With a bewitching scene before them, the jaded and bleary-eyed mariners soon forgot their disappointment of losing the Northwest Passage. They tried to estimate the number of canoes and people swarming about; the figures are probably reasonable and perhaps even modest. "I have no where in this Sea seen such a number of people assembled at one place, besides those in the Canoes all the Shore of the bay was covered with people," wrote Cook.
It was the most astonishing demonstration the crews had ever witnessed. At one time six hundred canoes were counted around Resolution, and three hundred around Discovery; at 10 A.M., said Cook, the number reached one thousand; as the day wore on, the total number in-creased to about fifteen hundred canoes, many holding at least thirty or forty persons each, although Samwell's count of passengers must have been on the low side for some of them; the smaller canoes held perhaps six persons each, for an estimated total of ten thousand persons on that grand day--not including the large numbers of men, women, and children swimming in bronzed human shoals or gliding about on surf boards, and crowded along the shore. And it seemed that everyone wanted to climb on board at once.15
Fortunately several dignitaries early on introduced themselves aboard Resolution and set about bringing some order to the pandemonium. Two of them were local chiefs, huge, bulky fellows who acted as bouncers. Kanina, who came on strong, drove people unceremoniously off the decks and into the sea so that the sailors could do their work. When people hanging on the railing caused Discovery to list, "Parea," or Palea, who was about thirty years old and a chief serving Kalani'op'u, was loaned out to assist in the same way; whenever a Hawaiian "rode rusty," a pleasant eighteenth-century expression for someone who was stubborn, the young chief would pick up the offender and pitch him over the side. Eventually the officers would be less eager for Palea's services, but for the present both chiefs were free to enjoy their new authority.
There was general exuberance--with singing, jumping about, and dancing on the decks--and a bit of stealing as well, for the Polynesians, whatever their status, could no more resist the wondrous sight of metal objects than could Europeans rid themselves of their notions of private property. Enterprising Hawaiians came equipped with sticks to which bits of sharp stone were attached: they began prying spikes out of the very decks, and when chased overboard they continued their ambitions underwater. But for the chiefs, Cook's two ships might have floated out to sea as separate planks. He had the guns fired as a warning against theft; the sound and smoke coming from the gun ports did cause some astonishment, but no lesson was learned about what cannon or any kind of fire arms could do.
Another dignitary of consequence who visited aboard occasionally was a little old man with sore eyes and some peculiar scales on his skin, and who was given to kava drinking. Cook thought the name was "Tou'ah'ah," and quickly learned that he "belonged to the Church." Samwell called him "Coo-a-ha." Named Koa, this gentleman was an eminent and influential priest, although not the highest in the land. Eventually he would be disliked and distrusted by the officers; King would loathe the very sight of him. At any rate, when this Koa first appeared on deck he ceremoniously presented Cook with a handsome red cloak--a gift of religious meaning--and more pigs and fresh fruits. After dining with Cook, Koa led him that afternoon through the strangest experience of his career.16
Cook's party was preceded by four priests uttering mysterious phrases and waving wands tipped with dog's hair, whereupon the Hawaiians prostrated themselves with their heads bowed to the ground just as they had done the previous year. But the intricate ceremony that followed went considerably beyond what Cook had experienced at Kauai and Niihau. The officers were baffled and mystified by the ceremony, except for recognizing that their Captain was being treated in a highly respectful manner. For one thing, the mariners heard the prostrate people murmuring the word that King heard as "Erono"; this was the name by which the people spoke of Cook. The priest Koa then led him by the hand into the ceremonial area called the heiau (not a "morai," as Cook thought). This area was familiar in appearance because of the Kauai visit but gruesome all the same with twenty skulls that, fixed in a row along the edge of a stone structure, rivetted the attention of the visitors. But surely, said Koa, no one had cause for alarm, certainly the man of honor need have no fear. They were only the skulls of "Mowee men," he assured King; they had been sacrificed to their gods following some battle or other. The ceremony occurred on top of this stone structure, which was fourteen yards high, forty long and twenty yards wide. Ushering Cook to the top of this pile and in front of a semicircle of a dozen wooden images of the local deities, Koa offered prayers while holding a decaying pig. Then came more incantations, orations, and a presentation of food offerings, the whole taking several hours.
