Captain James Cook or The Dying God

Captain James Cook; or The Dying God

Marshall Sahlins

Marshall David Sahlins

Why Was Cook Killed?

American Anthropologist & Professor

The apotheosis of Captain James Cook

Lono: Growth & Human fertility

-Winter's fertilizing rains

- Ancient king returning in search of wife

(dancing + singing women: "cosmic copulation b/w earthly women and divine copulator")

- Makihiki Festival: "transition from dying time of the year to the time when beearing things become fruitful"

- Lono circles islands sunwise, returning to temple of origin after 23 rotations:

- offered food and property marking god's dominion and taboos lifted

- Ku's rites suspended & Taboo violations (entering taboo fertile land & public fornication b/w chiefly omen and commoners)

- King's symbolic death and mock combat

- Ku temples reconsecrated by human sacrifices, King tours island to reopen agriculture and fishing shrines (lono)

Analysis

Biography of Captain

James Cook (1728-1779)

Born December 27, 1930 in Chicago, USA

1960s

British explorer, Cartographer, Navigator

**Model man of Enlightenment**

Gananath Obeyesekere

Works Cited

Structural History

Hawaiian Cosmology

• Influenced by Claude Lévy-Strauss
• Politically engaged

"Myth of conquest, imperialism and civilization"

Historical meets Cosmological

• Fantasy of the European civilizer
• Strength of cosmology to help shape worldview and rational thought
• Eurocentrism of assuming cultural similarities

Cook's Three Voyages

Reflection Time

Historical Context

• Critiques evolutionary models
• Theory of cultural change: acknowledges individual agency and causal forces in history that influence culture

Recommended Readings

Do you think that the Hawaiians truly believed Cook was Lono, or do you agree with Obeyesekere that this account is a mere "eurocentric" myth ?

Scientific Revolution/ Enlightenment (17th-18th Century):

• Cook's deification constructed

• Politics of depicting cultural difference

• Justifying exploration

• Critique of Sahlins

Food for thought:

• Bbc.co.uk, (2016). BBC - History - Captain James Cook. [online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/cook_captain_james.shtml [Accessed 19 Jan. 2016].
• Nla.gov.au,. 2016. "James Cook And His Voyages | National Library Of Australia". https://www.nla.gov.au/selected-library-collections/james-cook-and-his-voyages.
• "Sahlins, Marshall." International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. 2008. Encyclopedia.com. (January 19, 2016). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3045302322.html
• Obeyesekere
• Sahlins
• Youtube

"Structure of the Conjuncture"

• Translation of culture
• Cosmology & Worldview

• Power relations
• "Othering"
• Ethnocentrism

European & American Exploration

• Lono: God of fertility
• Ku: God of war and human sacrifice
• Makihiki: New Year festival
• Lono tours Islands
• Ku's rites are suspended and taboos are lifted
• Mock Battles: Political structure shifts
• Kumulipo Chant (Beginning in Deep Darkness)
• Birth chant the father of the King
• Story of the Universe & Biography of the King
• Cosmic copulation

Sahlins, Marshall. 1972. Stone Age Economics. Chicago: Aldine-Atherton.

Sahlins, Marshall. 1976. Culture and Practical Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Sahlins, Marshall. 1985. Islands of History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Sahlins, Marshall. 1995. How “Natives” Think: About Captain Cook, For Example. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Obeyesekere, Gananath. 1992. The Apotheosis of Captain Cook: European Mythmaking in the Pacific. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

• Manifestation of Lono & ensuing relationships
• "reproduce cultural categories and give them new values out of the pragmatic context" (125)

1970s

Transatlantic slave trade (16th-19th Century)

• Fought in Seven Years War
• 1755; Enlisted in the Royal Navy

• Voyage 1: 1768-71
• Voyage 2: 1772-75
• Voyage 3: 1776-79

• Makihiki festival:
• Arrived mid-way
• Unexpected return
• Image of Lono
• Kumulipo: Cooks welcoming ceremonies
• Mode of exchange
• The Kili'i; the ritual battle
• Over-stayed
• Political threat: King reasserts his power
• " Metamorphosed from being of veneration to an object of hostility"

• "Stone Age Economics" (1972)
• "Cultural and Practical Reason" (1979)

1980's

• "Theory of structural History"
• 1985: "Islands of history"
• Debate with Obeyesekere begins