A New Reading of Tupaia's Chart, by Anne Di Piazza & Erik Pearthree

A NEW READING OF TUPAIA’S CHART ANNE DI PIAZZA and ERIK PEARTHREE Centre National de Recherche Scientifique Centre de Recherche et de Documentation sur l’Océanie, Marseille One of the most intriguing artefacts brought back to Europe from Cook’s voyages in the Pacific is a map, Tupaia’s Chart, catalogued in the British Museum as a “Chart of the Society Islands with Otaheite in the center July-Aug 1769”. After decades of close, focused work on Tupaia’s Chart, it still cannot be read as a Mercator projection. Many islands, even archipelagos seem to be misplaced. Could it be that Tupaia simply failed to solve the problem of converting his view of the Ocean world onto a two- dimensional map, with a scale and azimuths? In this paper, we propose a different reading of his Chart, a reading that is in accordance with how traditional Pacific navigators conceived of their sea environment, i.e., through memorised lists of “relevant pairs of islands plus so-called ‘star courses’ between these islands” (Gell 1985:284). We conclude that Tupaia’s Chart, while having the appearance of a map, is in fact a mosaic of sailing directions or plotting diagrams drawn on paper, similar to those made by master navigators tracing lines in the sand or arranging pebbles on a mat to instruct their pupils. TUPAIA, THE TAHITIAN GEOGRAPHER AND NAVIGATOR Cook, Banks and Molyneux had little to say about Tupaia and his activities on board the Endeavour. Not a word was written about the drafting of the famous Chart. Tupaia did spark however the curiosity of the officers when it came to piloting the vessel around Tahiti, or listing islands he knew. Tupaia’s reputation as a geographer began on the Endeavour somewhere between Tahiti and New Zealand. On 13 July 1769, upon leaving Tahiti for the Leeward islands, Cook wrote: I have before hinted that these people have an extensive knowledge of the islands situated in these seas, Tupia [sic] as well as several others hath given us an account of upwards of seventy, but as the account they have given of their situation is so vague and uncertain I shall refar [refrain from] giving a list of them until I have learnt from Tupia the situation of each island with a little more certainty. (Beaglehole 1955:138) Eight months later, Tupaia had succeeded in convincing Cook of his geographical knowledge. While departing from New Zealand, Cook noted: “I shall now add a list of those islands which Tupia and several others have given us an account of and 321 322 A New Reading of Tupaia’s Chart endeavour to point out the [their] respective situations from Otaheite or Georges Island…” (Beaglehole 1955:291). This text is followed by a list of islands1 to which Cook added: “The above list was taken from a Chart of the Islands Drawn by Tupia’s own hands, he at one time gave us an Account of near 130 Islands but in his Chart he laid down only 74…” (Beaglehole 1955:293, 294). Although Tupaia’s Chart presents the Pacific as a veritable “sea of islands”, very different from the empty Ocean known at the time, Cook does not seem to have actually attempted to find any of them.2 Certainly Cook had his own constraints, his own route, and when he did finally list the directions to Tupaia’s islands, it was not because he had “learned…the situation of each island with…more certainty”, but rather because he had had occasions to convince himself that Tupaia was both a skilled navigator and a knowledgeable geographer; after all, he was able to accurately point to Tahiti throughout their voyage and to pilot the Endeavour through the uncharted waters of the Society Islands (Salmond 2004). Banks is the most outspoken on the subject of Tupaia. On the eve of their departure from Tahiti, he noted: “… what makes him more than anything else desireable is his experience in the navigation of these people…” and later on: “we have now a very good opinion of Tupias pilotage, especially since we observd him at Huahine send a man to dive down to the heel of the ships rudder; this the man did several times and reported to him the depth of water the ship drew, after which he has never suffrd her to go in less than 5 fathom water without being much alarmd” (Banks 1998:299, 316). Banks’ admiration was tempered by gentle mockery as when he writes that Tupaia “prayd to Tane for a wind and as often boasted to me of the success of his prayers, which I plainly saw he never began till he saw a breeze so near the ship that it generally reachd her before his prayer was finished” (Banks 1998:356). TUPAIA, NOVICE CARTOGRAPHER Tupaia’s achievements were not limited to navigation and geography. On board he also studied cartography, painting and drawing, but on this subject again, the