IN ORIGIN THIS BOOK IS THE BY-PRODUCT OF A STUDY, BEGUN SOME YEARS ago, of James Burney and his circle. After completing a first draft I realized that Omai had received undue emphasis in the early chapters, that he had in effect taken over the enterprise. So, setting aside the typescript (only temporarily, I trust), I decided to undertake a separate work devoted solely to Omai. My aim has been to put him in his setting of place and time, to relate such biographical details as could be ascertained or surmised, and to trace the course of his posthumous reputation both in his native islands and in Europe.
For a man of whose life only a little more than four years are recorded the scale of treatment may seem — may well be — somewhat disproportionate. But Omai was more than the first Polynesian to visit Britain, more than the amiable buffoon whose ‘How do, King Tosh?’ and similar fatuities have been quoted in scores of books and articles. As I hope the following pages will show, he was a kind of catalyst, provoking discussion of many issues — moral, philosophical, religious — concerning eighteenth-century society. In his person, moreover, he dramatized dilemmas which still confront Europeans in their dealings with Pacific peoples. Whatever may be learned from Omai’s example (and I have left readers to draw their own conclusions), the lessons still seem relevant. Indeed, I see his story re-enacted daily on the streets of Auckland — a spectacle that redeems the city from banality and makes it one of the most interesting in the world.
In compiling the book I have used much hitherto unpublished material drawn from libraries in England, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. My chief sources, however, have been the late J. C. Beaglehole’s magnificent edition of Captain Cook’s journals and the Endeavour journal of Joseph Banks. One of Professor Beaglehole’s characteristics as an historian — and one of his few weaknesses, it seems to me — was the intensity of his response to figures of the past. For Omai he apparently felt neither sympathy nor regard: ‘he was really a very foolish inattentive fellow’ ran a summing up in the introduction to volume iii of Cook’s journals (p. lxxxviii); ‘he was at bottom a foolish inattentive fellow’ was again the verdict in The Life of Captain James Cook (p. 449). In the latter work, to my consternation and for reasons I have failed to discover, the generally accepted Mai was rendered Mae.
Readers must again make up their own minds about Omai or Mai (as I shall continue to call him) from the abundant and often conflicting evidence assembled below. In my opinion, for what it is worth, he acted well in the testing situations into which circumstances and the whims of his patrons led him. And where his conduct was most severely censured by European observers (during the interlude at Tahiti, for example) it could be defended as in accordance with his inherited precepts and customs. One day I hope some writer, perhaps of Polynesian origin, will emulate the Abbé Baston and retell the story of Omai from his own point of view.
For a chronicler with no competence in any of the Polynesian tongues there have been some problems. Contrary to the advice of learned friends, in rendering native words I have omitted glottal stops, partly because they are unfamiliar to me, partly because they rarely appear in my sources. The form of personal names has presented further difficulties. Following the style which it seemed natural to adopt for Omai, I have called individuals by the designations used by eighteenth-century explorers and writers (Oberea, Ereti, Otoo) while indicating the probably ‘correct’ versions in the text. Geographical terms are normally given in their modern forms, though sometimes it seemed appropriate to employ such superseded place names as Van Diemen’s Land and Batavia. The index with its cross-references should clear up any uncertainties. Quotations, it is hardly necessary to say, are rendered without alteration and, always subject to a small margin for human error, may be assumed to reproduce any peculiarities in the original texts or documents.
Obligations incurred at every stage of the work are many. It has been my good fortune to benefit from the labours not only of J. C. Beaglehole but of others who have contributed to what is surely the golden age of Pacific scholarship. Bernard Smith’s European Vision and the South Pacific has again been a guide and inspiration, as it has been ever since I reviewed it for Landfall in March 1961. In dealing with the unfamiliar subject of French exploration I have largely relied on J.-E. Martin-Allanic’s exhaustive study of Bougainville and J. Dunmore’s more general survey. In the penultimate chapter I have used D. L. Oliver’s Ancient Tahitian Society and, had it appeared earlier, would have drawn more often on that superb conspectus of a vanished culture. I have also relied heavily on recent bibliographers of the Pacific, especially P. O’Reilly and E. Reitman, Miss M. K. Beddie, Miss Phyllis Mander-Jones, ana R. E. Du Rietz.
The book was written while I was research fellow in Arts at the University of Auckland. I am deeply grateful to the University for awarding the fellowship and to the Department of History for hospitality and help during its tenure. A more specific and personal debt is indicated in the dedication. Particulars of the collections which have made manuscripts or pictorial material available will be found in the section on sources (pp. 337-8) and in the list of illustrations (pp. xiii-xviii). I wish to thank the institutions concerned and their staffs for meeting my often troublesome requests and gladly pay my customary tribute to long-suffering friends in the University Library, the Public Library, and the Museum Library, Auckland. Nor must I fail to record my appreciation of the encouragement given by Mr. E. W. Smith, Director of the Auckland City Art Gallery, and his staff in organizing the exhibition, ‘The Two Worlds of Omai’.
Among other friends and colleagues I am specially indebted to Professor W. H. Pearson for sharing with me his unrivalled knowledge of Pacific literature and for his services in tracing the music for the pantomime Omai. Dr. Averil M. Lysaght, an equally generous scholar, has made available her Banks papers and has been tireless in seeking out elusive manuscripts on my behalf. For the rest I can only list those who have helped with criticism, with translation, and with advice or information on specialized subjects: Professor B. G. Biggs, Mr. E. Craig, Mrs. Jessie Harding, Dr. A. B. Hooper, Mrs. Robin Hooper, Professor K. J. Hollyman, Miss Anne Kirker, Dr. R. A. Lochore, Mrs. Phoebe Meikle, Dr. R. G. Phillips, Miss Una Platts, Mr. M. Shadbolt, Dr. Elizabeth Sheppard, Professor D. I. B. Smith, and Dr. Kathryn Smits. Regrettably the limitations of this book prevented my using a trouvaille which perhaps indicates some surviving memory of Omai in English or American folklore. According to my friend Mr. A. C. Stones, during his boyhood he saw a lavishly tattooed man exhibited under that name in Manchester. Further investigation proved him to have been ‘The Great Omi’, originally sponsored by Robert Ripley of ‘Believe it or not’ fame. Particulars of this celebrity will be found in Bob Considine’s Ripley, the Modern Marco Polo (New York, 1961), pp. 143-4.
That was the situation when I handed over my typescript to the publishers and left for England in May 1976. Since then the score of obligations has lengthened in both hemispheres. Thanks are due to Mr. D. R. Thompson for the care he has shown in the setting of a complicated text; to Messrs. R. Dudding and K. Ireland for professional expertise in reading the proofs; to Mrs. Susan Stenderup and Mr. R. Ritchie for help in their specialized fields of illustration and design; to Messrs. M. Gill and J. F. Maynard for their efforts to re-enact the story of Omai on television; to Mr. R. D. McEldowney for innumerable services and his unfailing patience with a temperamental author; to his assistant, Mrs. Norma Jenkin, for many kindnesses; and for favours I need not specify to my sister, as always, and to Mr. B. W. Harley.
Auckland
March 1977