At one point, a long-bearded and rather young priest, named Kaireekea, whom Samwell soon called the "curate," joined Koa in uttering words probably intended as a prayer. There was a business of climbing a rickety scaffolding, not before Koa grasped Cook's hand to keep him from tumbling to the bottom in a heap. The scaffolding, probably where the priests held forth, was something like the ceremonial tower at Kaua'i. With Cook aloft, ten chanting priests walked in with another dead pig and a red robe which this Kaireekea handed up to Koa who draped it around Cook. The curate and Koa then chanted something together. At length Koa dropped his pig, and descended with the properly-swathed sea captain. Cook suffered himself to be led among the images, and even to kiss one of them as directed; then he sat down between what seemed to be two of the principal idols. Kaireekea chewed some coconut and anointed Cook's head, face, and arms with the resulting paste, which Samwell, having missed the preparation, mistook for pig fat. All the while the onlookers in the congregation kept murmuring "Erono" while squatting most respectfully.
The ceremony ended with a lavish exhibition of hospitality when a second procession brought in a banquet of roast pig, bread fruit, sweet potatoes, and a coconut pudding. The guests were expected to stuff themselves. Cook lived by the maxim of never refusing to eat anything that islanders offered him. In the South Seas he was never squeamish about drinking kava juice, prepared as it always was by chewing and spitting into a common bowl. But this time he lost his appetite. Remembering the first pig, "he could not get a morsel down," wrote King, "not even when the old fellow very Politely chew'd it for him."18
What did the ceremony mean? One interpretation is that Cook was recognized as the god Lono, who had returned to Earth, and that the ceremony somehow deified him, or at least formally invested him with Lono's attributes. We cannot be completely sure. The word "god" for the eighteenth-century preliterate Hawaiian presumably meant something rather different from the meaning attached by the twentieth-century secular Westerner. Certainly Cook was seen as having extraordinary qualities not possessed by ordinary mortals; perhaps those qualities were thought to be in some way supernatural or even god-like. Indeed, all the English mariners must have seemed extraordinary to the Hawaiians, who had no knowledge of the outside world.19 The mariners all tried to fathom what they were witnessing. Probably we would be on safe ground if we stay with the astute Samwell:20
To day a Ceremony was performed by the Priests in which he was invested by them with the Title and Dignity of Orono, which is the highest Rank among these Indians and is a Character that is looked upon by them as partaking something of divinity.
At any rate, Cook was granted honor such as he had never received before. As for the priests, it was their day. Sometime that evening he wrote:21
In the after noon I went a shore to view the place accompanied by Touahah, Parea, Mr King and others; as soon as we landed Touahah took me by the hand and conducted me to a large Morai, the other gentlemen with Parea and four or five more of the Natives followed.
This is the last sentence Cook ever wrote. To the vast disappointment of missing the Northwest Passage, after losing an entire year in the passage to the north, were added the accumulated vexations which engulfed him from crew and ship since arriving in Hawaiian waters. King was acutely aware of the sagging morale among both crews resulting from not finding a harbor much sooner; as the ships dropped anchor he tried to fathom Cook's motives. Not finding a harbor was unavoidable, King conceded. He knew why Cook had stayed well offshore: to maintain both a regular supply of fresh food and to support the diminishing supply of iron. Moreover, as he well knew, the open sea was far safer in a storm than in an open bight. "These were I presume the motives that made us keep the Sea to the great mortification of almost all in both Ships," King wrote, sadly--a curious evaluation, as though he had forgotten Cook's order of November 26 on the need for prudence and care in trading with the islanders.22 Another motive might have occurred to King as it must have to Cook: keeping the ships at sea would minimize the transmission of venereal disease from ship to shore.
