But there were so many other factors. When Cook returned to Hawai‘i, it was the wrong time of the Makahiki cycle. The god Lono was on the wane and the god of war, Kū, was in the ascendency – if Cook had elected to continue to Maui rather than return to Hawai‘i, things might have ended differently. If the marines had stood fast . . . If Williamson had ordered the men in the boats to come to Cook’s aid . . . If Williamson – who had a chequered history with Cook – hadn’t been in charge that day . . . If the mast hadn’t broken in the first place . . . If Cook had paid more attention to the Resolution’s outfitting in England . . . If Clerke hadn’t been ill . . . If Cook had restrained himself and accepted the loss of the cutter . . . If his men had forged the Discovery’s anchor into spoons rather than knives . . . If he’d just been content with retirement in Greenwich . . .
At his death, Cook was fifty years of age.
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR MARK D. MCCOY
Cook had good days and he had bad days . . . I think by opening up the Pacific to the European maps, he started an exchange that was unlike any other in world history, at least in this part of the world, and that ultimately is something that he’ll always be remembered for.
Cook had been at sea for over thirty years. He had taken no time for rest and recuperation between his three voyages, and he had endured the crushing stress of command under conditions that would have shattered many men.
HEINRICH ZIMMERMANN (1741–1805), crew member, Cook’s third voyage
He would often sit at the table with his officers without saying a word, and was always very reserved. In small matters he was stricter with the crew than the officers, but at times was very affable. He was born to deal with savages and he was never happier than in association with them. He loved them and understood the languages of the different islanders and had the art of captivating them with his engaging manner. This was probably the reason that they honoured him and at times even worshipped him, and also further reason that when they ceased to honour him, or sometimes even ridicule him, he burned with rage.
Cook had failed in his first attempt to find the North-West Passage – the prize that he’d been so desperate to find to ensure financial security for his family – and his behaviour on his third voyage showed a man whose defining characteristics of humanity, resolve and fairness had devolved into cruelty, pettiness and volatility.
Because Cook – the faithful journal keeper – was silent for the last month of his life, what was going on in his mind is, and will most likely always remain, a mystery to us. Perhaps one day a missing journal will reappear. But even then, Cook’s words would be unlikely to shed any light on why it was that this man who had cheated death for so many years met his end on this beach, on that day. The conclusion reached by the pre-eminent Cook scholar Professor Dame Anne Salmond, in her book The Trial of the Cannibal Dog is that Cook’s long engagement with Polynesia and the cultural contradictions he encountered and could never quite penetrate culminated in a tragic event that was as inevitable as it was avoidable:
[T]here is no good morality play, colonial or postcolonial, to be made of Cook’s killing. Over a decade in Polynesia, he was caught in intractable contradictions. As the trial of the cannibal dog at Tōtara-nui showed, when he acted with calm restraint, he invited humiliation – his sailors and the islanders alike considered him to be weak . . . When he acted in anger and sought mana by force, he invited retaliation. His men became mutinous, and the islanders sought to kill him . . . At Hawai‘i it happened, but there was no one cause. It was a cross-cultural combination of forces that killed him.
Cook had given much of his life to the Pacific. His arrival in its waters would alter it and the lives of the indigenous people he had encountered irrevocably. No matter the cause, it seems only fitting that it was there that he met his end.
SAM NEILL
Cook devoted his life to charting the Pacific, and that is where he rests, in this great ocean.
EIGHTEEN
APOTHEOSIS
Of the many monuments I’ve seen to Cook, the one in Kealakekua Bay is probably for me the most poignant because it was erected about a hundred years after his death – just a few feet away from where he was actually killed. A curiosity about it was that the land itself was actually gifted to Britain. It’s just a shame about the words inscribed on it . . . ‘Cook discovered these islands’, it says . . . that’s just the sort of thing that 250 years later still gets poor old Cook into trouble all around the Pacific. A claim – incidentally – that he himself would never have made.
