Tiki culture is an American-originated art, music, and entertainment movement inspired by Polynesian, Melanesian, and Micronesian cultures, and by Oceanian art. Influences on Tiki culture include the various cultures of Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia, the Caribbean Islands, and Hawaii. The name comes from Tiki, the Māori name for the first human, often represented in the form of hei-tiki, a pendant and important taonga. The hei-tiki was often appropriated by Europeans as a commercialised good luck charm, hence the name of Tiki culture. Despite the Pacific Islands spanning over and including many different unrelated cultures, religions, and languages, Tiki aesthetic is considered by some to be amalgamated into one "fantasia of trans-Pacific cultures" and "colonial nostalgia". Because of this, and the simplistic view of the Pacific taken by the aesthetic, Tiki culture has often proved controversial.
Tiki culture initially extended to decorate themed bars and restaurants, catering to Americans' views of the South Pacific. Featuring Tiki carvings and complex, alluringly named alcoholic drinks, it eventually influenced residential recreation. It became one of the primary ways, although indirectly, that New Zealand culture influenced that of the United States. Beginning in California in the 1930s and then spreading around the world, Tiki culture was inspired by the sentimental appeal of an idealized South Pacific, particularly Polynesia, as viewed through the experiences of tourists and Hollywood movies, incorporating beautiful scenery, forbidden love, and the potential for danger. Over time, it selectively incorporated more cultural elements (and imagined aspects) of other regions such as Southeast Asia. While the decor and ambiance at these establishments largely draws from Polynesian influences, the cocktails are inspired by the tropical drinks and ingredients of the Caribbean.
Tiki culture changed over time, influenced by World War II and the firsthand exposure hundreds of thousands of American servicemen gained during that conflict. In time its appeal wore off, and both the culture and the hospitality industry theme saw a decline. The early decades of the 21st century have seen a renaissance of interest in Tiki culture, including a limited commercial revival. In addition, it has attracted people interested in cocktails, history, urban archaeology, and retroism. However, the appropriation of indigenous Pacific cultures has become increasingly challenged as culturally insensitive or racist.
Name Tiki is the first human in Māori mythology, and also a wooden image of him.
The word "tiki" was used to describe the style of the tropical islands of the South Pacific starting in the late 1930s, a usage that is "unknown to the languages of the Pacific."Oxford English Dictionary, 1986, s.v. It was applied early on to "tiki punch," "tiki rooms," "tiki torches," and so on. By the 1950s, restaurants often used the word to describe Polynesian-themed "tiki bars" and "tiki rooms."
The term "tiki culture" emerged in the 1990s to describe the revival of the style.Richard Gehr, "Heart and Soul", Spin 9:5:33-34 (August 1993), p. 34
Origin
Tiki culture began at the end of Prohibition in 1933 with the opening of Don's Beachcomber, a Polynesian-themed bar and restaurant in Hollywood, California. The proprietor was Ernest Raymond Beaumont-Gantt, a young man from Texas and New Orleans who had done some rum-running with his father and claimed to have sailed throughout much of the Pacific Ocean. The restaurant's name was later changed to Don the Beachcomber, and Beaumont-Gantt legally changed his name to Donn Beach. His restaurant featured Cantonese cuisine and exotic rum cocktails and punch drinks, with a décor of flaming torches, rattan furniture, flower leis, and brightly colored fabrics that looked like imagery out of the popular movies that were helping to fuel the desires of the average American to travel the Pacific.
In 1936, a restaurant owner from Oakland, California, Victor Bergeron, ate at the Don the Beachcomber restaurant. Bergeron said: "We went to a place called the South Seas...and even visited Don the Beachcomber in Hollywood. In fact, I even bought some stuff from Don the Beachcomber. When I got back to Oakland I told my wife what I had seen, we agreed to change the name of our restaurant and our décor." The renamed restaurant, as well as his new nickname, became Trader Vic's. Bergeron adopted the new persona in a manner to imitate Beach's theatrics and further perpetuate the illusions of Hollywood, telling people that the leg he had lost to tuberculosis had been the result of being attacked by a shark.
Other restaurants such as Clifton's Cafeteria also had begun introducing grand decorations based on non-traditional and "kitschy" themes. Clifton's was heavily remodeled in 1939 to become Clifton's South Seas. The exterior and interior were decorated with 12 waterfalls, volcanic rock, and tropical foliage. It supposedly even featured a "sherbet-gushing volcano".
The décor of both the inside and the outside of the restaurants was often painstakingly created with decorations from around the world. Joseph Stephen Crane, the owner of the later The Luau restaurant, began his menu with a list of the places of origin of his building materials. It included not just Hawaii but virtually all areas of Oceania, as well as furniture from Hong Kong and "man eating clam shells" from the Indian Ocean.
