James Cook's New World

by Lay, Graeme

  James had already considered this possibility. ‘We will leave a message here for Furneaux advising him of our movements. And suggesting Easter Island as a possible alternative rendezvous.’

  Johann Forster looked up. ‘Easter Island? But that is a mere speck in the Southern Sea. What hope could there be of a rendezvous there?’

  James regarded him coldly. ‘Probably very little. But we must offer Adventure some incentive to follow us and at least attempt a reunion.’

  The glum silence in the cabin returned. Because of the vast expanse of ocean to the south-east, weeks of cold and lonely voyaging lay ahead, without their consort vessel. It was not a prospect that appealed.

  Adventure entered Uawa, a sheltered bay on the east coast, on 18 November. As Furneaux had anticipated, the bay offered a safe anchorage and they could see village houses clustered on a plain above the beach. As the pinnace was hoisted out the Adventures could also see a crowd of natives—men, women and children—waiting on the sand.

  The shore party, including six marines, disembarked beside the mouth of the stream which flowed across the plain and into the bay. Furneaux and Kempe led the way up the beach, the former instructing Burney to keep Omai at his side to translate. Since leaving Raiatea, Burney and Omai had become firm friends.

  The local chief, Whakata te Aoterangi, a tall, long-limbed man in a feathered dogskin cloak, carved walking stick in hand and a shark’s tooth dangling from each ear, came forward. ‘Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa,’ he declaimed, then bent and offered Furneaux his nose. Accustomed now to this gesture, Adventure’s commander removed his tricorn and obliged. Burney then brought Omai forward.

  ‘Tell them,’ Furneaux said to the Raiatean, ‘that we come in peace and wish to exchange goods for fresh water and greens.’ To emphasise this offer, Kempe presented the chief with a medallion, pointing to the King’s head on one side and declaring, ‘A gift for you from King George of England.’

  Te Aoterangi accepted it with a brisk nod. Omai then began to speak, hesitantly. The Maori men’s and women’s frowns grew deeper. They were not following his words. Omai stopped, then looked at Furneaux, his expression anxious. ‘They do not understand me,’ he said.

  Aware that Tupaia had been able to be understood by these people four years earlier, Furneaux now wondered, could Tupaia have been speaking to these people in a priestly dialect which Omai did not speak? He told the Raiatean, ‘Try again.’ But before he could do so, Te Aoterangi intervened and put two questions to him, speaking very slowly. Omai comprehended, and he brightened. ‘He asks, where is his taio, Tupaia? And where is his other taio, Ames Tute?’

  With gestures and many hesitations, Omai explained that Tupaia was dead and Captain Tute was in command of another great vaka, now at Raukawa-Moana. As they at last caught the meaning of Omai’s words, several women in the welcoming party began to wail. ‘Tupaia maa-tay! Tupaia maa-tay! Aue! Aue!’

  Te Aoterangi looked grave. He called, ‘Hine! Moana!’

  Two identical, beautiful young women came forward. Bare-breasted, wearing skirts of woven reeds, their hair long and glossy, each held the hand of a naked, chubby toddler. Te Aoterangi beckoned to them to come closer and the women held the infants up proudly to the Englishmen. One was male, the other female; both had masses of dark curly hair. ‘Tamahine,’ the chief declared.

  Omai turned to Furneaux. ‘His daughters gave birth to these children three years ago. The boy is called Tama and the girl is Anahera. They are Te Aoterangi’s mokopuna—his grandchildren—and Tupaia was their matua, their father.’

  Hearing the name of their lover mentioned, both the young women burst into tears, then clutched each other. The infants stared up at their weeping mothers, big-eyed with concern.

  The Adventures spent three days in the bay, filling the water casks, cutting manuka wood and gathering wild herbs and cresses. The local men presented them with dozens of live crayfish, for which the Englishmen exchanged the nails and lengths of the bark cloth they had obtained on Tongatapu. But it became clear that Omai did not command the same respect that Tupaia had done during his stay. Not easily understanding his dialect, the people of Uawa considered him to be a person of inferior status. They largely ignored him, and he became dejected. ‘We should leave this place,’ he told Burney.

