Book premiere
The historian and South Seas connoisseur Vorpahl traces the until today unrecognized indigenous pioneers of Captain Cook in the discovery of the Pacific. His book is a long overdue tribute to those Polynesians without whose support Cook would not only have made at best a fraction of his discoveries, but very likely - like all his predecessors - would not have survived the first voyage. Meticulously researched and engagingly written, Setting Out in the Light of the Stars provides a whole new perspective on one of the most important chapters in the history of discovery.
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Based on decades of study of early voyages around the world, intensive on-the-ground research, and in-depth study of European and Polynesian sources and modern research, Vorpahl sets the short-sighted colonial picture of the history of exploration straight. But he also shows what the indigenous companions' own agenda was in each case. More than that, he presents the emergence and actions of the European explorers from a Polynesian perspective. In this way, he opens up to us the world in which Cook and his men moved, but of which they did not understand very much.
He focuses on three men in particular who were indispensable to Cook for various reasons: Tupaia, head priest of the Oro cult, who navigated the British through the South Seas, opened up this world to them, interpreted for them linguistically and culturally, saved them from the fate of all previous expeditions (namely, being massacred by natives) - and who, in return, spread his cult throughout the South Seas. Maheine, who enabled Cook's ships to hold out for three years on his second voyage by skillfully negotiating for the British and giving them access to important cult objects, many of which found their way into European museums. And Mai, who accompanied the Europeans even as far as London, where he achieved bizarre fame as Omai, the "wild South Sea prince," before returning to the South Seas - equipped with weapons collected in Britain - to recapture his home island of Raiatea, which was occupied by enemies.
