Tiki

thumb|A Māori people|Māori man painting a tattoo on a carved wooden tiki at [[Whakarewarewa model village, New Zealand, ]] thumb|upright|Hawaiian kii at Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park thumb|upright|Tiki statuette from the [[Marquesas]]

In Māori mythology, Tiki is the first man created by either Tūmatauenga or Tāne. He found the first woman, Marikoriko, in a pond; she seduced him, and he became the father of Hine-kau-ataata. By extension, a tiki is a large or small wooden, pounamu or other stone carving in humanoid form, although this is a somewhat archaic usage in the Māori language, where a tiki is usually a hei-tiki, a pendant worn around the neck. Hei-tiki are often considered taonga, especially if they are older and have been passed down throughout multiple generations. Carvings similar to tiki and coming to represent deified ancestors are found in most Polynesian cultures. They often serve to mark the boundaries of sacred or significant sites. The word has cognates in other Polynesian languages, such as tii in Tahitian and kii in Hawaiian. In the Western world, Tiki culture, a movement inspired by various Pacific cultures, has become popular in the 20th and 21st centuries.