  As the officers and crew prepared to leave Uawa, the beautiful twins were paddled out to the ship in a canoe with their infants. Standing on the mid-deck, with the crew looking on admiringly, they sang a song which they had evidently composed in honour of their children’s illustrious father, the refrain of which went, ‘A koe maa-tay aue, tane Tupaia.’ Their singing was melodious and perfectly harmonised. When it was finished, the pair began to weep again, holding the hands of their chubby infants.

  ‘It is a song of mourning for Tupaia,’ Omai explained. ‘The words say, “It is so sad that you have died, Tupaia our husband.”’ Burney, guided by the Raiatean, wrote down the words of the young women’s lament.

  Later that day, 23 November, fully provisioned again, Adventure weighed anchor and turned south, bound for Ship Cove and their much-awaited reunion with Resolution.

  In Ship Cove, the business of preparing Resolution for the next stage of the voyage began in earnest. The weather was mild and the daylight hours longer, assisting the work. During the day James posted men to the top of the high hill above the cove from where there were wide views west, to keep watch for the much hoped-for appearance of Adventure. He also named the sheltered inlet directly south of Ship Cove, ‘Resolution Bay’. But after two weeks had passed and there was still no sign of their consort ship, they could reach no other conclusion than she had been blown onto the rocks in the vicinity of Cape Palliser and her crew lost. The mood on Resolution became increasingly despondent.

  James knew that unceasing industriousness was essential to distract the crew from their gloom. Accordingly, repairs to the ship’s sails and rigging were carried out, painstakingly. The loggerheads containing pitch were heated and the decks thoroughly re-caulked, while on shore there was intensive wood-hewing and harvesting of wild greens. All the water casks were taken ashore and filled from the waterfall above the bay. James also dispatched George Forster to Motuara Island to see what had happened to the vegetable seeds they had planted five months earlier.

  The young naturalist reported to him that evening. ‘All the radishes and turnips have shot to seed, sir, and the cabbages and carrots are flourishing. As are the onions and parsley. But the peas and beans are gone, eaten by rats I assume, as we saw several scurrying among the undergrowth. And the potatoes are all gone, dug up and eaten by the natives, I should say.’

  James nodded. Quite encouraging. But what, he wondered, had become of the pigs and goats?

  Alas, the goats had been killed and eaten, he was informed, and the boar and sow taken away to another part of the sound, separately. Disappointing news. But the sojourn in Ship Cove brought some compensations. The elder Forster left the ship with Sparrman, a tent and collecting bags, and went ashore to botanise. As it was early summer, the native plants and shrubs were in flower and thus able to be classified. Forster’s absence from the ship brought relief to James and the others, who had found his endless complaints irksome in the extreme. During the height of the storm he had cried out, ‘I should never have left England!’ To which Clerke had replied, ‘We all agree with that!’, causing Johann to take to his berth, howling with fury.

  The talents of young George Forster as a botanical illustrator were blossoming, however. He remained on the ship, working on his illustrations of indigenous plants, such as a flax, Phormium tenax and a flowering Veronica elliptica. Young Forster’s illustrations rivalled Sydney Parkinson’s work, in James’s and Hodges’s estimation.

  Many canoes now appeared from other parts of the sound, bearing baskets of fish and shellfish, and fine adzes and other artefacts made of jade, which the New Zealanders called pounamu, their owners eager for trade. Women came too, and
their bodies were enthusiastically exchanged for pieces of bark cloth and nails by the crew, who were again desperate for sex. The wahines and the seamen resumed their frantic copulations on the shore. Conniving at this behaviour as he knew it could never be stopped, James had another reason for relief that Johann Forster had gone into the forest. His sermonising over the feral carnality would have been tiresome. Yet the likely spread of venereals continued to worry James, and he instructed Patten, the ship’s surgeon, to inspect the men and forbid anyone infected from going ashore and joining in the carnal frolics.

  One party of natives beached their canoes in a bay a little way south of Ship Cove and raised makeshift huts on the foreshore there. George Forster named this encampment ‘Indian Cove’. While James, Wales and Hitihiti went across to Motuara Island to further assess the vegetable gardens, Pickersgill, Clerke and Cooper visited Indian Cove to observe the nature of the encampment they had been told about. A war canoe was drawn up on the beach and the huts had been built in a clearing just above the shore, fashioned from manuka branches and foliage. A fire enclosed by round stones burned in front of the huts. The Resolution’s officers walked up into the clearing, Clerke calling out, ‘Good day, good day, kia ora, kia ora!’

