My Tiki Origins #5 In Search Of…

in search of...

The 70’s were a strange and creepy time for me …

When most people think of Leonard Nimoy, they think of him as Mr. Spock on Star Trek. But when I think of Leonard Nimoy, I think of a creepy little show called In Search Of…

Leonard Nimoy In Search Of...

In Search Of… was a show that investigated many intriguing mysteries like …

The Bermuda Triangle …

Bermuda Triangle In Search Of...

The Nazca Lines …

In Search Of... Nazca Lines

And last but not least … Bigfoot!

In Search Of... Bigfoot

I remember watching these episodes as a kid. They were fascinating, exciting and creepy. The grainy quality of the film and the crazy 70’s synth sound effects made watching In Search Of… even more unsettling than it should have been.

Each episode always left the possibility open that Bigfoot might be walking around out in the woods, or the lost city of Atlantis could very well have existed!

The episode about Easter Island stuck with me the most …

Easter Island In Search Of...

The grainy images of those Moai were burned into my brain at an early age and stayed with me, making me wonder things like …

Who carved them?

Why were they carved?

How were they moved?

Why were they located on a small island off the coast of South America, literally in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean?

Most of these questions have now been answered, but back in the 70’s Easter Island was one giant question mark and it sparked my imagination more than anything! At the very least I thought these Moai heads looked cool.

In Search Of...As I started visiting more and more tiki bars, I noticed that the Easter Island Moai would pop up as décor in some tiki bars …

Aku Aku Orlando Florida

And some of the tiki mugs were actually designed after these Easter Island statues!

Easter Island Moai Tiki Mugs

What was the connection between Easter Island and Tiki?

A Norwegian explorer named Thor Heyerdahl (1914-2002) built a raft and sailed across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian Islands in 1947 to prove that people from South America could have settled in Polynesia. He wrote a book about his expedition called Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific by Raft, which was popular worldwide and has been translated into more than 70 languages. Heyerdahl and his crew filmed footage during their journey which became a documentary that won an Academy Award in 1951, and further captured the imagination of Mid-Century America.

Kon Tiki Thor Heyerdahl

Before people could forget about Kon-Tiki, Thor Heyerdahl wrote another book called Aku-Aku: The Secret of Easter Island, which was about his 1955 expedition to Easter Island, and he later released a documentary of that expedition too …

Thor Heyerdahl Aku Aku

Kon-Tiki imagery was being borrowed by tiki restaurant owners and they followed suit with the Easter Island imagery of Aku-Aku as well …

Aku Aku

Thor Heyerdahl was the link between Tiki and Easter Island back during the first wave of tiki.

Kon Tiki Thor Heyerdahl

My link between Easter Island and Tiki was Leonard Nimoy and his creepy show called In Search Of…

In Search Of...

 

More about the expeditions of Thor Heyerdahl: https://www.kon-tiki.no/expeditions/