Tale Of A

The

Tiki

By J.P.S.

"11/'HAT’S the story on this one, *» Carl?” we enquired as we turned through an album of old photos of Tahiti.

The photo in question was of a stone god, or tiki, about twice the size of a man’s head, carved out of a block of scoria. In the photo its owner was sitting alongside it.

“Well,” said Carl, “just what the early history of that tiki was I haven’t a clue. For all I know he may have been a very important god in Tahiti’s dim past. As far as 1 was concerned he taught me that the present-day Tahitians, though they seem on the surface to have lost most of the old beliefs, are still highly superstitious underneath.

“You know, of course, that 1 was with a large firm in Papeete. Well, around 1937, one of our trucks came in one day—Tino Papara was driving; you remember him, of course—and on the back was this thing. It seems they’d found it in the long grass on the side of the road in the Pirae district.

“I was rather taken with it. It was obviously the genuine article and not carved for the tourist trade. 1 inquired of Tino what he proposed doing with it. He announced that it was mine for the taking away.

Couldn’t understand why he’d brought it in, really, “Well, it lay alongside my motor garage at home for several years, then, when 1 was going to Europe for a holiday in 1939 I shifted it into the front garden, and never thought another thing of it until about 1943, long after I had arrived back in Tahiti. Just happened to notice one day that it wasn’t there, so made some enquiries of the family as to what had happened to it.

“Seems there’d been a terrific hullabaloo one morning while I was away in Europe. Half the natives of Pirae district had arrived at the house—carrying the tiki with them.

It turned out that one of their

At a recent exhibition in Sydney, called “Architecture To-day and Tomorrow”, an exhibit of the design for the new Commonwealth Bank in Port Moresby, was described as “the most startling design” in the show.

villagers had stolen it from my pro perty without the family ever notic ing that it was missing. This man had shortly after wards died, and a native priest had pronounced that the death was due to being in posses sion of the stolen tiki. The hullaba loo was the official return of the little god. Apparently the village was in a terrible state over the thing be ing on their pro- • perty. All sorts of dire troubles were predicted by the priest unless it was promptly returned to its owner—me.

“Of course, I’m not at all super stitious myself but when the Danish oceano graphic survey vessel Albatross called in at Papeete, and one of the

scientists aboard showed keen interest in the old tiki, I promptly presented it to him—and I believe it now sits

in some museum in Copenhagen.

“Looks a malevolent little brute, doesn’t he!”

Carl and his Tiki.