Tiki Wood Carving

Any fan of woodcarving that is worth his or her salt always has a "dream project" that they can't stop raving about. For many, it is a musical instrument or, more often than you might think, a wooden sybian machine. While not as popular as riding wood, many dream projects involve tiki wood carving in one way or another. Tikis are very popular and carry a certain "cache" with them. It only makes sense, then, that there are so many tiki wood carving instructional sites and videos available on the internet and at specialty shops.

In general, a tiki is a human-like carving that is usually made from wood, but can also be made from stone in many cases. These tiki wood carvings are important to many races of people because they mark spots that are held sacred to these people. A tiki wood carving can be made to resemble anyone but, historically, they are made to resemble certain gods to the polytheistic islander tribes that made these carvings popular.

While the term tiki is used to describe any carving of a humanoid that resembles these figures, Tiki was originally a name. This was the name given to the first "man" in Maori mythology. Most legends hold that Tiki was created by the war god Tumatauenga. This would certainly explain why this particular tribe of people were so pugnacious!

Making a wooden tiki sculpture is by no means a simple process. Somebody who is a novice at woodcarving may wish to take on a few easier projects before trying to recreate a sculpture of a human being or humanoid. Most hold this craft up to the highest regard and reasonably so. Even a person with a natural talent in this field would not be able to create a decent tiki carving for years. The concept is the same as in computer animation. Anything can look close enough to the real thing, and we can suspend our imagination as such, but it is harder to do so when looking at recreated humans. Since human faces and bodies are what we see all day every day, it is always difficult to allow our minds the freedom of putting our emotional stake in these copies. At any rate, one can be sure that, while a painstaking task, carving wooden tiki statues can certainly be a source of great fun and joy. You are only bound by your imagination.

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