Early tiki restaurants, although not called that at the time, attempted to walk a fine line between the reality and myth of what they were creating, acknowledging that much of it was Hollywood hocus-pocus but also trying to create an atmosphere of authenticity. Crane's later restaurant menus stated: "You have just passed the gangplank into another world – into a segment of Paradise – or such is the illusion we of THE LUAU hope to create. And truly it is more than an illusion for there is authenticity in the adventure you are about to experience... Both food and drink are prepared under the matchless guidance of the one and only Dr. Foo Fong... Our drink specialties, Island Symphonies of rare and distinguished rums, irresistibly claim your fullest respect which is best shown by drinking slowly and reverently".
South Seas genre movies leading up to this period included White Shadows in the South Seas (1928), The Love Trader (1928), and Bird of Paradise (1932). Beach frequently interacted with movie stars, inviting them to his home for luau-like dinners and becoming friends with actors such as Clark Gable.
Hei Tiki was released in 1935, with a New York Times review describing the plot as being about "a chieftain's daughter who is declared tabu and destined to be the bride of the war god". It attributed the title to mean "love charm", in reference to Hei-tiki pendants sometimes associated with fertility. Waikiki Wedding, starring Bing Crosby and Martha Raye, was released in 1937 with the popular song "Blue Hawaii", as was Her Jungle Love in 1938, starring Dorothy Lamour.
During a time when overseas civilian China Clipper air travel was still uncommon, the Hawaiian Steamship Company's Matson Line also continued its aggressive advertising campaigns promoting a leisurely but still exotic island lifestyle, led by famous photographers such as Edward Steichen and Anton Bruehl and featuring actresses such as Jinx Falkenburg (later in Sweetheart of the Fleet and Tahiti Nights). Matson commissioned artists to design memorable keepsake menus for the voyages.
Between the Matson Line's advertising, new restaurants and continual cinematic exposure, the theme began to take on a life of its own. California's World's Fair in 1939 – the Golden Gate International Exposition – celebrated for the first time Polynesian culture in the United States. The feature of the fair was "Pageant of the Pacific", primarily showcasing the goods of nations bordering the Pacific Ocean. At its opening ceremonies President Franklin Roosevelt spoke of friendship and the co-mingled destinies between the United States and Pacific countries, a sentiment physically symbolized in part with the incorporation of a giant, 80-foot statue, Pacifica. World War II would greatly test those ambitions.
Post-World War II
When American servicemen returned home after the end of World War II in 1945, they brought with them stories and souvenirs from their time in the South Pacific that helped to reinforce the popularity of what Hollywood had set the stage for Donn Beach to create. Beach was himself a World War II veteran, and he had invented the Three Dots & A Dash cocktail, which is Morse code for "V" (for victory). Women wore "victory roll" hairstyles and people were in the mood to celebrate.
The excitement surrounding Thor Heyerdahl's 1947 Kon-Tiki expedition, followed by the book in 1948 and a movie in 1950, helped promote tropical exploration. Importantly within the context of tiki culture, it successfully injected the word "tiki" into the popular American lexicon on a large scale (Hawaiians had not used the word "tiki", but rather "kiʻi"). Heyerdahl's work also expanded the theme's mythology to include the west coast of South America in what became an ever increasing mix of cultural motifs, both real and imagined. Easter Island statues (moai) also became iconic with the publication of his book Aku-Aku.
Steven Crane of The Luau restaurant took advantage of the public's fascination with Heyerdahl and further followed in the footsteps of Beach and Bergeron by building a chain of tiki restaurants in partnership with Sheraton Hotels called Kon-Tiki Ports. Crane is generally credited with also bringing tiki to the forefront of decorations at such restaurants and bars, prominently placing their image on his menu covers, matchbooks, entry ways, and other signage. Southern Pacific themes continued to stray more into the even further imagined realm of the mysterious "tiki".
James Michener won the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for his collection of short stories, Tales of the South Pacific, which in turn was the basis for South Pacific, the 1949 musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein that included the song "Bali Ha'i" about a mystical tropical island. The Bali Hai restaurant opened a few years later on San Diego's Shelter Island, introducing its faux-tiki mascot and signature cocktail, the Mr. Bali Hai.
In addition to the returning World War II veterans, several other factors contributed to the mid-century American explosion in tiki culture. Post-war America saw the rise of the middle class as an economic force. This coupled with ever-increasing affordability of travel, particularly newly established civilian air travel to Hawaii (which had been halted during the war), helped to propel the nation's disposable income into all things tropical. Just as the Matson Line had done with their boats, the airlines aggressively marketed flights to consumers.