Indeed, Cook was probably relieved at not finding a harbor any sooner, but he did not say. During those critical days he did not talk things over with his officers as much as they would have liked. His outbursts at Tonga and Moorea, his hesitation off Cape Flattery, his inattention to the crew's rations, and his repeated confrontations with the sailors represented marked departures from his characteristic behavior. He was not nearly as fresh and alert as he was when he landed on Tahiti in 1769. But for the moment diversions enough were to be found on shore.
Many repairs were needed to get the ships into some sort of shape for going to sea again. The chiefs Palea and Kanina did their part by showing up every morning to clear the decks and fo'c'sles of girls after the night's orgies. Palea often carried with him a basket of rocks to heave at a canoe that ventured too close to suit him. Once when someone was caught stealing he chased the culprit overboard, then dove after him and strangled him under water. Even the sight of his coming over the railing was enough to cause many girls to leap headlong into the bay and swim for the shore.23
Naturally this Palea was looked upon as a source of valuable information. Among the first inquiries to him were, where and who was the king, and when would his eminence be paying the ships another visit? Terryaboo was at Maui, was the reply, and would be coming along in a few days. Palea made a point of calling himself "T'akanee to Terreeaboo." The very proper James King allowed, delicately, that "We do not know for certain what relation an Takanee is to the King; nor are willing to credit what some have learnt from the Women." Before long, "Tekanee" was the talk of both ships, and the officers began asking questions. Burney and Clerke, who were not reticent about such matters, professed themselves shocked at the way chiefs and and male royalty occupied their leisure hours.
The Hawaiians deemed it an honor to be a Tekanee, the officers were given to understand, and many chiefs had more than one. It was said that several persons in the king's entourage held this office. Notwithstanding, he had a devoted wife and five lively children. Whenever certain of the Hawaiians saw a good looking sailor, they would often ask whether he was a tekanee to one of the officers. In due course, James King figured it out; he "had no doubt of what Tekanee meant." But in 1784, while preparing the official account of the voyage for publication, when it came to the part about Tekanee, he thought it wise to be discreet and to embrace ambiguity: "whether it be an office, or some degree of affinity, we could never learn with certainty."24
Various chiefs besides Kanina and Palea helped to prevent pilferage. Although all the chiefs wanted iron as much as did the laity, stealing was never a major problem, and no unhappy episodes erupted involving musket fire. At no time did Cook ever give a definitive demonstration of what muskets could do; there seemed to be no need. Food was exchanged for iron, and amity prevailed on all sides. Early on, the Hawaiians began asking for iron daggers, which the armorers made available as popular articles of trade. Whenever Cook went on shore, a priest, called the "taboo man," strode before him clearing the way as a signal for the people to prostrate themselves, or at least to squat respectfully, and to murmur "Orono" as he passed by.25 From Cook's point of view this pomp was useful as a means of achieving and maintaining a harmonious visit, but the fuss must have been disconcerting at times. Every day a chief would announce that the king was on his way.
