Description
Rare engraving from the official British Admiralty sanctioned edition of the accounts of Cook’s third and final voyage. All other later copies made of this image by other publishers were unauthorised, usually smaller and inferior in quality.
Captain Cook arrived at Atooi (Kauai) on 19th January 1778 and stayed until 23rd January.
Showing the interior of the long house or mana in the heiau at Waimea, Kauai with carved representations of the gods. Cook reported on 21 January 1778: ‘The entrance was at the middle of the side which was in the Morai, fronting it on the other side was a kind of Altar, composed of a piece of carved wood set ere(c)t and on each side the figure of a Woman carved in wood, neither very ill designed nor executed on the head of one was carved a cap like helmet worn by the ancient warriors and on the other a round cap. like the head dress at Otaheite called Tomou. These two images, which were about three feet high, they called Eatua no Veheina, Godess’s, but that they worship them may be doubted, as they had no objections to our going to and examining them be this as it may, they here make some kind of offerings, as several strips of the cloth before the other piece of carving, lay a heap of a plant called […] and by them […]. It was obvious it had been laid there piece by piece and at different times, as there was of it in all states, from quite decayed to fresh and green. Before this place, and in the middle of the house, was an oblong space, inclosed by a low edging of stone and covered over with the thin cloth this they told us was the grave of seven chiefs. Cook, Journals III, I 270-1
Beddie 1743-34, p.341, Joppien 3.176A, ill.p.421
From Cook & King,A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean Undertaken by the Command of His Majesty, for Making Discoveries in the Northern Hemisphere….
