captain cook in tahiti -- 5/14/24
Today's selection -- from Wide Wide Sea by Hampton Sides. Cook’s crew came to the place of their wildest desires:
“For days Mai searched the horizon for the first sign of his home islands puncturing the flat calm of the sea. The men on board the Resolution watched him and were fascinated by his change in mood. ‘As we approached his island, Mai became more and more an object of our attention,’ wrote James King. ‘His anxiety was equal to ours, and we were glad to observe as he grew nearer, more thoughtful.’ On August 12, after a passage of four slow weeks from Tonga, the ship's lookout spotted the great volcano, a luminous wispy blue, hanging in the distance.
“Finally, the men were about to arrive at the place of their wildest desires: Tahiti. King George III Island. New Cythera, as Louis Antoine de Bougainville had called it when he visited the island in 1768, after the Greek island that was said to be Aphrodite's birthplace. For it had seemed to the French visitors, just as it had to the English crews under Wallis and then Cook, that Tahiti was a place where sensual pleasures were paramount.
“No small number of young men aboard the Resolution and the Discovery had signed on for the voyage simply because they had heard the stories of how lovely Tahiti was and yearned to see the mythic utopia for themselves. The island of love and beauty, where bread grew on trees, plenitudes of fish darted through the turquoise lagoons, and palm trees swayed in the trade winds. On previous voyages to Tahiti, European sailors had found that sex could be had, literally, for the price of a nail.
“The Resolution and the Discovery had been sailing a year and a month, traveling some twenty thousand arduous miles since Plymouth. Cook and his men were entitled to a good ‘refreshing,’ as he liked to put it, and Tahiti was one place where good refreshings nearly always happened.
“Staring at the ever enlarging island, the men could almost conjure the smell of coconut oil and hibiscus, of pandanus fruit, of hogs slow-roasting in underground pits. Wrote surgeon's mate David Samwell: ‘You may well suppose the satisfaction mixed with anxious curiosity that was visible in every countenance as we approached by slow degrees this new Cythera, of which we had heard such pleasing, such romantic accounts from other visitors.’ The people's imaginations, he added, ‘were heated with the descriptions they had read.’
“By now, Samwell was starting to emerge as the most engaging, energetic, and eloquent voice of the voyage. The Welshman, in addition to being a physician, was a sensitive observer and a poet who sometimes went by his Welsh ‘bardic’ name, Dafydd Ddu Feddyg, meaning ‘Black David, the Doctor.’ More and more, Samwell had become an important and beloved presence on the expedition-one account described him as ‘tall, stout, black-haired, pock-marked, fierce-looking, [and] wondrous friendly in company.’
“Samwell noted that Mai ‘sat all day on the forecastle viewing his native shores with tears in his eyes.’ They were tears of joy and longing, Samwell thought, but also tears that seemed to spring from more complicated emotions. As Tahiti drew nearer, his apprehensions thickened. He'd been away four years, and he had no notion how his countrymen would receive him. Would he return as a hero? A prince? An ambassador from England? Would the rarity of his recent experiences help him transcend the lowliness of his birth? He had seen so many things no Polynesian had seen before. His powerful friends in England—Banks, Lord Sandwich, King George—held such high hopes for him, and had given him the tools they thought might guarantee his success.
“But revenge was still foremost on Mai's mind. He couldn't forget what the invaders from Bora Bora had done to his people on Raiatea, the island of his birth. He couldn't forget how they had murdered his father and seized his family's land. ‘He would never listen to any plan,’ Lieutenant King said, ‘except that of destroying the Bora Bora chiefs and freeing his native Raiatea from its present slavery.’
“As the Resolution skirted the southeast coast of Tahiti, the men thought Mai was focused less on the rapture of homecoming than on the cruder satisfactions of waging a long-delayed war.
“Late in the afternoon, on the approach into Vaitepiha Bay, some Tahitian paddlers ventured out in their canoes to meet the two ships. ‘Who is your captain?’ they cried when they drew up near to the Resolution.
“‘Toote! Toote!’ Mai yelled back over the gunwales—this was how the Tahitians pronounced Cook's name.
