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Plundering Polynesia

By Allen StJames

So what, exactly, is this "tiki culture" we keep hearing about?

The latest desire to go Polynesian merely copies the tiki culture of the 1950s — which was a tacky imitation of a revered island culture to begin with. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

Tropical motif restaurants (actually the first "theme" restaurants in contemporary culture) were an experience that many raised during the 1950s and 1960s remember and were heavily influenced by. Now, we have a copy of a copy, the current tiki fad, legitimized as an actual movement by the appellation "Polynesian Pop Culture," promulgated by many hipsters latching onto the current thing.

Let's take a look at the ersatz Polynesia:

The appropriation of the icono-graphy of ancient and modern Polynesian cultures, the plundering of the symbols and deities of their religions: How did this become a cartoonish fixation for hipsters wanting something colorful, fun, mysterious and different?

To a degree, it's a form of nostalgia, which is ironic and absurd, as many youngsters getting into "all things tiki" and the other word of the month, "retro," never lived through it before, and those who lived through it in the '60s never lived through the real thing, the tropical lifestyle, the real Polynesian restaurant, that was copied and popularized across America in that era.

So, it's a copy of a copy of the fixation that America of a few decades ago had with Hawai'i, and Polynesia: the "go native" motif of tiki carvings, fake volcanoes, bars and restaurants fully decorated with bamboo, thatch, tapa — all this was a replication of what many on the Mainland thought a Hawaiian restaurant may have looked like. Basically, it was an excuse for a mini-holiday.

There is evidence of strong feelings, and now, a growing (albeit quiet) backlash here in the Islands, toward this tiki culture. At the least, many Islanders regard the representation of a tiki as a cartoon image, or some heavy-toothed, bug-eyed character looking as if he just jumped from a comic book, as disrespectful.

The consensus of kama'aina, through feedback and casual interviews over the years, is a feeling of either head-shaking semi-apathy toward what haoles are currently fixated on, with their making all things tiki all the rage, to disgust and anger at the way the sacred icons of their culture, ancient and contemporary, are being treated. Making it a fad, by nature, creates a short-lived phenomenon. With the oversaturation of all things tiki, it gets old very quickly and loses favor among the masses. Others, experiencing revulsion, have gotten tired of seeing so much of it.

This justified repugnancy many feel toward the trivialization of the gods of Polynesia may be the result of mass-merchandised products that just go too far. Can you imagine a bobbing-head Virgin Mary? Or a goofy-faced, exaggerated-featured Jesus nodder?

This is what is being done to revered Polynesian religious and cultural images. They are being made into bobbing heads for the dashboard.

What would Christians throughout the Mainland think if Islanders created a fad, "all things saintly," for example. What if Islanders created silly images of Christian saints, decorated their dens with white-robed bearded cartoon figures with glowing circles above their heads, and maybe a bunch of robed guys and gals with multicolored wings flapping behind their backs ... you could have cloud-shaped beanbag chairs. A bar shaped like a cathedral.

How well would you think this would go over?

The term "tiki" doesn't even exist in Hawai'i; the Hawaiian word for it is ki'i, carved image. And native Islanders are offended when the term is misapplied.

One would hope that the dissemination of tiki products, and by that I mean products in the image of carved ki'i, and the selling of hula skirts and other Polynesian items, would be part of an educational process. Instead, it's nothing more than cashing in on a fad.

One may hear, upon going on in this fashion, the advice: "Oh, lighten up!" — which is appropriate from fadsters promulgating this approach to "tiki lite."

The proliferation of all things tiki has reduced the icons of Hawai'i and Polynesia to the most watered down, generic, lowest common denominator. Tiki has become no longer the carved image of a Polynesian deity. Rather, it stands for anything of a tropical or island nature, through a Mainland cartoon "retro" filter. To the unknowing haole, this does a disservice to those who want to learn more about Polynesian cultures, and it displays an incredible degree of disrespect toward those cultures that have and still consider the ki'i a sacred image.

We've got competitive attitudes about who has the biggest tiki, the most tikis, who puts on the best tiki parties. There are studies of tiki restaurants that measure their worth by "tikis per square inch." It's sad that those faddists who say they "worship tikis" also are alienating the people who originated the images.

Even longtime carvers of tiki images, who may even be beneficiaries of this fad, survey the desolation of this plundering and lament the new imagery as tasteless, not of high quality, an oversaturation of the marketplace, and a misrepresentative of the genre.

We have party-supply manufacturers creating tiki imagery products with features right out of a cartoon, and then other competing manufacturers copying these images, and on and on, to the point that these things no longer resemble anything from Polynesia. But still, these errant images are referred to as tiki gods and are part of the world of all things tiki.

So what, exactly, is this retro thing they are pining for?

As noted, the tiki motif has been a part of contemporary American culture for a few decades. With the proliferation of Polynesian Pop restaurants such as Trader Vic's, Don The Beachcomber and Kelbo's, we were able to leave our staid, gray-flannel existence behind, enter a forbidden tropical world complete with rumbling volcanoes, monolithic, fierce-faced god images, wild bird-call pseudo-island-style exotic music, and beautiful, scantily-clad maidens serving us powerful potions with exotic names such as "Samoan Fog Cutter," "Missionary's Downfall," "Sufferin' Bastard," etc.

After our Organization Man had enjoyed his temporary vacation and had "gone native," or "gone tiki," he along with his woman (Ken and Barbie, so to speak) could depart with a souvenir of the trip, a pair of collectible tiki mugs, to cherish for the requisite five years. Then, when the need to stay in style had gotten the better of them, and they no longer found all things tiki appealing, the forlorn mugs might have ended up at the thrift store or in a garage sale.

For many, tiki mugs are an American cultural archaeological icon, a symbol that at the drop of a mai tai (imbibed from the tiki mug) they can return once again to their tropical island paradise, and, for a few moments, leave their stressful modern world behind.

So, there being nothing wrong with toasting with a mai tai, try not to make an ass of yourself when you say " 'Okole maluna."

(Which, of course, does not mean what everyone thinks.)

Allen StJames operates www.tikitrader.com, the Island Decor Shop and the Hawaii Five-0 Web site.