  The three Englishmen stopped, then stared at what the clearing contained. Several women—most of them middle-aged—sat on the ground, weeping and raking their foreheads with shards of shiny black rock. Blood was running down their faces. Clerke nudged Pickersgill. ‘Tis a mourning custom. As in Otaheite, when we left, remember?’

  ‘Aye,’ Pickersgill replied, but his attention was principally on the five men a little distance away. The men were hacking and slashing at a naked body which lay on the ground, dismembering it with the axes and knives which they had lately traded their carvings for. Scattered on the ground around the group were serpent-like entrails—pink lungs, kidneys and a clump of liver. Seeing the Englishmen, one of the natives held up a gory organ and grinned in triumph at them. It was the victim’s heart. The man picked up a stick, skewered the heart with it, then raced over to the canoe and wedged the trophy in its bow. Another warrior chopped at the dead man’s neck, severing the head from the body. Picking it up by the topknot and grinning, he held out the head to the Englishmen. It was plump but smooth-cheeked, untattooed, the head of a youth. Blood dripped from the ragged arteries and ligaments dangling from the severed neck.

  Cooper turned away, eyes closed, face blenched, unable to bear the sight. But Clerke, simultaneously horrified and riveted, nudged Pickersgill. ‘We must take the head back to the ship. Offer them something for it.’

  The bargaining began. The leader of the group, a stout man of about 40 with a short black beard, explained that the body was that of a member of the enemy tribe from an area to the west, the one James had named in 1770 Admiralty Bay. He said many members of his tribe had been killed, and their women were lamenting this loss. These men had managed to escape and take away this one body. Now they were carrying out utu upon it, avenging the loss of their own warriors. The victim’s vital body parts—heart, lungs and liver—had been torn out, and along with the rest of the body would now be cooked and eaten. He related this with relish, rolling his eyes in anticipation of the feast to come.

  Pickersgill took a nail from his pocket and offered it to the man for the head. In response, he held up two bloodied fingers. Pickersgill produced another nail. The man nodded. ‘Ae, ae.’ But before handing the head over, he carved out the jawbone with his knife, and hooked it over the flax belt around his midriff. ‘Deft as a Smithfield butcher,’ Clerke murmured to Pickersgill. The man gave Pickersgill a flax basket in which to carry away his trophy. Cooper was still a few yards away, staring at the sea, looking ill.

  When the officers returned to the ship, James and the others had not yet come back from the island. A group of sailors was clustered around a Maori man of about 30 on the mid-deck, bargaining for the wood and jade carvings he had brought aboard. Walking up onto the deck, Pickersgill held up the severed head. The sailors’ mouths fell open in astonishment.

  Clerke, enjoying the attention, nudged Pickersgill. ‘Give it to me.’ Clerke drew his knife, placed the head on the deck and sliced off one of its cheeks, a simple procedure now that the jawbone was gone. Holding the fillet up, Clerke said, nodding towards the Maori, ‘Gentlemen, we are now about to prove that anthropophagy’ — he made a condescending face at the sailors — ‘cannibalism to you fellows, is a reality on these islands.’

  The cheek skewered on his knife, Clerke went below. A few minutes later he reappeared. In his hand was a wooden platter upon which the cheek was sizzling in its juices. He held up his free hand. ‘Ramsay has fried this item of human flesh for us on his griddle, and I would like to offer it as a gift to our friend here.’ He handed the platter to the Maori.

  Grinning, the man scooped up the fried cheek, placed it in his mouth and began to chew. Three of the sailors immediately raced to the rail and began to vomit overboard; four disappeared below. Eyes bulging with delight, the Maori continued to chew, then swallowed the rest of the cheek. He sucked the red juices from his fingers with a rapt expression, while the remaining witnesses stared in horror and disbelief.

  At that moment there was a call from the larboard side of the ship, and a painter was tossed up to the deck. James and the others had returned. Those on the deck looked at one another with consternation. What would the master and commander think of this grisly pantomime?

  A cry came up from the boatswain’s mate, Anderson: ‘Make way for the Captain!’

