Tupaia’s Map
I just finished reading the fantastic book Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia by Scholar Christina Thompson. It is a fascinating look at the quest to understand the people who settled the islands of the vast Pacific Ocean. I highly recommend it.
One of the many people amazing people that I learned about in the book was Tupaia, the Polynesian navigator from the island of Ra’iatea who joined Captain James Cook’s expedition and helped him discover Australia and New Zealand. He was an amazing man, an artist, priest, and a navigator equal to or even surpassing Cook.
Thompson relates an amazing story of Tupaia’s map that he and Cook worked on, and this story stuck with me. Together they drew charts the islands of the Pacific that Tupaia knew. An amazing collision and synergy of different cultural perspectives were fused to create this map. She does a magnificent and lyrical job describing this unique moment in history.
Unfortunately for both men they never made it home, Tupaia succumbing to disease it Batavia and Cook later being killed in Hawaii. But they left us with this wonderful and poignant map. This is just one of many great moments that have stuck with me from this book.
Drawing by Tupaia showing trading between Maori and Cook’s crew.
