The Pacific

by Meaghan Wilson Anastasios

  KILEY NEPIA, Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō, Ngāti Kuia, Rangitāne Tribes, Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō, Ngāti Kuia, Rangitāne Tribes, Descendant of Kahura

  Imagine – you’ve got the strange ship that’s parked out over there, everybody musters inside the village and then you are sending scouts out to have a look at what this new intrusion is . . . What is that spacecraft over yonder and what is it bringing? So, you could imagine that it was a time of anxiety for our people.

  Try this for a mental exercise. You’ve had a call from the neighbours – something peculiar has appeared in the sky above your street. You gather in a group outside in time to see a spaceship descend from the heavens, the aliens on board waving at you. It’s not too long a bow to draw, because as far as the Māori were concerned, Cook, his men and their ship were totally, utterly and completely alien. Not foreign – because that implies the Māori knew they were men from a distant and unfamiliar land – but alien. Though to their great misfortune, it wouldn’t take long before the Māori realised the visitors were mortals and suffered from all-too-human failings.

  Cook stepped ashore from the cutter and became the first Englishman to plant a foot on New Zealand soil. As was his way, he led from the front.

  SAM NEILL

  On a good day, Cook could be a great politician and a true diplomat. On other days, he handled things very, very badly. When he was clumsy, shit happened.

  Maori weapons (engraving), English School (19th century). The basis of Māori warfare was clubs and spikes, used in hand-to-hand combat. Hence the appeal and destructive force of the musket – it brought death inflicted from afar. Bridgeman Images, LLM965340

  He was not a man to hang back while others took the first – most dangerous – steps towards the unknown. True to form, he approached indigenous people with one hand outstretched in greeting and the other resting on a loaded musket. But on this day, it wasn’t necessary. The Māori had seemingly disappeared. Cook left four men on the beach to keep an eye on the boat as he wandered further afield. Once he was out of sight he heard a shot. He had no way of knowing what had happened. But he suspected it wouldn’t be good.

  After Cook had left, a group of Māori brandishing their weapons had advanced towards the men on the beach. An attempt to warn them off had failed and the anxious sailors panicked Now, a Māori man was lying dead. When he fell, downed by a shot through the heart, his kin tried to pick him up. But when they realised he was dead, they were deeply shocked and dropped him to the ground. They could only think that Te Maro had been killed by atua: ancestral spirits. To touch him was tapu. This was the first time these Māori had ever seen a gun.

  NICK TUPARA

  Cook brought sailors ashore who were carrying arms. In the back of his mind there was a prospect there would be violence. I don’t think it was anything of too much consequence to him that a few natives would be lost along the way. How do I know this story? The better question is – why don’t others know about it? Everybody knows about Cook. When you grow up cast in the role as one of the ‘natives’ who approached the British and got shot, you don’t get a chance to talk about it a lot. This is one of the rare times where we’ve actually been asked. Now, the written history takes a priority over the oral history. But we’ve retained the stories amongst ourselves, and they’ve been passed down from generation to generation. Cook gets a huge amount of attention, while our ancestors get nothing. It’s annoying.

  Cook was shaken. It wasn’t the auspicious start he was hoping for. As a gesture of apology, he placed an offering of beads and nails on Te Maro’s body and retreated to the Endeavour.

  After a restless night, Cook made another attempt to land. But this time, there was one crucial difference; Tupaia was with him. As Cook and Tupaia landed on the east bank, they were confronted by a group of fearsome warriors who greeted them with a haka, the terrifying war dance that’s familiar to anyone who’s ever seen the New Zealand rugby team, the All Blacks, greet their opponents on the field before the start of a game.

