Mr. Hunter's Origins... Discovered?

Mr. Hunter came to his current family via a white elephant party many years ago, so we've never been sure just where Mr. Hunter originally came from.  It's always seemed most likely that Mr. H is a souvenir of some sort, but... from where?  Various people have speculated that Mr. Hunter has Polynesian origins.  The travel writer Richard Bangs posed with Mr. Hunter and weighed in on the discussion.  His thought: Mr. Hunter was probably a souvenir from somewhere in western Africa.

Well.  The Mr. Hunter clan has recently been preparing for a trip to the Bahamas.  And as my mom browsed through a little guidebook about the Bahamas, she noticed a photo of wooden figures in Nassau's Straw Market, and these wooden figures looked SO SIMILAR to Mr. Hunter.  I just browsed around on Flickr and found a few photos of carved wooden heads on the shelves of the Straw Market, and the resemblances are uncanny.  Seriously, I got chills.

Are we one step closer to learning just where Mr. Hunter comes from?  This trip to the Bahamas may turn into a Who Do You Think You Are episode starring our own Mr. Hunter!

You can check out photos of the potential cousins, brothers, sisters of Mr. Hunter here on moonball's photostream or here on Aneta & Mark's photostream.  But the photo below is the uncanniest of them all.

From Daniele Muscetta's photostream.
The one in the center looks SO much like Mr. Hunter!!

What am I going to do if I'm confronted with shelves full of Mr. Hunter relatives?  Well, yes, I'll be taking lots of photographs.  But you know that I'll probably have to buy at least one of these wooden figures.  A new brother or sister for Mr. Hunter...!  If that happens, how will they get along?

Stay tuned.