We learned about James Cook first of all from Vysotsky's song, in which there is a sacramental question: "Why did the natives eat Cook?" They didn't eat it, actually. What happened to him? Let's figure it out.
Cook's ships left the English port of Plymouth in 1776. The mission of the expedition was to find the Northwest Passage between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
Cook bypassed the Cape of Good Hope, crossed the Indian Ocean and visited New Zealand and Tahiti.
The British Parliament promised the crew of the ship that would make the discovery - £ 20,000 - a fortune at the time.
At dawn on January 18, 1778, Cook saw the land: it was Hawaii. The ships anchored in Waimea Bay on Kauai Island. A large, loud crowd of Hawaiians had gathered on the shore.
Some argued that the sails are huge stingrays. Others said that the masts were trees growing in the ocean.
The shaman announced that the ships are the altars of the god Lono, whom they worship. In the end, the ruler decided to send his representatives aboard.
When they boarded the ship, they almost went crazy with excitement: they mistook the officers' cocked hats for triangular heads. Cook presented a dagger to one of the tall chiefs who boarded.
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The impression was so strong that the leader announced the new name of his daughter - Dagger.
The crew needed supplies of water and food, and Cook ordered Lieutenant John Williamson to equip an expedition ashore.
Later that afternoon, Cook decided to go ashore himself and walked unarmed among the Hawaiians. Those greeted him as the highest leader. They fell prostrate on the ground as he approached and offered him food, mats and burl (material from tree bark) as a gift.
The shaman was uncertain: should the foreigners be classified as gods or mere mortals? In the end, he decided to arrange a simple test: he offered women to the foreigners.
If the British agree, then they are clearly not gods, but mere mortals. The British, naturally, failed the exam, but many Hawaiians were still in doubt.
The crowds of women upset Cook, who knew that many on the ships suffered from sexually transmitted diseases. He ordered all patients to remain on board, but this measure was unsuccessful, because women were brought directly on board. There is little doubt that it was Cook's team who brought syphilis and gonorrhea to Hawaii.
The consumable book of the ship "Resolution" contains the names of 66 sailors from the crew of 112 who were treated for sexually transmitted diseases during the voyage.
A year after Cook's visit, diseases spread throughout the islands and became one of the main reasons for the sharp decline in the birth rate.
Two weeks later, having rested and replenished the supply of food, the ships went north to look for the northwest passage.
At the end of November 1778, Cook returned to Hawaii. It was there that a chain of unfortunate events led to his death. Usually on other islands, Cook was greeted as the chief chief of another tribe.
In Hawaii, he was mistaken for the god Lono. Ancient legends predicted that Lono would return to the floating island. Cook's both visits took place during the Lono holiday season.
For seven weeks, Cook explored the coast of the islands, and then anchored in Kealakekua Bay on the largest island in Hawaii.
The choice of this bay even more convinced the Hawaiians that Cook is the embodiment of the god Lono - according to legend, it was here that Lono was last seen. Hundreds of Hawaiians rushed to welcome Lono's return. They showered the English with all kinds of gifts, there were always many women on board.
After a while, Kalaniopuu, the ruler of the island of Hawaii, appeared on board. He generously supplied Cook with food supplies and all kinds of gifts.
As the ships made repairs and replenished food supplies, some Hawaiians became increasingly convinced that the British were not gods, but mere mortals.
Because foreigners plentifully loaded the ships with food, the Hawaiians assumed that they had left their country due to hunger.
They politely hinted to the sailors that it was time and honor to know, and that they could visit the islands during the next harvest, when there would be plenty of food again.
On February 4, 1779, four weeks after the ships entered Kealakekua Bay, Cook ordered an anchor to be raised. The Hawaiians watched with satisfaction the departure of the British.
However, on the very first night, the ships were caught in a storm and the forward mast of the Resolution cracked. I had to go back. Cook knew only one convenient bay nearby - Kealakekua.
When the ships entered the familiar bay, its shores were deserted. The boat sent to the shore returned with the news that Kalaniopuu had put a taboo on the entire bay.
Such taboos were common in Hawaii. Usually, after the land and its resources were used up fairly, the chiefs forbade entry there for a time in order to enable the restoration of sea and land resources.
The British felt a growing anxiety, but they needed to repair the mast. The next day, the ruler visited the bay and greeted the British in a friendly manner, but the mood of the Hawaiians had already changed, the initial warmth of relations had gradually melted away. In one case, it almost came to a skirmish when the chiefs ordered the Hawaiians not to help a team that went ashore for water.
At dawn the next day, the British discovered that the boat of the Discovery ship had disappeared - the Hawaiians had managed to steal it right from under the bow of the sailor on watch.
Cook was beside himself with rage - this boat was the best that was on board. He ordered to block the bay so that no canoe could leave it.
Cook took a double-barreled gun, Lieutenant Phillips and nine Marines and went ashore to meet Lord Kalaniopuu.
