The
HMS
rESOLUTION
At 17 or 18 years old, Hitihiti of Pora Pora invited himself aboard Captain Cook's second voyage.
Without Hiti's help,
Cook's search for the supposed "southern continent"
might have ended in disaster.
CONTENTS
SHIPPING OFF
SHIPPING
OFF
when the HMS resolution AND HMS ADVENTURE docked in taha'a, Pora Pora's neighboring island,
hiti was ready.
Georg was half-dead from scurvy and exhausted by seasickness.
"I was not inclined to believe at first, that he would forsake the easy way of life, which persons of his rank enjoyed in these islands, and smiling at his proposal, told him the disagreeable circumstances to which he exposed himself by leaving his country."
He tried to talk Hiti out of it.
"But, though I represented to him the rigours of climate which we had to endure, and the bad provisions to which he should be reduced in time, he was not to be dissuaded from his resolution, and a number of his friends joined with him to desire his admittance into our ship.
- Georg Forster
As the sun set on the beach, Hiti found the Resolution's youngest crew member, 18 year old Georg Forster, and "expressed a wish to embark for England."
Porea,
the Resolution's translator and local guide, was missing.
He had gone ashore with a Ra'iatean girl and never returned...
Captain Cook therefore welcomed Hiti in his place.
As they sailed away from Taha'a, Hiti pointed out the volcano of
Pora Pora.
Hiti said he was betrothed to Chief Puni's daughter, and next in line as Pora Pora's chief.
He also revealed that his name was "properly" Mahine.
According to custom, he had traded his birth name for a chief's name.
Mount otemanu, bora bora
Pora Pora
Taha'a
Ra'iatea
Tensions
at sea
The nausea Georg had warned Hiti about would be the least of his worries.
Seasickness
The tall ship's rocking affected Hiti, but by the next day he was able to eat again.
His family and friends had sent him off with balls of maheï, or sour 'uru (breadfruit) paste. Hiti paired this with a dolphin caught by the crew and insisted it tasted better raw.
After making a small offering and prayer to an 'etua, or deity, he dipped the dolphin pieces in a bowl of saltwater to eat.
Power Struggles on Deck
(Georg's father) was hired at the last minute as the ship's naturalist.
He was known for his cantankerous personality and did not make friends aboard as easily as Hiti did.
resented the time lost to the Forsters' scientific and cultural observations.
On his third voyage, Cook would not invite a naturalist aboard at all. Discounting cultural and natural knowledge may have cost him his life, later in Hawai'i.
Captain Cook
J.R. Forster
Hiti
joined the HMS Resolution a month after Ma'i had boarded its companion ship, the Adventure.
Perhaps as Pora Pora's next chief, he hoped to compete with Ma'i and the Ra'iateans for guns.
Ma'i joined the HMS Adventure in part to gain access to guns.
He hoped to overthrow the Pora Poran occupation.
Ma‘i
was born in Ra‘iatea, Pora Pora's neighboring island.
When Ma'i was young, Chief Puni's invading warriors killed Ma'i's father.
HMS Adventure
HMS Resolution
Racism on Shore
"All oppression
creates a state of war."
- Simone de Beauvoir
At first eager to learn to shoot,
Hiti saw the tragedy of gunfire
when a British officer unthinkingly
murdered a Tahuatan on deck.
Sailors fired warning shots to intimidate the man into returning a piece of loose ladder iron.
Hearing the shots, Georg Forster writes, "an officer, who at that moment came upon deck, snatched up a musket, and taking exact aim, shot the man through the head."
"The first discoverers and conquerors of America have often, and very deservedly, been stigmatised with cruelty, because they treated ... [Islanders] not as their brethren, but as irrational beasts, whom it was lawful to shoot for diversion; and yet, in our enlightened age, prejudice and rashness have often proved fatal to the inhabitants of the South Sea."
"Mahine burst into tears, when he saw one man killing another on so trifling an occasion."
- Georg Forster
Contrasting with his father's difficult personality and more blatant racism,
Georg Forster held a relatively egalitarian worldview for his time, shaped by his youth in Germany, Russia, and England.
An eventual supporter of the French Revolution, he idealized Polynesians.
He imagined Islanders as Homeric, pre-"civilized" peoples uncorrupted by class inequalities and societal ambitions.
Despite young Georg's condescending ideas, he and Hiti became close on the voyage.
Georg would write about "O-Hedeedee" or "Mahine" and his talents on almost every relevant page of his travel account,
Hiti the hero
I
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Translation
Hiti spoke Tahitian, and often did not know the languages of the other islands that the Resolution encountered.
He sometimes found these languages hard to understand, but taught himself to translate even on short visits.
Peacekeeping
After a marine shot at an Islander on Huahine for refusing to retrieve a hunted duck for him, Captain Cook brought Hiti, the Forsters, and a large troop of marines to march with guns into the forest.
Hiti spoke with local Islanders and learned that a group was waiting deeper in the forest to ambush them.
