NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Bill Morris
Date: 2010 Jul 31, 21:32 -0700
On page 291 in Beaglehole's edition of Cook's Endeavour journal, he suggests Tupaia would be valuable as "...you would always get people to direct you from Island to Island and be sure of meeting with a friendly reseption...at every island you came to;..."
He goes on to write "I shall now give a list of those Islands which Tupia and several others have given us an account of and endeavour to point out the respective situations from Otaheite or Georges Island, but this with respect to many of them cannot be depended upon. Those marked this (*) Tupia himself has been at as he tells us and we have no reason to doubt his veracity in this, by which it will appear that his Geographical knowlidge of those seas is pretty extensive and yet I must observe that before he came with us he hardly [had] an idea of any land being larger then Otaheite."
Cook then gives a list of 64 names with their bearings from Tahiti, of which 12 are marked as having been visited by Tupaia and goes on to say "The above list was taken from a Chart of the Islands Drawn by Tupia's own hands, he at one time gave us an Account of near 130 islands but in his chart he laid down only 74 and this is about the Number that some others of the Natives of Otaheite gave us an account of, but the Accounts taken by and from different people differ sencibly from one another both in names and Number." He suggests that the names differ because of pronounciation difficulties and accepts that "....their are these Number of Islands and very probably a great many more laying somewhere in the great South Sea..."
The original chart has been lost though it is known to have been in Bank's possession in 1806. The copy I attached is thought to have been by Cook.
Beaglehole discusses the names in a footnote on page 293 of his edition.
Bill Morris
Pukenui
New Zeland
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