SAM NEILL
One year is not made up of 365 days – not exactly. When, in 46BC, Julius Caesar decreed a reform of the Roman calendar that didn’t accommodate the slight anomaly embodied in the solar year, Europe began to gain a day every 128 years. By the mid-eighteenth century, this meant the Julian system was eleven days out of whack, which meant the whole seasonal calendar was shifting. To amend this, in 1750 Great Britain adopted the Gregorian calendar now used in the West, which incorporates a leap year to keep things in check.
What does this have to do with the story of James Cook? It means that – like so many other things about him – Cook’s date of birth is a contentious point. According to the Gregorian model, he was born in 1728 on 7 November. That’s what Wikipedia tells us, so it must be right, right? Not necessarily – proving that judicious use of online resources behoves us all. Because if – as was customary at the time – we follow the Julian dates that prevailed at his birth, Cook was actually born on 27 October.
One thing that’s beyond doubt is that he died at the age of fifty on Valentine’s Day, 1779, in Kealakekua Bay, Hawai‘i.
The earth did not shake. The sky did not rain fire and brimstone. To the best of our knowledge, the heavenly host did not weep. Cook was, after all, just a man.
Would Cook have considered his life’s work a triumph? Would he have deemed his death a tragedy and seen himself as a man gone before his time? Or would he have assumed it was the high price he was obliged to pay for cheating death so many times? It was almost as if all the transgressions Cook made, time and time again, in his encounters with the indigenous people of the Pacific had been accumulating in a simmering pot that finally bubbled over in Hawai‘i.
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR MARK D. MCCOY, Southern Methodist University
Cook could map a coastline but he couldn’t see the very subtle boundaries and borders that existed here. He came here and, according to Native Hawaiian measures, he behaved badly, just as they were trying to civilise him. The Hawaiians were trying to show him by example . . . ‘Look, we’re giving you these gifts, this is what civilised people do!’ So they gave the gifts and tried to explain that it would be good to respond in kind. But Cook was only really looking at it as a rest stop on his way. He wasn’t interested in setting up an embassy or establishing a long-term relationship between King George and our King Kalani‘ōpu‘u. So I think that short-sightedness and his missing the social cues were the things that got him into trouble.
Not that the people of Kealakekua Bay were aware of all the details of Cook’s long history in Polynesia. They could only measure his behaviour by what they had witnessed themselves. And overall, other than the incident that ended his life, the Hawaiians do appear to have held Cook in reasonably good regard.
SAM NEILL: On the anniversary of Cook’s death this year, there were people all over the Pacific saying to me things like – ‘Godspeed to the great people of Hawai‘i who did the thing that should have been done . . . they killed Captain Cook.’ What do you think of that?
GORDON KANAKANUI LESLIE, Ho‘ala Kealakekua: I don’t think our leaders back then wanted to kill him. I think they had great respect for him . . . they liked him. They probably didn’t like some of the behaviour in the short time Cook and his men were here. But I think they revered him as a great navigator.
The Apotheosis of Captain Cook, Francesco Bartolozzi (engraver), after Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg from a drawing by Jo
hn Webber, 1794. Cook’s death met with an outpouring of grief in Britain, and he was memorialised in all media of the day. Here Cook is carried from Kealakekua Bay towards Heaven, in the arms of Britannia and Fame – though there are still Hawaiians today who would rather he had been consigned to hell.
National Library of Australia, PIC Drawer 82 #S1089
For one Hawaiian man, Cook’s death triggered an existential and spiritual crisis. Kalani‘ōpu‘u was mortified that Cook, with whom he had formed the bond of ritual friendship, had been killed. He retreated to a cave cut into the rocks above the bay where his friend had died. It was accessible only by rope, and during the King’s period of self-imposed exile, supplies had to be lowered down to him. Because Kalani‘ōpu‘u and Cook had exchanged names, according to the Hawaiian belief system, when Cook was killed the King’s life force was also struck a blow. By all reports, the ritual connection between the two men didn’t diminish after Cook’s death.
