The Age of Wonder Read online

  This was a customary exchange of gifts. But Banks was determined to explain to the king what his men were doing. ‘After the first Internal contact [of Venus with the sun’s disc] was over I went to my Companions at the Observatory carrying with me Tarroa, Nuna and some of their cheif atendants. To them we shewd the planet upon the sun and made them understand that we came on purpose to see it. After this they went back and myself with them.’

  Yet the nonchalant end of this journal entry shows that Banks was also perfectly prepared to take advantage of his privileged situation: ‘At sunset I came off having purchasd another hog from the King. Soon after my arrival at the tent 3 handsome Girls came off in a canoe to see us. They had been at the tent in the morning with Tarroa. They chatted with us very freely and with very little persuasion agreed to send away their carriage and sleep in [the] tent. A proof of confidence which I have not before met with upon so short an acquaintance.’34

  The next day Banks added mischievously: ‘We prepared ourselves to depart, in spite of the intreaties of our fair companions who persuaded us much to stay.’ But who was seducing whom? Who was exploiting whom? Many of Banks’s most striking observations on Tahiti record behaviour which seems difficult to evaluate or interpret. Once in late April, one of his closest friends among the Tahitian women, Terapo, appeared at the gate of Fort Venus in great distress. Banks carefully recorded what followed: ‘Terapo was observd to be among the women on the outside of the gate, I went out to her and brought her in, tears stood in her eyes which the moment she enterd the tent began to flow plentifully. I began to enquire the cause; she instead of answering me took from under her garment a sharks tooth and struck it into her head with great force 6 or 7 times. a profusion of Blood followd these strokes and alarmd me not a little. For two or 3 minutes she bled freely more than a pint in quantity, during that time she talkd loud in a most melancholy tone. I was not a little movd at so singular a spectacle and holding her in my arms did not cease to enquire what might be the cause of so strange an action.’

  Terapo consistently refused to explain, though Banks’s gesture of taking her in his arms suggests the possibility of some kind of emotional upset between them. There were several other Tahitians in the tent at the time — yet ‘all talked and laughed as if nothing melancholy was going forward’. This only deepened the mystery. Terapo’s recovery was no less abrupt and inexplicable: ‘What surpriz’d me most of all was that as soon as the bleeding ceas’d she lookd up smiling and immediately began to collect peices of cloth which during her bleeding she had thrown down to catch the blood. These she carried away out of the tents and threw into the sea, carefully dispersing them abroad as if desirous that no one should be reminded of her action by the sight of them. She then went into the river and after washing her whole body returnd to the tents as lively and chearfull as any one in them.’35

  Banks later discovered that this dramatic way of expressing grief was universal among the Tahitian women, and he saw many who had permanent ‘grief scars’ on their heads. He learned something about such things from queen Oborea’s little family circle. This group — consisting of the queen, her twenty-year-old lover Obadee, her servant Otheothea (Banks’s lover) and several close male friends — seems to have adopted Banks, and looked after his welfare. They frequently all came to sleep in his tent, when feasting and love-making seems to have taken place easily and indiscriminately. Sometimes this could lead to comic-opera complications, as Banks would smilingly hint in his journal.

  21 May. Sunday, Divine service performd, at which was present Oborea, Otheothea, Obadee, &c. all behav’d very decently. After dinner Obadee, who had been for some time absent, returnd to the fort. Oborea desired he might not be let in, his countenance was however so melancholy that we could not but admit him. He looked most piteously at Oborea, she most disdainfully at him. She seems to us to act in the character of a Ninon d’Enclos who, satiated with her lover, resolves to change him at all events. The more so as I am offered, if I please, to supply his place! But I am at present otherwise engag’d; indeed was I free as air, her Majesties person is not the most desireable.

