Tiki sighting - National Geographic

Thought somebody might like to see this...

A while back I got that 112 Years of National Geographic 32 CD-ROM set. I was just looking through it reading some of the articles on the South Pacific. In "The Two Samoas" from the October 1985 issue I see this pic. Are those tiki mugs I see up top there?? Sure looks like it. Someone's starting a nice collection in American Samoa about 20 years ago?

A couple of close ups. The one on the left looks like maybe it's got a hula girl on it. Maybe...

Dunno, maybe I'm just seeing things.

Here's the caption:
"TV, beer and a VCR are taken for granted by a family in Faga'alu. Nearly half the American Samoan work force is employed by the local government. The U.S. pumps millions into the economy."

So I start wondering how many other tiki items I can find in these old NG articles. I only looked for a couple of hours and found quite a few, the best of which I'll post below.

How's this for a "find?"

Pretty nice take for a day's shopping!

Here's the caption:
"Easter Island Contributes Half a Ton of Curios to Shrewd Yankee Traders. Easter's people have lost their ancestor's art of carving colossal statues (page 18). Instead, they fashion small imitations and sell them to passing vessels. Because no yacht had stopped at Easter since the last Yankee visit in 1940, crew members found bargaining easy. The traded soap, perfume, candy and old clothes for stone images, wooden swords, hats, canes and carved animals. Arthur Johnson, himself a collector, admires the trophies."

That was from the January 1949 issue.

From January 1962...Easter Island (obviously).

From January 1950:
"Goggle-Eyed Images Reflect Hiva Oa's Pagan Days. The author saw many toppled tikis, or gods, some measuring nine feet. This centuries-old stone figure is believed to represent a woman in childbirth."

A Marquesan tiki from the December 1974(?) issue.

A Tahitian couple dancing the tamure, whatever that is. Tiki to the left as you can see. From July 1962.

From an April 1962 article on New Zealand.

1961-62 had a slew of Polynesian/South Pacific articles.

Lots of great pics and articles. The earliest Polynesian article I looked at was from 1911. Highly recommended.

Very nice, I'd like to read the articles too. Thanks for sharing them.

A nice article on the Maori people (With tons of photos of artifacts and carvings) appears in the October 1984 issue of Nat Geo.

On 2005-07-27 17:57, Slacks Ferret wrote:
A nice article on the Maori people (With tons of photos of artifacts and carvings) appears in the October 1984 issue of Nat Geo.

And how did your trip to the dentist go? Any cavities? Did he have any other good vintage magazines?!?! :)

Wow, Easter island looks just like the wild west, with Moai!

On 2005-07-27 18:04, mrsmiley wrote:
And how did your trip to the dentist go? Any cavities? Did he have any other good vintage magazines?!?! :)

The Dentist? I thought he was at KAISER!

Getting back on topic: I just got my National Geo renewal notice, where they thanked me for being a 25-year member. Yes, I've had a subscription since the SIXTH GRADE, and it's still addressed to "Miss Cindy".

I didn't find out about Savage Renewal: Archaeology until just recently, but this seems to fit the spirit of the project, even if I am way late.

I picked up a mint copy of the December, 1921 issue of National Geographic today. It's a special issue about Polynesia, and one of the articles is called Mystery of Easter Island. The article was written by Mrs. Scoresby (Katherine) Rutledge, who was the first archaeologist to perform a systematic survey of the island and the last to record the memories of the descendants of Easter's Birdman Cult. Her original survey data is still used by modern archaeologists.

The article is filled with wonderful photographs and illustrations that I have scanned for your edification. If you have difficulty reading the text at the bottom of the photos, there are larger versions of the scans available on my webpage, Vintage Oceania.

Enjoy!

Weblog: Eye of the Goof

[ Edited by: MrBaliHai 2006-01-02 18:31 ]

Having some image-hosting problems, hopefully resolved now.

[ Edited by: MrBaliHai 2006-01-03 07:01 ]

All very nice, but it doesn't beat the article in the NG I have on polynesians and their migration. The coup de gracie?

A shot of a Hawaiian guy who's car has tap beer in his dash board!!!!

Ok I know not tiki, but c'moooooooooooooooooon!

Thats so cool.

Ok sorry, the Sailor Jerry's is kicking in... Gotta go over to bilge....

Pardon me, excuse me, idiot comin through....

Thanks for sharing these images. I am currently pretty fascinated with New Zealand and Maori culture/Tikis. Not really Tiki related, but has anyone else seen the movie "Once We Were Warriors?" It's a pretty raw movie about the current lifestyle of the Maori Indians and how their culture has been affected by the societal conditions in New Zealand. I recommend this to anyone who is interested in the Maori.

Thanks for posting those MrBaliHai!
I've never seen this one, and love it.

Thanks for posting those MrBaliHai!

No worries, UB. The Dec. 1921 issue has 3 more articles devoted to Polynesia, so I'll add a few additional images when I get time to scan them.

Speaking of Easter Island, paraphrased from today's NY Times:
"After 19 million voters had their say nominating hundreds of sites as successors to the seven wonders of the ancient world named in 200 BC, judges narrowed the final contenders. These include: Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the Great Wall, the Colosseum, Machu Picchu in Peru, Stonehenge and: the Easter Island Statues."
The New Seven Wonders initiative began in 2000 with half the profits from the project, which includes lucrative TV deals, to be used in restoring and preserving monuments around the world. Winners to be announced 1/1/2007.

Here's a set of photographs from the 1921 National Geographic article, The Islands of the Pacific. Some nice shots of native art, but no tikis, unfortunately.

And since this is NatGeo, you just know it's got a bunch of shots of topless native women in it. Now I'm not trying to start up a retro pr0n service or anything, but I couldn't resist scanning this one shot of a Nauru woman (mild nudity) getting ready to do the "Dance of the Fish." The accompanying text reads:

"The Dance of the Fish must be a joyous one for its participants. The finny decorations range in color from rainbow to scarlet, blue, yellow, black, and green, and are eaten when the dance is finished."

I'd think I'd replace the word "joyous" with "hilarious".

i too just located some south pacific articles in National Geographic today. here are the pics i took.

this one is an add for Tahiti:


and I read this article about Easter Island, really neat stuff:

sorry for the monster sized pictures.

Man, I LOVE the Fish Dance costume!!
Not quite sure what the intention is to be.
Erotic? uuuuhhh,....
Make all the fishies jealous?
Make them want to jump into the nets?

Not quite the same effect as Josephine Baker's banana skirt.

I don't think I'll copy either anytime soon, though...

Well, if the "fish eaten at the end of the dance" are still on her person, I guess that does lead one to vote for the first guess regarding the desired effect.

(And I'm going to avoid where this COULD lead to, and NO ONE is allowed to go there!)

"The Dance of the Fish must be a joyous one for its participants. The finny decorations range in color from rainbow to scarlet, blue, yellow, black, and green, and are eaten when the dance is finished."

And you know, it's not "joyous" for the finny participants!!

Damn! Maybe I shouldn't have given away my NG collection from 1962 to today. I gave them away (to a stranger on Craig's list) last week - the whole kit-and-kaboodle, and when I did I was thinking "Someday I'll be sorry for doing this". I just never thought that day would be 8 days away.

I'll have to go buy the CD collection. Thanks for posting this!

:) yessir, i was rejoicing when i found all this.