  JOHN GORE (1730–1790) British American Officer, crew member, Samuel Wallis’s circumnavigation on the Dolphin and Cook’s first and third voyages

  About a hundred of the natives all armed came down on the opposite side of the Salt River, drew themselves up in lines. Then with a regular jump from left to right and the reverse, they brandished their weapons, distorted their mouths, lolling out their tongues, and turned up the whites of their eyes accompanied with a strong hoarse song. Calculated in my opinion to cheer each other and intimidate their enemies, and may be called perhaps with propriety a dancing war song.

  There was certainly no mistaking it for a welcome dance.

  NICK TUPARA

  I think Cook assumes the performance of the haka is in fact for him, whereas every time I’ve ever done the haka it’s generally about the place that you are. If you keep in mind they are facing Titirangi Mountain, and so their haka in the first instance would be back to the mountain. It will be also to the river that flows between Cook and them. The haka will be to all the ancestors – those that are there and those who have lived there over their time. It will also be to Te Maro who’s lying there dead.

  The tension on the opposite side of the river must have been unbearable as the Māori warriors stamped and shrieked. Then, suddenly, a single man called out from amongst the group of strangers. Everybody froze. ‘We have only come for food and water,’ Tupaia called across the river, speaking in Tahitian. Tupaia and the Māori warriors were separated by hundreds of years of history and thousands of miles of open ocean. Yet they understood each other.

  WILLIAM MONKHOUSE (d. 1770), Surgeon, Cook’s first voyage

  We found they understood his language. A long conversation ensued, which seemed to consist on their part of inquiries from whence we came, of complaints that we had killed one of their people, and of many expressions of doubt of our friendship.

  Tupaia managed to convince one of the Māori warriors to abandon his weapons and swim to a rock in the centre of the river. Cook reciprocated, handing his gun to one of his men and wading into the water, his hands held open at his sides to show he had nothing to hide. Somehow, in some way, Cook knew how to respond to the gesture of friendship offered by the warrior; they greeted each other in the Polynesian way, by touching noses.

  Just as the Māori god Tane once blew the breath of life into the nostrils of the first Māori woman, Hineahuone, the hongi is an exchange of sacred breath between two people.

  It was a profound moment.

  NICK TUPARA

  Having statues of Cook on our sacred mountain . . . having to live in streets named after him . . . go to public places named after him but to have no places named after our ancestors in this city . . . it is just abhorrent. Now, we’re looking to bring a balance back. We’re looking at the duality of history and it can’t come quick enough really. Eventually we will all – as a community – begin to respect all the ancestors that came through here.

  Despite the détente, Tupaia remained cautious. ‘Be on guard, for they are not our friends,’ he warned Cook and his men. Unfortunately in days to come, Tupaia’s pessimism would prove to be justified. But at this moment, it seemed a peace of sorts might be possible.

  Above all else, in an instant the truth of Polynesian migration was laid bare. Cook realised, perhaps for the first time, just how valuable Tupaia was going to be on this and subsequent voyages. As events would show, it’s not too much of a stretch to say that without Tupaia there would be no Cook.

  FIVE

  KINDRED SPIRITS

  There is a totally different view of Māori culture than there was when I was a kid. Māori language is becoming much more part of the mainstream and people are much prouder in general of all things Māori. That’s what distinguishes us in New Zealand so much from the rest of the world. People are really proud of that, but it is an enormous change.

  SAM NEILL

  Whether they liked it or not, the people of Aotearoa had just acquired
themselves a boatload of European sailors determined to get to know them. And the best way to do that is to find something you have in common. With the Ra’iatean priest Tupaia on board the Endeavour, that would turn out to be a whole lot easier than might have been expected.

  It was something of a miracle that Tupaia had deigned to join Cook. Although it was still early days and things in New Zealand would get much worse before they reached equilibrium, the insights Tupaia gave Cook about Māori society, culture and faith would prove to be priceless.

  KILEY NEPIA, Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō, Ngāti Kuia, Rangitāne Tribes, Descendant of Kahura

  Tupaia played an important role. He was more than a translator. When he came to these shores his interaction would’ve been from a chief to a chief. There was a cultural bridge that was crossed between Tupaia and our people.

