ABSTRACT
This chapter reconsiders – in another place and in the light of both Māori and European world-views already described – two separate visits of captains James Cook in HMS Resolution and Tobias Furneaux in HMS Adventure on Cook’s second voyage to New Zealand, both before and after wintering in the South Pacific in 1773. On the return voyage from Tahiti via Queen Charlotte Sound they became separated in a storm at Cape Palliser, New Zealand. Cook arrived first and departed before Furneaux had even arrived, leaving him a message in a bottle “corked and waxed down”. In preparation for their own eventual departure, Furneaux’s men were sent to cut grass on Chief Kahura’s land at Wharehunga Bay. The consequences described here reveal how some aspects of Māori and European decision-making were influenced by quite different understandings of the world. Various reported Māori behaviours considered in the light of their ontological relationships with each other, with their things and their gods, show that Māori and Europeans inhabited different conceptual worlds where the possibilities for misunderstandings between them were great. A close examination of the mariners’ journals reveals how Europeans regarded the astronomer Bayly and his possessions. It is quite different than how Māori regarded them. The disparity played out in their relationships with each other gives some insight into why the “Grass Cove Affair” – as the final part of the eventual violent sequence is known – ended up so tragically.
