Post #511702 by Sabu The Coconut Boy on Wed, Feb 17, 2010 8:47 PM

I'm afraid my first post on the subject is just going to reinforce Bigbro's original proposition. Instead of showing Melanesian examples in Pre-Tiki Poly-pop, I'll offer a few reasons why they seem to be largely absent. Hopefully we can find some exceptions later.

First, three examples of Pre-Tiki Poly-Pop:

Don The Beachcomber's map of a South Seas Paradise leaves out New Guinea and Melanesia:

Trader Vic's first map (Oakland Era) is even simpler:

And the Matson Line Cruises of the 1930s did not go there:

New Zealand; Yes. Pago-Pago; Yes. Hawaii & Tahiti; Yes. In the picture above, notice the Lyre Bird of Australia, but no spectacular New Guinea Bird-of-Paradise. These are the islands tamed by the missionaries. Idyllic and peaceful with white sands, palm trees, and lovely maidens. New Guinea offered tribal warfare, mangrove swamps, head-hunters and leeches. It hadn't been tamed yet.

Covarrubias shows Melanesia on his maps of the 40s:

But that's natural because he's presenting an ethnographic point-of-view and Melanesia is culturally fascinating. But South Sea bars and South Sea cruises were selling escapism and I think Melanesia might have been just a little too dark and too dangerous for them. Later, the tiki bars embraced their primal imagery but maybe in the 30s and 40s it wasn't readily available to a Trader and a Beachcomber traveling the world.

In other words, maybe Trader Vic and Don the Beachcomber first used what was most handy - decor from the islands people actually traveled to (via Matson Lines and others). Later, looking for new sources, they eventually incorporated PNG decor from books and museum collections. Just a theory - feel free to poke holes in it.

[ Edited by: Sabu The Coconut Boy 2010-02-17 22:14 ]