That’s not the end of the story of the Hawaiian King and James Cook. It’s a tale that captures the shifting currents in today’s Pacific, as the indigenous people of Polynesia find ways of reconciling the past with the present. Having passed through many hands over the centuries since Cook’s death, the ‘ahu ‘ula and mahiole gifted to Cook by Kalani‘ōpu‘u when they exchanged names found their way to New Zealand’s Te Papa Museum. In 2016, in a significant and moving gesture of restitution and Polynesian kinship, Te Papa returned the feathered cloak and helmet to Hawai‘i’s Bishop Museum.
The Pacific Ocean and the people who called it home would be transformed forever in the wake of James Cook’s arrival. At points during his three voyages, there are hints in his journal that he was aware of how his work might fuel European ambitions, with earth-shattering repercussions for the region and its original inhabitants. But he could never have imagined that, at his end, he would become one with the Polynesian cosmos – literally and figuratively.
*
As Kalani‘ōpu‘u confronted his loss, the Englishman’s body was taken up by the Hawai‘ians. It was then dealt with in a way that would inspire a cross-cultural misunderstanding, indicative of the cultural chasm that existed between the people of the Pacific and the Western ethos. The Hawaiians handled Cook’s remains with veneration, following the rituals they would have observed if he were a fallen chieftain. In the Hawaiian burial tradition, the most important parts of the deceased were the bones. To extricate them, the body was dismembered and interred in an earth oven until the flesh fell away. There’s disagreement today about whether or not part of that process also involved the priests and chieftains ingesting some of Cook’s flesh.
TRACY TAM SING, State Archaeologist
They took Cook’s body up to the cliffs to another smaller heiau. When a chief would die, they would strip all the flesh off the bones by putting the body in an underground oven. Part of the ritual after a chief had passed away was that the next chief, who was to take his place, would partake of a little bit of the flesh of the chief that passed to absorb his mana. Because Cook was seen as a personification of Lono, the chiefs and the priest would probably have partaken in parts of his flesh. But it was a ritual. They were honouring him. He was treated with the utmost respect by the Hawaiians – in the same way they would treat one of their own chiefs.
LANAKILA MANGAUIL, Activist
People said they ate Cook . . . but that’s not our practice in Hawai‘i. Where the confusion comes from is that the burial tradition of Hawai‘i involves putting the body into an underground oven, which is also how we cook our food.
Given what Cook’s men knew of Māori traditions when it came to the treatment of a fallen enemy’s body, when they saw smoke billowing from fires inland, they assumed their commander’s body and those of the marines who had died with him were being prepared for consumption.
The men of the Resolution and the Discovery were reeling with shock at the death of their commander.
DAVID SAMWELL (1751–1791) Welsh Naval Surgeon on Cook’s third voyage
The men it must be said were most sincerely affected on this occasion . . . when they came alongside they cried out with tears in their eyes that they had lost their father . . . [I]n every situation, he stood unrivalled . . . he was our leading-star which at his setting, left us involved in darkness and despair . . . He was beloved by his people who looked up to him as to a father, and obeyed his commands with alacrity.
At that moment, the entire expedition was rudderless.
GEORGE GILBERT (? – 1781) crew member, Cook’s third voyage
A general silence ensued throughout the ship, for the space of near half an hour – it appearing to us somewhat like a dream . . . Grief was visible in every countenance; some expressing it by tears and others by a kind of gloomy dejection . . . all our hopes centred on him, our loss became irreparable.
The seemingly indestructible man who had driven them through moments of inconceivable hardship with the force of his cast-iron will and unshakeable determination was gone.
For Cook’s shipmates, it was unthinkable that his remains were going to be subjected to what they saw as the ultimate desecration, on an island so far from home. As their shock gave way to anger, the one thing on the men’s minds was revenge.
