A Mystery Of The Tuamotus
pp. 48-49 · Read in the full issue
Whence Came the Wooden Cross on Anaa?
From Our Own Correspondent.
Papeete, May 21.
THE island of Anaa (or Chain Island) —the first atoll of the Tuamotu Archipelago encountered when sailing east from Tahiti—has an interesting history.
The substance of that history, in con densed form, is found in the Journal of Senior Lieutenant Don Thomas Gayan gos, of the frigate “Santa Maria Magda lena” (alias “Aguila”), commanded by Captain Don Domingo Boenechea, and in the comprehensive footnote by the translator, Doctor Bolton Glanvill Cor ney.
“On the 2nd of November (1774) at 8| in the morning we sighted the isle of San Quintin (Haraki) right ahead, 5 leagues distant; and we passed to the nor’ard of it, one league off. We pro ceeded on our course at six o’clock in’ the afternoon under easy sail in order that, when day should break, we might be to windward of the island to Todos
Santos (Anaa), which, in fact, was sighted away to the south’ard and west’ard at about ten o’clock in the forenoon. We thereupon stood towards it until near enough to conveniently send in’a boat as enjoined by our in structions; but we -were not then able to do this, as the weather had set in squally during the day. Having cleared up, however, the boat was got into the water, armed, and placed under my orders.
“When we had got within about a boat’s length of the reef that fringes it all around, more than a hundred or a hundred and fifty Indians came for ward, armed with spears and slings, ranged closely together and droning a sort of chant, as if a prayer, and made signs to us to land. Not being' able to do so, however, because of the heavy surf that was breaking on the reef, I directed the Indian Pautu, after he had made them some signs of recognition, to jump into the water and get into communication with them, so as to ex plain to them who we were; but scarcely had he set about this, when they attacked us with a volley of stones from their slings, and we were compelled to discharge some muskets into the air to secure our retreat ...
“1 then proceeded farther on, coast ing along the island ...
“Just then we caught sight of a wooden cross, standing on a sandy beach on the inner side of the reef, near the skirt of a wood. It was of moderate size, regular in all its propor tions, and showed signs of having been erected there a long time ago”.
The footnote by Doctor Corney fol lows: — “A particular interest attaches to this passage about a cross, in relation to the one that was erected by the mem bers of Quiros’ expedition on the 11th of February, 1606, at the island they named La Conversion de San Pablo, identified by Sir Clements Markham and the late Admiral Sir William Whar ton as this very atoll of Anaa. In ‘The Voyages of Pedro Fernandez de Quiros (Hakluyt Society, Second Series, vols.
XIV and XV)’ Gonzalez de Leza says that it was ‘a very high well-made cross’.
“Belmonte Bermudez says the spot was in a ‘palm grove’ (adjoining a Marae); and Torquemada observes that the landing party ‘arrived at a place which was near the beach, and on the verge of a small clump of palms and other trees’, that they ‘entered the thick wood, some of our people cutting away the branches with their swords until they came near the other bay of still water (the lagoon) which is on the other side of the island’ and that on finding the Marae ‘they desired to plant the royal insignia where the dweller in darkness was worshipped ... so with
Christian fervour they began to cut down a tree with wood-knives, of which they formed a cross, and set it up in the place with great joy’, etc.
“The analogy of these records with the story related by Gayangos is too striking to be passed over without criti cism; yet it is scarcely conceivable that a cross, constructed on the spur of the moment out of green timber, with only wood-cutters’ knives (and perhaps cut lasses) for tools, without copper nails, presumably, or augurs for boring tre nail holes, should survive the ravages of time and cyclones for 168 years— even supposing that the natives, the sanctity of whose Marae was thus flouted, did not interfere with it ... .
“On the whole, I am not disposed to believe that the cross Gayangos stumbled upon so opportunely at the only spot he touched at on the whole island, in 1774, was the same that Quiros’ men set up in 1606; but, if the former was really a cross, designed as such and made by hands, the questions naturally arise ‘Who put it there? When? And with what object?’
“The only records we have of Anaa, after Quiros’ discovery of it, but prior to this visit, are Captain Cook’s, who sighted it, without communicating, in April 1769, and again in August, 1773; and Boenechea’s, who coasted along the S. and W. sides of it without effecting any landing, in 1772.
“Tupaia, however, alleged that a white man’s ship had once been wrecked there (Bibl. No. 41, p. 517 —John Rein hold Forster).
“This question must therefore, it would seem, remain one of the many mysteries of the Pacific—like ‘the half of a cedar pole, which had been worked on the coast of Nicaragua or Peru’ that Gonzalez de Leza says they found at the same island on the day when they set up their cross; and the ‘gold ring with an emerald’ that Belmonte Ber mudez saw the old Anaa ‘woman who appeared to be a hundred years of age’ wearing ‘on one of her fingers’ but who ‘did not care for one of brass that they offered her’ in exchange”. (From Bibl.
No. 41—Observations made during a Voyage Round the World, of Physical Geography, Natural History and Ethic Philosophy, by John Reinhold Forster, L.L.D., F.R.S., London, 1778.)