logbooks are silent. Only incidentally and during his second voyage, did Cook note that Tupaia “made a drawing of one of these Vessels [apparently in reference to Tahitian war canoes]” (Beaglehole 1963:407, Glyndwr 2003:47). Cook was probably referring to Tupaia’s watercolour of a Tahitian scene showing two war canoes and one sailing canoe (Glyndwr 2003: fig.2.2). In a portfolio in the British Library, among the watercolours recently attributed to Tupaia by Carter (1997), is a sketch map bearing a faint pencil title “Society Islands discovered by Lieut. J. Cook in 1769”. There are numerous indications suggesting it may have been drawn by Tupaia (Fig.1). The islands are out of scale and lack a grid, unlike those on manuscript charts signed by Cook, Pickersgill or Molyneux. Some islands, such as Bola Bola [Borabora] and Maurua [Maupiti], which were not visited by the Endeavour, are nevertheless depicted in detail. The inked outlines of others are ragged, and that of Ulieatea [Ra‘iatea] is highlighted in various styles as if it was a practise exercise. The rough pen hatching imitates Cook’s style, and the ink washes the style of Pickersgill or Molyneux. This chart, probably the only one remaining drawn by Tupaia’s own hand, is testimony to his apprenticeship of European cartography. Anne DiPiazzaandErikPearthree Figure 1. Sketch map of the Leeward Society Islands probably drawn by Tupaia. Copyright British Library Board, all 323 rights reserved (Add Ms 15508, n°18) 324 A New Reading of Tupaia’s Chart A BRIEF HISTORY OF TUPAIA’S CHART The map for which Tupaia is famous however is the “Chart of the Society Islands with Otaheite in the center…”. The original, presumably the one “…Drawn by Tupai’s own hands” is missing. Only Banks’ copy of it which bears the notation “Drawn by Lieut. James Cook 1769” has been preserved (Fig. 2) (Beaglehole 1955:293-94, fn.1). This document, now in the British Library was first published in the portfolio of “Charts and Views” by Skelton, accompanying Volume I of Beaglehole’s edition of Cook’s Journals (Beaglehole 1955). Bank’s copy has been reproduced with accuracy. Pairs of tiny pricked holes mark each island,3 apparently to help Cook transpose their exact positions by punching through the original into the copy. The Forsters, the father and son naturalists on Cook’s second voyage, made their own versions of Tupaia’s Chart. As early as 1778, J.R. Forster published an engraved map4 entitled: “A CHART representing the ISLES of the SOUTH-SEA according to the NOTIONS of the INHABITANTS of o-TAHEITEE and the Neighbouring Isles, chiefly collected from the accounts of TUPAYA” (Thomas et al. 1996 [following p. 201]). This was the version known as Tupaia’s Chart, until the Banks copy came to light in 1955 (Beaglehole 1955:293-94, fn.1). G. Forster’s map5 is a hand drawn sketch included in a letter to his publisher with instructions that it be included in his account of the voyage, which was published in 1777 (Thomas et al. 2000). In order to localise Tupaia’s islands, we have used Banks’s copy of Tupaia’s Chart. Its 74 islands make it the only one that matches Cook’s description. Also, Banks’s copy does not include the Forsters’ additions and misplacements of Tupaia’s islands onto a latitude-longitude grid to correspond with their own identifications. Previous Studies of Tupaia’s Chart Numerous authors have struggled with Tupaia’s Chart (Adam 1982; Dening 1963; Finney 1998; Hale 1846; Lewthwaite 1966, 1970; Quatrefages 1866; Sharp 1957, 1964; Smith 1898; Thomas et al. 1996; Turnbull 1998, 2000; White 1961). Yet the “reader is often confronted with pages of detailed map analysis and nary a map… [with] lists of archaic looking Polynesian names and their presumed identifications… appended for his enlightenment” (Lewthwaite 1970:3). This citation, both humorous and mordant, highlights two recurrent problems with the chart: identifying the islands and understanding their locations. Dening made a thorough review of previous identifications, while Lewthwaite turned and flipped quadrants of the chart, testing hypotheses about possible inversions of the cardinal directions, trying to make sense of the islands’ locations (Dening 1963; Lewthwaite 1966, 1970). If “[s]ome forty-odd names... [can now be] attached with more or less assurance to the map”, it still cannot be read like a proper chart and no matter how it is twisted, numerous islands remain in the wrong sectors (Lewthwaite 1970:11). Building upon these previous studies, we brought traditional way-finding concepts into play, believing that Tupaia’s Chart may best be understood as a local navigator’s attempt to teach Cook and his officers the directions to surrounding islands.

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