  Other mishaps ensued towards the end of the month. Banks, Cook and Solander had decided on an expedition to explore the western end of the bay, and to bargain for some wild pigs rumoured to be held by the local chieftain, Dootah. Banks was followed solicitously up the coast by queen Oborea and her entourage in their large and comfortable outrigger canoes. When the expedition was benighted in chief Dootah’s village (no accommodation being offered), Banks agreed to separate from the others and sleep in the queen’s well-appointed canoe, which had a cabin constructed between the floats.

  As he explained in his journal, he and the queen had naturally removed all their clothes. ‘We went to bed early as is the custom here: I strippd myself for the greater convenience of sleeping as the night was hot. Oborea insisted that my cloths should be put into her custody, otherwise she said they would certainly be stolen. I readily submitted and laid down to sleep with all imaginable tranquility.’

  The next morning Banks awoke to find almost all his kit missing — his handsome nankeen jacket with its fine brass buttons, his breeches, his waistcoat, his much-prized pistols and even his powder-horn. All had been — most unfortunately, murmured the queen — stolen in the night. After unavailing searches and appeals, Banks was faced by the prospect of a shame-faced retreat to Fort Venus with neither the promised pigs, nor his precious pistols, or even most of his clothes. Queen Oborea seems to have enacted a form of revenge. She supplied Banks with Tahitian shawls and blankets to replace his European clothes, and bade him farewell. For once, Banks was distinctly unamused: ‘I made a motley apearance, my dress being half English and half Indian. Dootahah soon after made his apearance; I pressed him to recover my Jacket but neither he nor Oborea would take the least step towards it so that I am almost inclind to believe that they acted principals in the theft.’36

  Any resentful feelings were swept aside the following afternoon. Rounding the tip of the bay, they looked out to sea and saw something wholly unexpected and ‘truly surprising’. This was the astonishing and never-to-be-forgotten sight, far out on the unprotected edge of the lagoon, of a group of dark Tahitian heads bobbing amidst the enormous dark-blue Pacific waves. At first Banks thought they had been flung out of their canoes and were drowning. Then he realised that the Tahitians were surfing.

  No European had ever witnessed — or at least recorded — this strange, extreme and quintessentially South Seas sport before. It left Banks amazed by the courage and dexterity of the Tahitian surfers, and the beauty and nonchalant grace with which they mastered the huge and terrifying Pacific rollers: ‘It was in a place where the shore was not guarded by a reef as is usualy the case, consequently a high surf fell upon the shore. A more dreadfull one I have not often seen: no European boat could have landed in it and I think no Europaean who had by any means got into [it] could possibly have saved his life, as the shore was coverd with pebbles and large stones. In the midst of these breakers 10 or 12 Indians were swimming.’

  Here the power of wild nature was not tamed, but was harnessed by human beings; and they evidently revelled in it. The Tahitians had developed what were clearly surfboards, constructed out of the smooth, curved ends of old canoes. They were scornful of all danger, and exultant in their physical skills. ‘Whenever a surf broke near them [they] dived under it with infinite ease, rising up on the other side; but their cheif amusement was carried on by the stern of an old canoe. With this before them they swam out as far as the outermost breach, then one or two would get into it and opposing the blunt end to the breaking wave were hurried in with incredible swiftness. Sometimes they were carried almost ashore, but generally the wave broke over them before they were half way. In which case the[y] dived and quickly rose on the other side with the canoe in their hands, which was towed out again and the same method repeated.’

  Most extraordinary of all, this perilous activity evidently
had absolutely no practical purpose or possible use. It was nothing to do with fishing, or transport, or navigation. The Tahitians did it for the sheer, inexhaustible delight of the thing. It was a complete Paradise sport: ‘We stood admiring this very wonderfull scene for full half an hour, in which time no one of the actors attempted to come ashore but all seemd most highly entertained with their strange diversion.’37

  Some Tahitian ceremonies were carefully organised, and suitable for all the Endeavour’s crew, such as the afternoon of naked wrestling organised by queen Oborea. Others were less official. One morning a number of young women arrived by canoe, and were offered to Banks in a curiously provoking ceremony:

  12 May. While I sat trading in the boat at the door of the fort a double Canoe came with several women and one man under the awning. The Indians round me made signs that I should go out and meet them … Tupia who stood by me acted as my deputy in receiving them … Another man then came forward having in his arms a large bundle of cloth. This he opend out and spread it piece by piece on the ground between the women and me. It consisted of nine pieces. Three were first laid. The foremost of the women, who seemd to be the principal, then stepped upon them and quickly unveiling all her charms gave me a most convenient opportunity of admiring them by turning herself gradualy round.