  Nineteen

  JAMES STARED AT THE MUTILATED HEAD, lying on its side on the deck. He looked perplexed. Wales and Hitihiti also peered at the gruesome object. Hitihiti gasped, then turned away, horrified. Wales murmured ‘Oh my God,’ but James continued to stare at the revolting sight. ‘What is going on here, Clerke?’ he demanded.

  Clerke, as ebullient as ever, recounted the events culminating in the eating, concluding, ‘You will recall, sir, that while here with Endeavour you never witnessed an instance of cannibalism.’

  James nodded. ‘There are many who doubt that the custom really exists,’ he said quietly.

  ‘There can no longer be such doubt, sir,’ replied Pickersgill. He beckoned the Maori to come forward. ‘This man has demonstrated that the custom is real among his people.’

  James considered this. On the earlier voyage the matter of cannibalism had been widely discussed. They had seen compelling evidence—human bones in cooking baskets—at a nearby cove which Joseph Banks had named Cannibal Cove as a consequence. But they had not actually seen human flesh consumed. Here was the opportunity to do so, and record it as reality. He turned to Clerke. ‘Cut off the other cheek and have it cooked,’ he said calmly, ‘and bring it back for this fellow to eat.’

  Without hesitation, Clerke produced his knife and did so. When he disappeared below with the cheek, groans of disgust came from those looking on. Hitihiti covered his face with his hands, putting James in mind of Tupaia’s similar response when told of Maori cannibalism. The people of Otaheite and her sister islands, it seemed certain now, did not practise cannibalism, merely human sacrifice.

  Clerke returned with the cooked meat on its wooden platter. Beaming, he said, ‘Now, turning the other cheek.’ He offered it to the Maori, whose name James had gleaned was Pare. He picked up the steak-like cut, pushed it into his mouth and ate it, again with obvious relish. As he did so, Hitihiti cried out, ‘Aue! Aue!’, then ran down from the quarterdeck to the companionway. The remaining sailors shut their eyes and turned away.

  At that moment Johann Forster appeared at the top of the hull steps, returned from his collecting expedition ashore with Sparrman. Emerging onto the deck, sweating and dishevelled, they stopped and stared at the stripped, bleeding head and at Pare, who was again chewing and licking his fingers. Aghast, Forster dropped his bag and stared accusingly at James. ‘You condone this monstrous activity?’ he demanded.

  �
�I do. In the interests of research.’

  Forster looked from James to Clerke to Pare, and back again. When he spoke his voice was hoarse. ‘Barbarians! May the Lord have mercy on your souls.’ Scooping up his bag, he too fled below.

  That night, after reflecting for some time on the incident and considering its implications important for philosophers, James wrote by candlelight in his official journal:

  That the New Zealanders are cannibals can now no longer be doubted. The account I gave of it in my former voyage was partly founded on circumstances and was, as I afterwards found, discredited by many people. I have often been asked, after relating all the circumstances, if I had actually seen them eat human flesh myself. Such a question was sufficient to convince me that they either disbelieved all I had said, or formed a very different opinion from it. Few consider what a savage man is in his original state and even after he is in some degree civilised. The New Zealanders are certainly in a state of civilisation, their behaviour to us has been manly and mild, showing always a readiness to oblige us. They have some arts among them which they execute with great judgments and unwearied patience; they are far less addicted to thieving than the other Islanders and are I believe strictly honest among themselves. This custom of eating their enemies slain in battle (for I firmly believe they eat the flesh of no others) has undoubtedly been handed down to them from the earliest times and we know that it is not an easy matter to break a nation of its ancient customs, let them be ever so inhuman and savage, especially if that nation is void of all religious principles as I believe the New Zealanders in general are, and like them without any settled form of government. As they become more united they will of consequence have fewer enemies and become more civilised and then and not till then this custom may be forgot. At present they seem to have but little idea of treating other men as they themselves would wish to be treated, but treat them as they think they should be treated under the same circumstances. If I remember right one of the arguments they made use of against Tupaia, who frequently expostulated with them against this custom, was that there could be no harm in killing and eating the man who would do the same by you if it was in his power, saying, ‘Can there be any harm in eating our enemies who we have killed in battle, would not those very enemies have done the same to us?’