On every island Samwell made it a habit of taking a walk away from the landing and into the countryside in order to see how the people lived. One afternoon he hiked with several companions to the south point of Kealakekua Bay, to a place he called "Keei," possibly the present Palemano Point, to have a meal at the hut of a priest named Kaimekee. As they walked along, Hawaiians flocked around to satisfy their curiosity. The priest, wishing to be hospitable to his foreign guests but seeing them surrounded by his countrymen, simply threw rocks into their midst, putting the rabble to flight, whereupon he waved Samwell and company into his hut. While several attendants outside crooned a Hawaiian tune, presents were exchanged--a pig, coconut, and a fine woven matt for a couple of English axes. Outside, the host proudly showed a small tower or arch about six yards high and dedicated to Orono, who he said lived in the sky, and in front of the tower a dead pig hung from a pole as an offering to Orono. The repast was barbecued hog, roasted breadfruit, baked Tahitian-style, washed down with coconut juice. As in the Society Islands, women did not eat with the menfolks, nor were they allowed to eat pork or plantain; they ate fish and roots instead. On the way back, the tourists watched boys and girls surfboarding on the huge swell rolling into that part of the bay.26
From time to time throughout the visit Cook attempted to get his sailors under control, for he was deeply troubled by their behavior. Some of the sailors, in order to pay the girls, took to prying nails out of the bulkheads of the ships. Midshipman William Charlton recorded a list of punishments, including twelve lashes to each of three seamen for leaving their duty station on shore and for disobeying orders; and three dozen to another seaman for "having connexions with women knowing himself to have the Venereal Disorder on him"; this particular seaman had received two dozen at Kaua'i for the same offense.27
James King had a way of getting to the heart of personal relationships among the islanders. Before long he noticed that the common people out in the countryside had to give up their food to the chiefs, who supervised the collections often out of fear of their own supervisors. He observed the rivalry between chiefs and priests, and discerned that the population was under rather despotic control. It was clear enough that the Hawaiians of every class regarded the mariners as superior to themselves, but if this respect should wear away, he wrote with perception, "their behavior may change." Even then, the commoners would not make trouble unless they were encouraged by the chiefs, who wanted iron as much as did anyone else. Without giving offense to any of the chiefs, he made a point of cultivating the priests and sought to maintain cordial relationships with all the Hawaiians. At his observatory on shore, he gave orders that if anyone had any doubt about the identity of a chief coming to call, or the purpose of the visit, the sentry on duty should avoid offense by turning him away with a polite excuse that King was sleeping, or was looking at the Sun.28
The outpouring of good will and genuine courtesy continued unabated. Every day King and his marines, and apparently also the others living on shore in tents, had their meals brought to them. This ritual usually featured barbecued pig and a procession of priests with Kaireekeea (Keli'ikea) leading them in song. Old man Koa tried to take the credit, but gradually King singled out Kaireekeea as the more genuine article. Never before in the Pacific had anyone in the voyages received such personal service. Various excursions attempted to reach the "Snow Mountain" (probably Mauna Kea); Samwell and his mates returned before the first day was over; the gunner of Resolution, botanist David Nelson, and midshipman George Vancouver were gone for several days. All of them travelled with no chiefs along as protectors; even far inland the Hawaiians treated them with every civility possible. One day several carpenters went up country to obtain wood for repairs to the ship railings. Koa the high priest, no sooner having heard of their departure, sent his messengers with roast pork for their lunch and orders to the natives along the way that they were to be given every assistance. Nor did the messengers steal so much as a nail, but on the contrary refused all iron that was offered as recompense for their trouble.30
One day James Trevenen and two other midshipmen, while attempting to come ashore through the surf, overturned in their canoe near a group of children playing on the beach. As they scrambled ashore, several of the children ran for help; the others led them to the village, "uttering the most enduring expressions of pity" and the villagers then carried them back by canoe to their ship without expecting any pay or reward.
When Seaman William Watman died of a stroke, at age forty-four--the sixth death on the voyage, the choice of his burial site can be regarded as a surprising and controversial episode on the third voyage. The chiefs made arrangements for him to be buried at the heiau, at their own sacred enclosure. But whether their agreement was at Cook's behest is not clear in the journals. Certainly elsewhere in the Pacific Cook had shown the utmost respect for local customs. At any rate, the old high priest Kao and the other priests stood in respectful silence while the Church of England service was read, and as a further mark of respect they threw a dead pig into the open grave. Watman was well liked and respected by his shipmates. "Experience made him foresee that the Cups & bowls of the Young folks in particular," recalled King, "would soon be lost or demolished & he took care to collect a number of Coco nut Shells." For several days and nights after the funeral Kao and his priests stayed at the cross erected over the grave, killing pigs and singing mournful dirges.31
The assurance that departure was imminent brought a parting outburst of fresh fruit, a herd of pigs, and a vast quantity of cloth heaped together under the palm trees. Koa and Kalani'op'u had one last surprise. They asked Cook quite seriously that King be left behind. Many Hawaiians had come to think that King, then age twenty-eight, was Cook's son. King had received various proposals to elope with promises to hide him in the hills until Cook's ships were over the horizon. But he thought that those who made such offers, whether king or commoner, wanted only "to be possss'd of a Curious play thing." Cook, not wishing to offend, politely replied that he could not yet spare King, but that on his return the next year he would settle the question to their satisfaction.32
Throughout his years in the Pacific Cook always sought to avoid offending local customs and religious feelings; this was at least part of his reason for going along with the elaborate ceremony at the heiau. As the time for departure drew near, a curious incident occurred that involved the heiau again. Needing firewood for the ships, Cook asked King to make a deal with the local Hawaiians for the purchase of some slats from the fence surrounding the religious area. Of course, Cook might have ordered King to buy some trees or to send the sailors down the beach to collect driftwood. But as the fence was falling into disrepair, the Hawaiians often took pieces for their own use, and it was nearby.
