....

I say about because I don't know how far in advance this shot was taken...

Great Scott what a great shot! Ask TC and you shall receive! :D

On 2008-01-03 11:53, Chip and Andy showed:

Here is the same two ladies in front of what is now the Bora Bora Room.

The driveway is to the left, what is now Laz-y-Boy is to the right.

Well it's been over a year since we freed the Spirit hook from its rubber enclosure. The tiki was in great shap but it was slightly damaged and needed some help. We recruited Benzart to give us a hand in repairing the legs.

(Notice how I let Benz do the drilling!) After inserting dowels in the legs and glueing this guy up - he was ready to be finished. Some minor sanding and few coats of beeswax - here he is in all of his glory...