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| Illustration from the 1815 edition of Cook's Voyages, depicting Cook watching a human sacrifice in Tahiti c. 1773 |
“The paddlers understood and seemed ecstatic. ‘Maitai! Maitai!’ (‘Very good!’) they sang out, and pulled alongside. When the Tahitians climbed onto the deck, Cook greeted them effusively. They did not seem surprised that a Tahitian man was sailing aboard the ship of this eminent and well-known captain from ‘Preranne.’ More canoes arrived, and in one of them, by chance, was Mai's brother-in-law. Oddly; the man seemed indifferent to Mai—not the slightest flicker of emotion passed across his face.
“Yet when Mai led him below and showed off a collection of red feathers he had obtained in Tonga, a complete transformation came over his brother-in-law. It was as though Mai had shown him a chestful of glittering jewels. Mai gave him a few feathers as presents, and suddenly they were fast friends again. There was something magical about red feathers; the Tahitians found them irresistible. They were emblems of the cult of Oro, talismans from nature in the hue of the gods, signifying blood and fertility. They were more precious than any delicacy or intoxicant, more precious than any tool hewn from iron.
“Mai's brother-in-law showed his companions his prized gifts, and soon the Tahitians on deck were in a frenzy. What followed, thought King, was a ‘farce of flattery and vanity.’ A lesser chief, who had hardly noticed Mai before, suddenly showered him with fawning praise. ‘He now began to caress Mai,’ said King. ‘He asked him to exchange names in token of friendship, and sent ashore for a hog in return for the precious feathers.’ Cook became irritated, both by the overtness of their greed and by Mai's eagerness to curry their favor. ‘It was evident to every one,’ Cook said, ‘that it was not the man but his property they were in love with.’
“Word must have spread quickly along the coast, for early the next morning, outriggers by the score sped toward the two ships newly anchored in Vaitepiha Bay. Feathers, feathers, feathers: The craving was palpable. Their vessels were piled high with pigs, fruits, and other goods with which to barter. One of the canoes cut through the crowd and sidled up next to the Resolution. On board, a woman could be heard weeping inconsolably. It turned out to be Mai's sister. She had risen with the dawn to meet her long absent brother.
“Mai was overcome with emotion. ‘His heart was so full that he would hardly speak,’ said Samwell. He ushered her aboard and brought her into his cabin, for a tearful reunion that Cook found extremely moving. She was gracious and deferential, and before leaving she thanked Cook and his officers for bringing her brother safely back home.
“Other women, with less noble purposes in mind, had begun to crowd onto the two ships. The trysts occurred in shadowy hammocks, in dank corners, even in broad daylight right upon the decks. Yet something had changed this time around. ‘The women are thought to be more friendly than on former voyages,’ wrote astronomer William Bayly. He realized what accounted for the difference: It was the feathers. ‘Numbers of fine women have come on board the ship, and would cohabit for nothing but red feathers.’ But as soon as they had earned a small quantity of the coveted plumes, Bayly observed, they vanished from the ship and rarely came back.
“Cook was astonished by how quickly the presence of feathers had skewed the broader economics that had prevailed during his first two voyages. ‘Not more feathers than might be got from a tomtit would purchase a hog of forty or fifty pounds,’ he wrote, whereas ‘nails and beads, which formerly had so great a run at this island, they would not now so much as look at.’ There was surprising force in this new currency, but Cook feared it might also bring unpredictable results.
“The captain had a more urgent worry to investigate. Some of the Tahitians on board had shared, through Mai, a distressing piece of news. During the three years Cook was absent from Tahiti, a Spanish expedition had come to claim the island and convert its people to Catholicism. Worse, they had brought a sampling of animals and an assortment of plants, which-assuming it was true-seemed to preempt the Noah's ark operation Cook had been so painstakingly conducting since leaving England. Hearing this report caused ‘disappointment and vexation’ for everyone, Lieutenant King wrote. ‘We saw that our act of benevolence from its being too long deferred had lost its hour and its reward. We saw the loss of a season and an immense deal of trouble all thrown away to no purpose.’”
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