  The Admiralty had given Cook instructions to make formal, amicable connections with any indigenous people he encountered, and Tupaia’s knowledge and connections were worth their weight in gold:

  You are likewise to observe the genius, temper, disposition and number of the natives, if there be any and endeavour by all proper means to cultivate a friendship and alliance with them, making them presents of such trifles as they may value inviting them to traffic, and showing them every kind of civility and regard.

  Tupaia essentially gifted Cook a passport he could use to gain access to the other Polynesian societies he encountered during his exploration of the Pacific.

  The fact that Tupaia could communicate with his distant Māori kin was remarkable. It’s not that Cook and his men would have been completely at a loss for words. As the voyage progressed, it became quite the thing to assemble a lexicon of indigenous languages, and a number of the learned gentlemen on the Endeavour showed a proficiency at mastering foreign languages at speed. But to have someone on board who could access Māori society at all levels was a benefit beyond measure.

  They still had some way to go, though. There would be no alliances unless Cook managed to defuse the tinderbox he had ignited on the banks of the Tūranganui River. The spirit of friendship signified by the hongi between Cook and the Māori warrior had been short-lived. After that exchange, Cook and his men were surrounded as the other warriors snatched at the British weapons. One Māori man had a brief taste of victory after he lifted an officer’s sword and took off with it – but it was a pyrrhic victory. Cook, who as we know just loved a bit of thievery, called for his men to retaliate. Shots were fired, and the man fell to the beach. His name was Te Rakau, and he was an important chieftain.

  Two deaths in as many days. It was a terrible start.

  Cook and his men beat a hasty retreat to the Endeavour without restocking any provisions and leaving two dead Māori men in their wake. Both Cook and Banks were shaken by how quickly they had lost control. The orders in Lord Morton’s ‘hints’ and the missive penned by the powers that be in the Admiralty hadn’t just been ignored, they’d been torn up and stomped over. And it weighed heavily on the two men’s consciences. Regardless of their failings, Cook and Banks fancied themselves honourable men whose conduct under pressure erred on the side of restraint and reason. For Banks, this was ‘the most disagreeable day my life has yet seen, black be the mark for it’. Cook’s own horror at how things turned out is captured in a journal entry heavily laden with self-recrimination.

  CAPTAIN JAMES COOK

  I am conscious that the feeling of every reader of humanity will censure me for having fired upon these unhappy people, and it is impossible that, upon a calm review, I should approve it myself . . . the nature of my service required me to obtain a knowledge of their country, which I could no otherwise effect than by forcing my way into it in a hostile manner.

  Despite his deep regret about what had occurred at the first landing, Cook was more determined than ever to establish meaningful contact with the Māori people. That he now knew Tupaia was able to communicate with the locals would have made it all the more enticing.

  Departing the ill-fated landing place, Cook spied some fishing canoes returning from a jaunt out to sea, he decided to try again. Cook’s plan was simple. He would grab some of the paddlers and bring them on board the Endeavour, where he and his men would put on a good show of British hospitality to convey their good intentions. Easy. What could go wrong?

  As it happened, quite a lot. What Cook couldn’t possibly have known was that virtually every place he went in New Zealand was on a war footing. It was a land torn apart by almost constant intertribal warfare. Under those conditions, what were the Māori in the canoe to think when Cook’s ship loomed over them? With only men on board the strange vessel, they assumed it was an enormous war canoe. When Cook’s men attempted to approach them, the Māori thought they were under attack. They had no idea Cook only wanted to invite them on board for tea and crumpets. So they fought back, hurling paddles, rocks – even fish – at the British ships.

  Muskets were fired, and some of the Māori warriors who were shot fell into the sea and drowned. There’s no consensus about how many men died that day. But one thing is irrefutable – even a single mortality was one too many.