Based on Hiti's advice, the British retreated to their ship. Without his quick translation and peacekeeping skills, the day might have ended in bloodshed on both sides.
Swimming!
Hiti was often welcomed by locals to stay on shore overnight at the islands the Resolution anchored near.
One morning, Hiti swam all the way from shore to the ship, far out at sea, so that a rowboat would not have to be sent for him.
Trade
Hiti traded for white dog hair, which could be sewn into valuable Taumi (gorgets) worn by Tahitian chiefs for visibility at the helm of war canoes.
WHITE DOG HAIR
Using mainly the Tapa or barkcloth his family had sent him off with, as well as British iron nails, Hiti traded for many valuable objects on the islands.
Hiti also traded for a pahu, or drum, likely similar to this one.
With it, he joined in many raucous and musical nights aboard the Resolution and with Islanders on shore.
PAHU
'URU
'Uru, or breadfruit, is one of the Pacific's most delicious and nutritious fruits. Years afterward, Hiti would board two British vessels meant to bring 'Uru to the Caribbean.
RED FEATHERS
Cook had middling success in Tahiti before Hiti insisted on trading for red parrot feathers in Tonga. On arrival, Tahitians suddenly treated Hiti and the crew like kings.
HEVA
With the red feathers Hiti had insisted on trading for, Cook was able to purchase a valuable heva, or mourning dress, likely worn by a priest.
Of the red feathers,
Prof. Dr. Barbara Schaff at The University of Gottingen writes:
"These feathers were a highly valuable currency, because they were regarded as sacred by the Tahitians. They played a vital part in their religious practices, especially the cult of the war-god ‘Oro and served as ceremonial offerings or adornments for sacred vestments.
"As a trader of red feathers, Cook became an important agent within the local South Pacific economy."
"An object of considerable symbolic and material value, a heva would not have been traded lightly – Joseph Banks, who participated in Cook’s first voyage, failed to exchange a heva for any kind of European object ..."
All this thanks to Hiti's smart trades and, likely, his generous nature.
By the time Hiti reached home, he had given almost every last red feather to family, friends, and perhaps Cook himself.
"It is he...
who is the Polynesian hero of the voyage."
- J.C. Beaglehole
What did it mean to be a “Polynesian hero” aboard a European vessel?
Hiti’s warm, easy friendliness created strong bonds with many on board the Resolution. By using his significant skills in trade, translation, and peacekeeping, he managed to save his and his companions' lives.
Hiti's multiple rescues of Cook and his crew from danger reveal
how dependent European colonialists were
on Islanders' deep local knowledge and skills for survival.
"If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time."
"But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."
-Lilla Watson and fellow '70s Aboriginal Rights activists
Adventure
William Hodges (1744–1797), Icebergs, painted reconstruction by Pieter van der Merwe under ‘View in Pickersgill Harbour, Dusky Bay, New Zealand’ (1773-76), oil on canvas, 66.5 x 74.5 cm, Royal Museums Greenwich, London. Wikimedia Commons.
Sailing toward Antarctica in search of the "southern continent," Hiti and the crew passed through enormous icebergs, freezing temperatures, and a land of perpetual daylight.
Many Islanders could not imagine such a climate.
One chief assumed Cook was telling tall tales of mountains of ice, and told him a yarn of his own.
Reports of cannibalism shocked and horrified the Tahitians,
but were still more believable than mountains of frozen water.
Hiti Sails into Adulthood
Tahiti
(Distant land)
The Arreoys, a secret religious order Hiti belonged to, welcomed him to Tahiti.
Hiti's stories and red feathers drew people to him, including the former queen.
He eventually married a chief's daughter.
Hiti vowed to return and settle in Tahiti once he visited his family.
Disembarking
Captain Cook told Hiti that if he sailed to England with the Resolution, he would have to remain there. Another ship would not be returning to his islands again, Cook claimed.
Hiti decided to stay on the "sea of islands."
“Mahine with his relations came to take their leave. The parting scene was extremely affecting; all our friends shed tears plentifully, but poor Mahine’s heart seemed torn to pieces by the violence of his grief.
He ran from cabin to cabin, and embraced every one of us, without being able to speak a single word. His tears, his sighs and looks were eloquent beyond description.
At last the ship set sail; he got into his canoe, and continued standing upright, whilst all his countrymen were seated. He looked at us, then hung down his head, and hid it in his garments.
When we had cleared the reefs, we still perceived him to wave his extended arms; and he continued his addresses till we could no longer discern him.”
- Georg Forster
Hiti acquired this carved hand on Rapa Nui.
It is a left hand.
"[The left side of the body being associated in Polynesia with noa, the night, dark, unsacred, female principles].
'It is not unreasonable to suggest that this carved hand was part of the accoutrements of a Rapa Nui priest or priestess as healer or sorcerer.'"
- Jo Anne Van Tillburg
Before parting, he gave it to the Forsters.