The deal was closed, the wood purchased and removed, but the sailors, without King's knowledge, walked off with some of the carved images as well. Aghast, King rushed to Kao, the high priest, who calmly asked only that he return the images that were placed in the center, which he did. King's prompt action cut short a desecration, even though some of the images apparently found their way into the ships. Perhaps it is possible to make too much of this incident, as no offense was intended and no protest came from the Hawaiians. But it contrasts rather markedly with Cook's visit at the religious shrine in Tonga, in 1773, when his hosts showed him images of local deities. On that occasion he wrote: "I who had no intention to offend either them or their gods, did not so much as touch them."33
Early on February 4, a Thursday, the mariners having done their best with the overhaul of the ships, Cook gave the order to weigh anchor. The ships stood toward Maua'i. King had every reason to write:34
What praise soever we may bestow on our Otaheite friends & still more on those at the Friendly Islands, we must nevertheless own, that we durst never trust them with such entire confidence as we have done these people.
Despite the brevity of the visit, a remarkable amount of information on Hawaiian life was accumulated--most of it before Cook's death cut short any desire for disinterested observations. Essays by Anderson and Cook are sorely missed, but the officers and various midshipmen and others were prolific. Clerke, even in his weakness, wrote a clear essay based on what the sailors told him and on his own meetings with Hawaiians aboard ship and briefly on shore. He made the significant observation, as did King, that the exquisite designs in cloth were not done by printing, but that they were all laid on freehand with tips of bamboo dipped in pigments made from roots, berries, and leaves. King excelled in the study of social organization with respect to religion, family life, sports such as wrestling and surfing, and government; he even worked out a genealogy of the royal family. According to his estimate, the population of the island of Hawai'i was one hundred thousand, and about four hundred thousand for all the islands. King also reflected on the effects of kava drinking on health; inflamed and sore eyes, scruffy and peeling skin, and physical weakness, observed among many chiefs and priests, were thought to be marks of excessive drinking of kava juice.
Samwell wrote on arts and crafts, language and music, clothing styles, cloth making, weapons and tools, games, religion, cloth and matt-making, personality traits, and, especially out of his line, even canoe construction. He also gave a useful description of Kealakekua Bay. The Hawaiians were quite taken by all this curiosity of their visitors--not just Samwell's--but what especially mystified them was the process of writing. At any time of the day or night, it seemed, they would come upon someone, somewhere, sitting on deck, in a cabin, in a boat, or perched on a tree stump, busily putting strange marks on pieces of paper. Wherever and whenever they saw a sailor scribbling away, they would stand and gaze in utter fascination. The number of journals kept on those voyages is a source of wonder even in the twentieth century. One day a certain lady visitor aboard Resolution, puzzled by the heaps of white paper with all those curious marks on them and by all the scribbling going on, remarked that the chief occupation of the ships must be cloth-making. She snatched away Samwell's quill, exclaiming that she could make designs as well as he. She was charmed when he wrote down the words of a song she sang for him; at length she began to understand that the marks he made on paper had a meaning that her's lacked.35