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| 1. | The people whose fires Cook observed were clans of the Selk'nam, whose traditional lands were located in the southeasterly part of Tierra del Fuego.
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| 2. | Beaglehole, in his edition of the Cook Journal, suggests these penguin-like birds were probably immature Wandering Albatrosses (Diomedea exulans).
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| 3. | In his edition of the Cook Journal (p. 56), Beaghole cites a more extensive description of the birds shot by Banks on this day, which appears in the Greenwich MS of Cook's Journal. Comparing the NLA MS with the Greenwich MS, he suggests that the birds shot included a mature Wandering Albatross and a Grey-Headed Albatross. He further argues that the 'several other sorts' cannot be identified, and that Banks was incorrect in identifying one of them as a White-Headed Petrel (Pterodroma lessonii). However, he draws attention to Parkinson having drawn a Mottled Petrel (Pterodroma inexpectata) on 3 February 1769. The remaining birds were clearly various species of petrel.
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| 4. | The islands encountered by Quiros in 1606 were probably Hao and Anaa. Cook was to sight Anaa on 9 April 1769.
Cook's explanation why he did not search for the islands provoked an agry response from William Dalrymple when the explanation appeared in Hawkesworth's account of the Endeavour voyage. However, as Beaglehole rightly points out in his edition of Cook's Journal (p. 66), the primary goal of Cook's first voyage was arrive at Tahiti in time to observe the Transit of Venus. [Return to page 17690324]
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| 5. | The various boats carried aboard Endeavour were at risk of being destroyed by marine worms (Teredinae). Various protective measures were employed, but the most common was painting, or rather coating, the hulls of the boats with a thick, toxic solution of powered cerussite, or white lead (lead carbonate). According to Cook, this proved very effective against worm infestation, although one wonders what affects regular exposure to lead carbonate had on the health of seamen.
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| 6. | The stream in question was described by Wallis in his journal entry for 26 June 1767 as being opposite a 'fine river' which he estimated as being approximately one and a half cable's length from the shore. It was thus one of several streams feeding into the Viapopoo river where it ran along the beach parallel with the shore. See South Seas Map of Matavai Bay.
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| 7. | In his edition of the Endeavour Journal, Beaglehole comments that Sydney Parkinson, who 'did not have his pocket picked', says in reflection of visits by Maohi to the ship on 14 April 1769 that he ''never beheld statelier men'. Yet the salient point is that Parkinson was referring to the Ari'i who came aboard, were 'courteous and expressed some uneasiness about the conduct of the rest' ' i.e. Maohi of low status. These men and women, Parkinson wrote, tried to steal 'everything that they could lay their hands upon'. See the South Companion Entry on 'Theft in Maohi Society'.
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| 8. | Cook's noting of Banks's concern that Maohi might react adversely to Buchan's burial ashore provides a brief but notable illustration of Banks's ethnographic sensitivity that is not encountered in his own account of Buchan's death. Indeed, in his journal, Banks writes as if he was unaffected by Buchan's death and upset by the prospect of not being able to show off his drawings to his circle of friends on his return to England.
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| 9. | As the Endeavour voyagers would have quickly realised, in the Society Islands, families owned trees in their locality that were valued for their wood, bark or fruit. Exploitation rights were handed down from generation to generation. They could be bestowed as gifts to create taio pacts, or to secure the patronage of high-ranking Maohi.
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| 10. | That White beads were highly prized by Maohi may have been owing to the high value they placed upon fine white tapa cloth. See James Morrison's description of tapa making in his Account of the Island of Tahiti: 160-161.
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| 11. | Cook's remarking that the decay of food offerings at fare tupapa'u suggested no 'priest-craft in the thing' reflects the conventional and long-standing antagonism of British Protestants to claims by the Roman church that religious celebrants were divinely empowered to act as sole intermediaries between humanity and its creator. Indeed, from the time of the Reformation, the term 'priest' meant Roman both Catholic cleric and one who sought to further worldly ambition through pretending to possess exclusive spiritual powers.
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| 12. | It seems plausible that local Maohi feared the mounting of swivel guns at Fort Venus meant the strangers planned to attack and may have discussed a pre-emptive assault on the fort. If so, Hua (Owhaa) may have feared that Cook might retaliate by ordering a cannonade as Wallis had done with terrible consequences on 24 June 1767. See Samuel Wallis' account of the latter event in the first volume of Hawkesworth's Account of the Voyages....
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
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