Mark's Pages

"When the sun came up the next morning, some canoes from Huahine came out to inspect the vessel. At first the local people seemed terrified, trembling when they saw the Europeans, but Tupaia soon reassured them. A canoe carrying the high chief of the island and his wife came alongside, and the high chief (a very tall man, six feet four inches high, named Ori) boarded the Endeavour, where Ori greeted Cook, exchanging names with him. As they approached the gap in the reef Tupaia sent a local man to dive down beneath the keel to see how much water it drew, guiding the ship safely into the harbour. When he took Cook and his party ashore at Fare, Tupia stripped himself to the waist, asking Dr. Monkhouse to do the same as a sign of respect to the gods of the island. Tupia and Monkhouse, in his perceived role as tahu'a (priest-healer) among the Tahitians, sat bare-chested before Ori's long-house with Cook, Banks and Solander behind them; while Tupaia made a long speech and presented two handkerchiefs, a black silk neckcloth, some beads and two small bunches of feathers to the local people. Two chiefs from Huahine spoke in reply, welcoming the strangers and presenting Tupaia with some young plantain plants and two small bunches of feathers, and a pig and some coconuts. In such rituals, gifts were presents to each other's gods to show that the two groups had come together in friendship. Plantain plants symbolized human sacrifices, the red feathers were prized signs of 'Oro's power, while the pig and coconuts represented fertility and prosperity. When these exchanges were completed, Tupaia sent the feather bunches out to the ship, and then went to the local marae 'to pay his oblations', as Cook put it; performing the rituals of thanksgiving so that the gods would protect them during their voyage." — Anne Salmond, The Trial of the Cannibal Dog