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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, August 9, 2006

OUR HONOLULU
Rethinking the Capt. Cook story

By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

Anne Salmond, a professor of Maori studies at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, has a different and interesting take on Capt. James Cook from the one that's been current in Hawai'i over the past couple of decades. Examples:

  • While Hawaiians killed Cook in anger, high chief Kalani'opu'u mourned him, and he was venerated by Kamehameha. Only later was he vilified, when British and U.S. missionaries painted him as an ogre who passed himself off as a god and spread disease. Hawaiian historians such as Samuel Kamakau picked this up, and Cook has gotten bad press ever since.

  • Salmond doesn't believe Cook was the victim of a Makahiki-ending ritual. She contends many feelings contributed to his death, including those of Hawaiians, his own and those of his crew.

  • Salmond also disputes the assumption that Cook's judgment was warped by illness. She attributes his change in behavior to a decade of rubbing elbows with natives until he behaved more like them. Cook's association with natives changed him and he changed them. That's a main theme in her book.

    She writes that the turning point for Cook began at Queen Charlotte Sound in New Zealand during his second voyage. A Cook expedition landing party was massacred by Maori, who ate parts of the victims. Cook didn't hear of this until he reached England.

    Cook had been careful to treat natives as innocents. It was not until his third and last voyage that Cook's behavior toward them turned brutal. Salmond contends this behavior began after Cook learned the fate of his boat crew.

    As before, he assumed the crew was as much to blame as the Maori. So he did not punish the ringleader, but instead invited him aboard and had his picture painted. The Maori had expected vengeance. They taunted Cook for being spineless. Cook's own crew were furious, wanting the ringleader punished. Cook felt betrayed by his rational beliefs. He became cynical and more brutal. It's an interesting theory, backed up by much evidence.

    Salmond also points out something that hasn't been emphasized in Hawai'i. Cook and Kalani'opu'u exchanged names, a powerful ritual that brought Cook into the genealogy of Kalani'opu'u, making the men brothers. That's why Kalani'opu'u mourned him and why, according to Sal-mond, Kamehameha saved Cook's bones for their mana.

    Salmond writes that Cook was killed partly because his marines, whom he had flog-ged for misbehavior toward natives, did not rescue him, and partly because the behavior of his crew angered Hawaiians. All of this is in a book called "The Trial of the Cannibal Dog," published by Yale University Press.

    Reach Bob Krauss at 525-8073.