Captain Cook’S‘Artificial Curiosities’

While Captain James Cook vas exploring the Pacific two centuries ago, he and his men :ollected many items of native nanufacture, writes Ronn in Honolulu.

Most of these man-made )bjects baskets, wood carv ngs and masks, for example were acquired through lading with the various Islan lers and eventually taken jack to England. The Euro jeans, who had never seen inch objects before, called hem “artificial curiosities”.

This year, to celebrate the iOOth anniversary of Cook’s dsit (and subsequent death) n Hawaii, the Bernice P. bishop Museum in Honolulu las opened a special exhibit eaturing over 400 artifacts lathered by Cook on his three

listoric voyages.

It is the first time these >ieces have been brought ogether since the 18th cen ury and the first return of the najority to the Pacific area, fhe museum reports that this s the most important single ;xhibition ever held in Jawaii.

The Bishop Museum, ap propriately enough, is calling ts display, “Artificial Curiosities”, and will keep the [allery open daily until the nd of August.

According to Dr Adrienne Caeppler, a museum mthropqlogist who organised he exhibition, the exhibited terns are not meant to honour

Cook but to present the achievements of Pacific peo ples before their contact with Europeans.

Objects on loan from over 30 different museums and many private collections in clude specimens from Hawaii, Tonga, Tahiti, New Zealand, New Caledonia, New Hebrides and the Marquesas.

Kaeppler, who spent eight years tracking down these ethnographic objects, con ceived the exhibit idea while she was working on a monograph about the evolu tion of native art in Tonga.

Many of the Tongan artifacts picked up by Cook were uni dentified and she began to catalogue them herself.

Her project on Tonga gra dually expanded to include all of the man-made objects gathered on the three Cook voyages. This meant exhaus tive research with old docu ments, newspaper accounts, museum reports and auction catalogues.

She found out that Captain Cook gave valuable souvenirs to both his royal patron. King George 111, and to his naval patron, the Earl of Sandwich.

The king’s collection is still owned by his heirs while much of Lord Sandwich’s treasures ended up at Cambridge University. The Bishop Museum, itself, has the re mainder of his priceless objec ts.

David Samwell, surgeon’s

mate on the third voyage, accumulated a large variety of “artificial curiosities” on his trip and sold the entire collection at auction in 1781. Dr Kaeppler traced many of Samwell’s specimens through an old museum catalogue that only recorded the last names of the buyers. Learning their entire identities required extensive detectve work.

At the end of the 18th century the most important private museum in England was owned by Sir Ashton Lever.

He purchased Cook’s own private stock and much of Samwell’s. Sir Ashton’s entire collection was sold in 1806.

There was so much to auction that the sale took 65 days!

Mrs Cook had her private collection as well and this was inherited by a cousin. It was later donated to the Colonial and Indian Exhibit in London in 1886. Today much of it belongs to the Australian Museum in Sydney.

Another significant group of Cook objects can be seen at the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology in Leningrad, Following Cook’s death, the

expedition ships stopped at

Kamchatka where they underwent repairs. The English sailors thanked the Russian crew-members for their help by presenting them with still more artifacts.

These were eventually turned over to the Empress of Russia. She stored them in St

Petersburg where they have stayed unharmed until the present day.

Nearly all the museums contacted, Kaeppler said, agreed to lend pieces in their possession to the Bishop Museum for the present ex hibition. Kaeppler and John Wright, the museum’s historian, personally went to all the lending institutions and packed the rare speci mens for shipment to Honolulu, The US Government under wrote the cost of the insurance for the exhibit which was funded through a matching grant from the National En dowment for the Arts. Ad ditional money was provided from various other founda tions, corporations and indi viduals.

A complete illustrated catalogue by Kaeppler entitl ed Artificial Curiosities has been published by the Bishop Museum. It includes photo graphs of all exhibit items plus an inventory of all the documented Cook voyage ob jects located to date.

The 292-page catalogue is available from the Bishop Museum Press, PO Box 6037, Honolulu, Hawaii, 96818, USA. The cost is U 5527.50.

The exhibition, will be open seven days a week from 8 am to 7 pm for the duration of the showing. Special lectures are also planned. Adult admission is US$2.