February 8 - Tiki Ponderings

The Tiki I rescued at a garage sale.

By Magdalena I. García

Years ago, a co-worker went to Hawaii for his honeymoon and brought me a strange-looking magnet as a souvenir. He said it was a Tiki, a Hawaiian sort of god, which he thought was an appropriate gift for a religious woman like me. So I thanked him profusely, brought my Tiki home, and stuck him (or her) on the side of the washing machine, because it was the only metallic surface I could find.

After doing a little research online, I learned that Tikis are large wood and stone carvings of humanoid forms found in Central Eastern Polynesian cultures of the Pacific Ocean (from Hawaii to New Zealand). As you might imagine, these beautiful, enigmatic carvings are heavily displayed throughout the Hawaiian Islands. They are often used as art, and have inevitably found their way into all sorts of souvenirs, from bottle openers to magnets.

But Tikis can represent gods, and often serve to mark the boundaries of sacred or significant sites. Now, I don’t care for the eerie-looking Tikis, although they might be intended to scare away evil (or ill-intended people). But I like the idea of Tikis being used to mark sacred space. So a couple of years ago, at a garage sale, I paid a dollar for a small, not-so-spooky Tiki on a leather string. It’s hanging on a previously idle nail behind my front door.

I can’t claim that the Tikis make me feel safer, or that they protect my family in any way. In fact, the opposite is true: I have protected one of my Tikis by rescuing him (or her) at a garage sale. But I can honestly say that the Tikis have invited me to think about the sacred places and spaces in my life, and to honor them. In a culture crowded by so many damned demands, honoring sacred places and spaces is an important matter. So maybe, just maybe, as a sign of gratitude to the Hawaiian gods, I should find a more honorable location for the washing-machine Tiki.