Billiken

The Billiken is a good luck charm in the form of a doll or statue, which, although invented in the USA, but has distinct echoes of East Asian fortune deities. The Billiken is usually depicted as a grotesque human figure sitting with stretched legs forward, a sly smile shows and pointed ears.

Models

Models of the Billiken are various East Asian deities, such as the Chinese God of Happiness Fuk, the Chinese lucky Buddha Mi -lo fo or the Japanese Bodhidharma.

Origin

The American art teacher and illustrator Florence Pretz settled on October 8, 1908 patented the figure of the Billiken, which had seemed allegedly in a dream. Pretz designed the Billiken well after the Chinese Joss or other Asian God figure. Maybe she took the name for the character in the poem Mr. Moon. A Song of the Little People of Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey, but maybe the name was also not elected by Pretz, but by the later maker of the figure. From 1909 the dolls that were supposedly bringing luck to their buyers were sold; in the first six months of production 200,000 units in the U.S. and Canada have already been sold. The Billiken was produced first by the Horsman Company.

Also in 1909, the first Billiken song was issued. He bore the title The Billiken Man. The text was from E. Ray Goetz, music by Melville J. Gideon. A recording of this song with Blanche Ring was expelled from the Billiken Co. in Chicago. Another song was titled Uncle Josh and the Billiken.

Back in 1909, the Billiken was the mascot of the held in Seattle Alaska-Yukon - Pacific Exposition.

Billiken as a sports mascot

The Billiken was around 1910 or 1911 as the official mascot of sportsmen of Saint Louis University and Saint Louis University High School. Before the Chaifetz Arena on the campus of the University is a Billiken statue to find another one on the high school. On the Origin of connection between Pretz ' fictional character and the sports teams there are various reports; in general, however, a connection between the coach John Bender and the grinning Billiken is made. Bender was caricatured as a Billiken and his athletes were referred to as " Bender's Billikens ."

Billiken mascot as an aviator

In Germany, the Billiken was used by the pioneers to Fokker flight on the Great Sand at Gonsenheim as an amulet. Carl Zuck Mayer reports, " The pilots wore leather suits, helmets and a small, strange amulet in his pocket, no Saint Anthony, but the God Billiken - probably introduced by Fokker - a thick black idols without starting the was considered safe doom. "

Corruptions and imitations

Double figures with the inscriptions "Billy can" and " Billy can not", the one with happy, relaxed smiles, the other with unhappy facial expression, show the Billiken similar figures, but often not flat on the floor, but apparently on the toilet sit. Gobbo was especially recommended motorists to protect against mishaps, Silligan marketed as a deity of laughter. Rose O'Neil created based on the Billiken more dolls figures that they had patented in 1909, including the Buddha Ho -Ho. The Florentine alabaster Co. in Chicago could be in the same year in which Pretz patented the Billiken, patented a joss- figure, which is sometimes viewed as a model for the Billikens. However, Ray holds the opposite way probable. During the Second World War and female Billikens under the name Milliken and Billikens were sold with a folding penis.

1910 was a philatelic magazine out with the title Billikin. While here, the final syllable was altered deliberately - the editor was surnamed children - there were numerous later unintentional incorrect spellings of the name Billiken. So published about TC Lewellen 1958 story called The Billikin Courier.

1911 was founded on Honolulu The Royal Order of Jesters, who made the Billiken to its symbolic figure. After the origin of this symbolic figure had fallen into disuse over the years, the Jesters were aware of Dorothy Jean Ray's research and eventually settled a patent for their new Billiken. The figure is usually represented with green glass eyes and red glass button.

From 1920 to 1946 appeared in Caracas, the illustrated magazine Billiken. 1929, the Billiken Club for Chicago Children was founded and Bud Billiken was the patron of black children. Every year since then, a parade and a picnic will be held.

In Fairbanks, there is a Billiken Lounge in Seattle a Billiken Ski Club in Anchorage and a theater is named after the Billiken. Also, a children's shoe brand bears the name Billiken. Bizarrely, a Billiken was also shown as a top figure on a totem pole that graced 1966 a brochure of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and several Billikens were also presented in books on the Siberian Chukchi. Presumably, these figures were introduced soon after 1909 from Alaska to Siberia. A native of Chukotka tschuktschische writer Yuri Rytcheu took up the motif of the Billikens in his story on The sea lion.

Aftermath in Japan

Despite the large numbers are not too many Billikens have been preserved from the early days of production. The Japanese toy collector Teruhisa Kitahara sparked by a television report on Billikens a Billiken boom in Japan. Billiken statues are in Osaka and Tokyo; a relief of a Billikens located in Namja Town theme park in Tokyo. A Billiken - film entitled Biriken was filmed in Japan in 1996 by Sakamoto with Norimichi Kasamatsu.

Ray's research

The anthropologist and historian Dorothy Jean Ray, published in September 1960 for the first time an essay on the Billiken at the Alaska Sportsman. A more detailed discussion of Ray's on the same subject appeared in 1974 in the Alaska Journal. They also reported in A Legacy of Arctic Art on the Billiken.

Ray met for the first time in 1945 on the Billiken figures, in the form of ivory carvings, which were sold in large quantities in Nome. At the time, she was told, these figures were always made ​​by the Eskimos. Ten years later, she learned that the ivory carvers had Angokwazhuk first time in 1909 carved a Billiken in Nome - and on a proposal from a dealer out. Angokwazhuk copied then a figure that had been imported from the United States. About the patent number on an old Billiken, which they discovered in an antique shop in Seattle, Ray was able to connect to Florence Pretz and now finally prove that the Billikens were by no means original Eskimo art. Ray looked at the children's book illustrations Pretz ' and noted a similarity with the invented by Palmer Cox Brownies in 1887.

Not loud Ray to the originally distributed with the Billiken figurine ideas include the idea that the figure indeed already brings luck if you buy them, but even more when they away, and most if it is stolen. This idea probably came on only in the Nome of the 1940s or 1950s. In the early days the Billiken was often sold in combination with small poems about his auspicious effect or on an enclosed instruction sheet was pointed out that the lucky charm is lent to the owner only for 100 years and 100 cents.

Others

Billiken is a youth magazine in Argentina, whose name goes back to the Billiken mascot.