  Further pieces of cloth were then laid out in front of Banks, and the woman stepped closer and repeated her slow, smiling, naked gyrations. No awkwardness seems to have been felt on either side. ‘She then once more displayd her naked beauties and immediately marchd up to me, a man following her and doubling up the cloth as he came forwards which she immediately made me understand was intended as a present for me. I took her by the hand and led her to the tents acompanied by another woman her friend. To both of them I made presents but could not prevail upon them to stay more than an hour.’

  This is clearly a seduction scene, and the unnamed Tahitian man is bartering the woman. Yet there is no gloating in Banks’s entry; nor is it clear whether he took advantage of this frank proposal. Cook also witnessed this scene, and remarked that the young woman acted ‘with as much Innocency as one could possibly conceive’.38

  By mid-June Banks was increasingly prepared to abandon European inhibitions, including his clothes. He noted frequently, ‘I lay in the woods last night as I very often did,’ by which one can understand he was probably with Otheothea. On 10 June his journal records how he stripped off, had his body covered with charcoal and white wood ash, and danced ceremonially with a witch doctor (Heiva). He was joined by two naked women and a boy, and together they danced through the length of the village, past the gate of Fort Venus, and along the shore.

  It must have been an extraordinary sight, the expedition’s chief botanist whirling past the marine guards in the sunlight. But this Tahitian ceremony was not at all what it might have appeared to uninstructed European eyes. It was not an erotic rite, but a dance of ritual mourning. Banks and the young women were taking the part of ancestral ghosts (Ninevehs). ‘Tubourai was the Heiva, the three others and myself were the Nineveh. He put on his dress, most Fantastical tho not unbecoming … I was next prepard by stripping off my European cloths and putting me on a small strip of cloth round my waist, the only garment I was allowd to have, but I had no pretensions to be ashamd of my nakedness for neither of the women were a bit more coverd than myself. They then began to smut me and themselves with charcoal and water, the Indian boy was compleatly black, the women and myself as low as our shoulders. We then set out. Tubourai began by praying twice, once near the Corps again near his own house … To the fort then we went to the surprize of our freinds and affright of the Indians who were there, for they every where fly before the Heiva like sheep before a wolf.’ The dancing continued along the shore, and went on for the rest of the afternoon, ‘After which we repaird home, the Heiva undressd and we went into the river and scrubbd one another till it was dark before the blacking would come off.’ 39

  After eight weeks it became clear that many other officers were not integrating so well into the Tahitian way of life. One of them committed an elementary error by foolishly violating a religious taboo: ‘Mr Monkhouse our surgeon met to day with an insult from an Indian, the first that has been met with by any of us. He was pulling a flower from a tree which grew on a burying ground and consequently was I suppose sacred, when an Indian came behind him and struck him; he seiz’d hold of him and attempted to beat him, but was prevented by two more who coming up seizd hold of his hair and rescued their companion after which they all ran away.’40

  Even Captain Cook managed to create an unnecessary crisis when it was discovered that a metal fire-rake had been stolen from the fort. Determined to set an example, he impounded a score of native canoes. When the rake was swiftly returned, Cook then demanded that all other implements stolen from the camp in the last month should also be restored before he would return the canoes. It was quickly clear to Banks that Cook had here overplayed his hand with the Tahitians. The situation grew more complicated when it was learned that the canoes actually belonged to another group of islanders, who were bringing much-needed food to their relatives. They had no previous connection with the British, and were obviously not responsible for any of the thefts.