*
From his sickbed, Charles Clerke – the man originally tapped on the shoulder to lead the third voyage before Cook decided he wanted to head out to sea again – took over the captaincy of the Resolution. Replacing him as captain of the Discovery was John Gore, the American-born naval officer who in 1767 had been a crew member accompanying Samuel Wallis to Tahiti on board the Dolphin.
Gore and Clerke now faced a daunting task. Both had accompanied Cook on all three of his voyages, and so they must have been struggling to keep their own emotions in check. But they had to safely refit the crippled Resolution and set sail to waters that were less hostile to them. To do that, they needed to secure a new mast. And that required keeping the men – who were determined to avenge their captain’s death – under control.
On shore, the Hawaiians had their own, very well-founded, reasons for fighting back. They had lost many warriors in the firestorm that followed Cook’s death.
James King, who had formed a good relationship with the priests in Kealakekua Bay, mediated a truce with a party of Hawaiians who came alongside the British ships. But on shore, a group of warriors taunted the sailors, parading along the beach wearing Cook’s jacket and trousers and brandishing weapons taken from Cook and the marines who had died alongside him. It was too much for the sailors on board, and ignoring their commander’s orders, when a water party went to shore some days later, they inflicted brutal reprisals on the Hawaiian villagers.
SAM NEILL
The crew were overwhelmed by grief and a thirst for vengeance, and they were further enraged by the taunts of the Hawaiians. It was never going to end well. Clerke, who was now in command, advised restraint. But a couple of days later, a water party at the beach ran amok . . . they burnt a village, they destroyed canoes, they slaughtered villagers and they paraded their heads on poles. It was a brutal and gruesome response.
Kalani‘ōpu‘u interceded. He expressed deep regret that Cook had been killed and declared himself willing to renew his friendship with the visitors.
James King had learnt that Cook’s bones had been distributed amongst the chieftains so that they could all share in his mana, but Clerke wanted to retrieve his remains so he could bury him according to Christian traditions.
The next morning, peace held long enough for the Resolution to be fitted with a new foremast.
That evening, two Hawaiians paddled out to the ships carrying a parcel wrapped in cloth. It contained flesh from Cook’s thigh. When King asked them whether they had eaten the Englishman, the Hawaiians were horrified, assuring him they were not cannibals. They were clearly terrified, asking whether Lono would one day return and seek revenge for his murder.
Some time later, another bundle arrived
on the boat draped in a black feather cloak. In it the sailors found both of Cook’s arms disarticulated from his hands, one of which bore the distinctive scar from an injury caused by an exploding powder-horn early in his naval career in Newfoundland.
LILIKALĀ KAME‘ELEIHIWA PhD, Professor of Hawaiian Ancestral Knowledge
They kept the bones – that’s what they did with Cook . . . except for the hands and his buttocks. The Lono priests took those down to the boat and said, ‘Oh you want your share of Cook? Here he is.’
Clerke also retrieved Cook’s skull and scalp with one ear attached, and sometime later, his lower jaw and feet were returned to the newly minted commander.
James Cook’s scant remains were placed into a coffin and buried at sea in Kealakekua Bay with full military honours and ceremony befitting his status.
After the two British ships pulled up anchor, they blasted their cannon at the cliffs beside the bay to create a landslide blocking access to the pathways that led to other villages on the island. This grim tradition was commemorated by Australian and Canadian naval vessels each year until 1960, permanently scarring the landscape.
*
Cook’s memory was kept alive on Hawai‘i after the departure of his men. European visitors in the late eighteenth century reported that he was venerated on the island as ‘Lono-nui’, and that two new volcanoes that had exploded to life after his death were attributed to a posthumous expression of his rage. Heiaus (temples) were erected in his memory and sacrifices made in the hope that Lono-nui would one day return to forgive those who had murdered him.
The Pacific Page 32