He was going to use a plan that had never failed him in similar circumstances elsewhere: he would invite the ruler on board and hold him there until his subjects returned the boat.
At seven o'clock in the morning Cook's companions made it to the shore; two boats were left waiting by the shore. Cook considered himself a friend of the Hawaiians, who had nothing to fear. Cook entered the house and spoke about the loss with the aging ruler.
As it turned out, he did not know anything about the boat, but Cook decided to carry out his plan anyway and invited the ruler to spend the day on board the ship. Kalaniopuu agreed with pleasure.
However, his wives and some of the leaders did not want the ruler to go to the ship; the crowd grew rapidly.
At that time, the echo of shots resounded over the bay; the Hawaiians were visibly alarmed. Cook had already realized that it would not be possible to bring the ruler to the ship.
He got up and walked alone to the boat. At that moment, a Hawaiian ran into the excited crowd and shouted that the British had killed the tall leader when he was trying to get out of the bay in his canoe.
This was a declaration of war. Women and children disappeared. The men put on braided armor, weapons appeared in their hands. One of the warriors approached Cook and swung a dagger at him. Cook cocked the hammer and fired.
A small-caliber bullet lodged in the warrior's protective cape. He triumphantly turned to his fellow tribesmen to show that he was safe and sound. Now even the most timid decided to attack the man whom they considered to be a god. One British estimate that between 22,000 and 32,000 armed Hawaiians had gathered on the beach that morning.
Cook retreated to the water itself. Another warrior with a dagger attacked him. Cook hurriedly fired, but missed and killed another Hawaiian. With the blow of the butt, Phillips knocked down one of the attackers and shot the other.
At this point, the infantrymen lined up on the shore and fired a volley at the crowd. The boat crew also opened fire.
Cook went knee-deep into the water and turned to call boats and order a ceasefire. At that moment, a crushing blow of a wooden club fell on his head.
As he fell, another warrior stabbed him in the back with a dagger. An hour after Cook went ashore, he was dead. The Hawaiians rushed towards him, fired from bows and stabbed the already dead body with daggers.
Four of Cook's nine sailors were killed, the rest hastily sailed away in boats. Stones flew after them.
The sailors aboard the Resolution saw the battle on the shore and fired two cannons. After a short time, no one was left on the shore; the bodies of the dead were also taken away. The officers who took command decided to retrieve the Resolution's mast and sails on the shore and return the bodies of Cook and four sailors.
A truce was reached ashore, sails, mast and tools were brought aboard the Resolution, and Lieutenant King tried to persuade the Hawaiians to return the bodies of the fallen. At night, a Hawaiian boat moored to the Resolution and they boarded.
They are holding a small bundle wrapped in tapa. They unfolded it solemnly, and the British were horrified to see the bloody meat, which had obviously been cut from Cook's body.
The British were horrified by this treatment of the body of their captain, some began to suspect the Hawaiians of cannibals.
In fact, the Hawaiians treated the remains of Cook as they did with the bodies of the tallest leaders. Traditionally, Hawaiians removed the flesh of highly revered people from the bones. The bones were then tied together and buried secretly so that no one could abuse them.
If the deceased was an object of great affection and respect, then the bones could be kept for some time at home. Because Cook was highly respected, and parts of his body were divided among high leaders.
His head went to the king, and one of the leaders took the scalp. The terrible treatment was thus the highest honor.
The British did not know this, and for the next few days they took cruel revenge. King, who had to complete Cook's travel log and who was ill at the time, later wrote apologetically, "If I could be personally present, I might have found a means to save this tiny nation from destruction."
One of the results of the bloodshed was that the terrified Hawaiians decided to return additional remains of Cook. One of the chiefs, wearing a ceremonial cloak of red feathers, returned the captain's hands, skull, forearms and leg bones.
On the evening of February 21, 1779, Cook's remains were sewn into canvas and, after a funeral prayer, lowered into the water of the bay. The crew lowered the British flag and gave a ten-shot salute.
Many of the sailors and infantrymen on the decks of both ships cried openly. The next morning the British set sail and left the islands for good.
However, the story did not end there - in May 1823 the Hawaiian king Kamehameha II arrived with his wife and retinue in Great Britain, where he died three months later. Shortly before his death, he gave the doctors an arrow with an iron tip and wooden plumage. The king said that the bone in the middle of the arrow is the bone of a white man named James Cook.
In 1886, the arrow moved from London to Australia, where it was kept until recently. So it would have been forgotten by everyone, if not for the president of the Captain Cook Society, Cliff Tronton, who decided to test the authenticity of this arrow. Many things immediately raised doubts among historians: the arrow was not like those used by the natives of Hawaii at that time.
Quite recently K. Thornton announced that according to DNA analysis, the arrow has nothing to do with Cook. So this beautiful legend died.
Based on materials from the site zagadki.dljavseh.ru