  The aggrieved Tahitians appealed directly to Banks, rather than to Cook, over this blatant injustice. ‘Great application was made to me in my return that some of these might be released.’ For the first time Banks appeared openly critical of Cook in his journal: ‘I confess had I taken a step so violent I would have seizd either the persons of the people who had stolen from us, most of whoom we either knew or shrewdly suspected, or their goods at least instead of those of people who are intirely unconcernd in the affair and have not probably interest enough with their superiors (to whoom all valuable things are carried) to procure the restoration demanded.’41

  For several days all trading ceased, and the fish in the sequestered canoes began to rot, filling the fort with an ominous smell. Then one of the duty officers compounded their difficulties by committing another needless offence. Taking a party of sailors out to collect ballast stone for the Endeavour, he promptly began ‘pulling down’ a Tahitian burying ground. Once again the Tahitian appeal was made directly to Banks: ‘To this the Indians objected much and [a] messenger came to the tents saying that they would not suffer it. I went with the 2nd Lieutenant to the place.’ Banks, in his diplomatic role, eventually managed to soothe both parties, had the burying ground restored, and found a nearby riverbed where the sailors ‘gatherd stones very Easily without a possibility of offending anybody’.42

  The issue of the impounded canoes remained, however, and suggested hostile attitudes on both sides: ‘The fish in the Canoes stink most immoderately so as in some winds to render our situation in the tents rather disagreable … The market has been totaly stoppd ever since the boats were seizd, nothing being offerd to sale but a few apples; our freinds however are liberal in presents so that we make a shift to live without expending our bread.’43

  Queen Oborea and Banks’s flame Otheothea reappeared at the fort, though initially Banks thought it wiser for them to sleep outside in their canoes, and they were ‘rather out of humour’.44 The crisis was only gradually defused, as Cook allowed the canoes to be taken back three or four at a time, in return for small peace offerings. One unexpected development was that Oborea’s ex-husband, known as Oamo, put in an appearance to plead for the release of the boats. To everyone’s surprise, Oamo behaved very politely towards his ex-wife, and he made the most favourable impression on Banks. He showed himself to be a ‘very sensible man by the shrewd questions he asks about England its manners and customs &c.’45 But the general issue of theft and restitution was never really resolved, and relations with the Tahitians were less relaxed in the last month of the expedition’s stay. Chief Dootah completely withdrew from the Europeans, claiming he had been frightened by Banks shooting for wild duck.

  Food remained a source of mutual interest, and
one remarkable culinary event featured a dog, which the priest Tupia killed, dressed and roasted, while Banks carefully took down the recipe. Most of the sailors were repelled, but Banks declared the results to be delicious. ‘A most excellent dish he made for us who were not much prejudicd against any species of food. I cannot however promise that an European dog would eat as well, as these scarce in their lives touch animal food, Cocoa nut kernel, Bread fruit, yams &c, being what their masters can best afford to give them and what indeed from custom I suppose they preferr to any kind of food.’

  Banks was also more at odds than previously with his naval companions, and there was some kind of quarrel with the insensitive surgeon Monkhouse. Banks tactfully omitted this from his journal, but young Sydney Parkinson recorded a confrontation between the two, and thought it arose over Monkhouse propositioning Otheothea. Several of Oborea’s Tahitian girls had arrived at Banks’s tent ‘very earnest in getting themselves husbands’. They behaved ‘very agreeable until bedtime, and determined to lie in Mr Banks’s tent, which they accordingly did, till the Surgeon having some words with one of them … he insisted she should not sleep there, and thrust her out’. Otheothea was then heard crying for some time in the tent. Parkinson noted dramatically: ‘Mr Monkhouse and Mr Banks came to an eclaircisement some time after; had very high words and I expected they would have decided it by a duel, which, however, they prudently avoided.’ Oborea and her retinue then left in their canoes, and would not return to the camp. ‘But Mr Banks went and staid with them all night.’46