St. Louis University, where I attended college and grad school, has perhaps the weirdest mascot of any educational institution in America, the Billiken. When I was a student, the story going around was that it was originally an early twentieth century novelty doll. People thought the football coach resembled the doll and the name stuck. This is far from certain but the university itself endorses it as a theory. Over the years, it has morphed into a modern cartoon figure. One of the strangest manifestations of our strange mascot it the beat-up, 10 foot tall topiary Billiken standing in front ot the student center on Grand Boulevard.Even stranger are the Billiken's relations in Japan and Alaska. This has been the subject of
scholarly research. A few years ago, my wife and I were checking into a guest house in Kyoto. We took off our shoes, stepped into the foyer and, wham, a Billiken in my face. The owners spoke little English, our group leader was busy with the check-in and I never did get a complete story. What was it? A Japanese good luck charm or a minor Shinto deity? Perhaps the sins of my college days were following me.
My hunt for the meaning of the Billiken became more confused when we were walking down the street in Juneau, Alaska, and stumbled across the Billiken Gift Shop. I was drawn in like a fly to a back yard bug zapper. Contrary to the research cited above, the owner maintained that the figure originated in Japan and was brought to Alaska by Japanese fishermen. He was well aware of the association with SLU. Well, beats me. I didn't write a thesis on the subject. I bought a little 2 inch Alaskan Billiken, wondering what the heck I was going to do with it. It's been in my dresser drawer ever since.By the way, the SLU campus has been transformed since my day when, honestly, it was kind of a dump (not entirely due to my presence). Now it has beautiful landscaping and many new buildings. In addition, I believe it to be the largest repository of really bad outdoor sculpture in the area. We will return to this one day when I do a series on bad art and architecture in St. Louis.
TOMORROW: City Exchange
6 comments:
elles sont tres originales ces sculptures. j'adore
they are very original these sculptures. I adore
That is my kind of guy. I like your photos.
Ooh, what an interesting story behind that mascot. Now my curiosity is piqued too.
the billiken, i've nver heard of it, but that's interesting, and the sculputures are great!
What an interesting icon for the mascot. It looks like a mix of a troll and a baby.
At least it is original. The mascot we had at Northeast Louisiana University was the Indian. But then they had to remove the tomahawk symbol because it was not politically correct.
I asked some people in japan when I saw it, it was an american invention in 1908 by an artist dreaming of asian deities. It was soon transported to japan who was hungry for "western" things. Japan was really into the U.S. long before WWII. The info has since been compiled and entered into Wikipedia. Most of it seems accurate from what I've read from other sources.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billiken
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