 Steven Crane is largely credited with making "real tiki" carvings a major design theme in south seas inspired restaurants.The origin of who created and what was the first true tiki-shaped mug is frequently debated and has not been decided.While some tiki mugs were meant to be close to accurate renditions of actual tiki carvings, regardless of whether such tikis were Polynesian, many also were simply aesthetic estimations meant to evoke a tiki image to mainland American consumers who would not know the difference.