  Cook did manage to abduct three young men, who were hauled into a rowboat and dragged onto the Endeavour’s deck to enjoy the full splendour of British ‘hospitality’. They were, at first, understandably terrified. But after being offered food and gifts, they reached the conclusion that their lives were not at risk and chatted amicably with Tupaia, later dancing and singing for Cook and the crew. After spending the night on board, the three boys were returned to shore.

  What on earth was Cook thinking? More to the point, after they got over their shock, what might the Māori boys have been thinking?

  Remarkably, we do have a firsthand account of the impressions the pale-skinned strangers made on one young Māori boy. In the mid-nineteenth century, a venerable chieftain by the name of Te Hōreta, whose adventures included a visit to Sydney in 1821, told British settlers in New Zealand an extraordinary story. He had been a young boy when Cook arrived in his homeland of Te Whitianga o Kupe, or Mercury Bay, on the eastern coast of the North Island’s Coromandel Peninsula. He had extremely vivid recollections of that time, preserved in such clear detail thanks to the oral traditions that formed a cornerstone of Māori culture.

  TINA NGATA, Ngāti Porou Tribe

  So much has been lost because our ancestors could retain an incredible amount of knowledge, but we didn’t write things down. They could sit and speak for days and days – months, even – non-stop. Their ability to be able to retain knowledge and information far surpassed anything that we have today.

  Te Hōreta’s mental faculties were honed to a razor-sharp edge because in a society that didn’t commit things to paper, memory was everything. He recounted in great detail the impressions he and the other members of his iwi (tribe) formed of Cook and his men. At first they were struck with horror at the sudden appearance of what they decided could only be goblins, because these strange creatures had their eyes on the back of their heads as they rowed to shore; the British sailors sat in the cutter with their backs facing the direction they were headed, but the Māori warriors and the boys on the shore were only familiar with paddling while facing the front of their waka.

  TE HŌRETA TE TAHIWHA, Ngāti Whanaunga Tribe, Te Mateawa Hapū

  We lived at Whitianga, and a vessel came there, and when our old men saw the ship they said it was a tupua, a god, and the people on board were strange beings. The ship came to anchor, and the boats pulled on shore. As our old men looked at the manner in which they came on shore . . . the old people said, ‘Yes, it is so: these people are goblins; their eyes are at the back of their heads; they pull on shore with their backs to the land to which they are going.’

  *

  Over time, the Māori of Mercury Bay established a cautiously benign relationship with Cook and his men. The children joined the warriors on board, and whereas the exchange between the adults might have been guarded, Te
Hōreta and his friends laughed at the way the sailors made ‘much gabbling noise in talking’. The sailors laughed back and ruffled the children’s hair affectionately.

  TE HŌRETA TE TAHIWHA

  As the goblins stayed some time, and did not do any evil to our braves, we came back one by one, and gazed at them, and we stroked their garments with our hands, and we were pleased with the whiteness of their skins and the blue eyes of some of them . . . When we got on board the ship we were welcomed by the goblins, whom our warriors answered in our language. We sat on the deck of the ship, where we were looked at by the goblins, who with their hands stroked our mats and the hair of the heads of us children; at the same time they made much gabbling noise in talking, which we thought were questions regarding our mats and the sharks’ teeth we wore in our ears, and the hei-tiki we wore suspended on our chests; but as we could not understand them we laughed, and they laughed also . . . They held some garments up and showed them to us, touching ours at the same time; so we gave our mats for their mats, to which some of our warriors said ‘Ka pai’, which words were repeated by some of the goblins, at which we laughed, and were joined in the laugh by the goblins.

  As for Cook, Te Hōreta knew he was the most senior man on the Endeavour, from:

  his perfect gentlemanly and noble demeanour. He seldom spoke, but some of the goblins spoke much. But this man did not utter many words: all that he did was to handle our mats and hold our mere, spears and wahaika, and touch the hair of our heads. He was a very good man, and came to us – the children – and patted our cheeks, and gently touched our heads.