Sketch of Omai  

MEDIA RELEASE COURTESY OF: AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM

The Australian National Maritime Museum has acquired three outstanding South Seas artefacts that make a direct link with James Cook and his 1770s exploration of the Pacific.

The pieces – two carved wooden clubs and a rounded hand club carved from whalebone – were collected from Polynesian communities on the navigator’s second voyage (1772-75).

Their cultural significance is enhanced by their close association with Omai who joined this expedition at Huahine (Society Islands) and became the first Polynesian to be taken to England.

Omai (pronounced My) is now recognised as the most famous South Sea Islander of the great age of exploration. Unlike Tupai who joined Cook’s Endeavour expedition but died at Batavia (Jakarta), Omai reached his destination on the opposite side of the world.

He captivated the upper levels of London society and had his portrait painted by some of England’s most celebrated artists before he returned to Huahine on Cook’s third expedition in 1777.

There were two ships on Cook’s second expedition: HMS Resolution, commanded by Cook, and HMS Adventure, commanded by Tobias Furneaux. Omai travelled on the Adventure and became Furneaux’s friend.

The Polynesian man accompanied Cook and Furneaux when they landed at Tongatapu (Tonga) in October 1773. It was here the visitors received the two wooden clubs as gifts from the islanders.

Furneaux received the whalebone hand club when the expedition visited Queens Charlotte Sound, New Zealand, in December the same year.

Soon after arriving in England Furneaux took Omai to his home at Swilly, near Plymouth, to meet his family. It was here he also took his South Seas treasures, and the three clubs remained with his family in that house until the property was sold in 1920.

The three artefacts, now widely known as Omai Relics, remained in the Furneaux family collection until they were sold in 1986.

The Australian National Maritime Museum has purchased the three clubs from a private vendor for $622,750. It was assisted with funding of $100,000 from the Australian Government’s National Cultural Heritage Account.

“The vendor wanted to ensure that the three pieces remain together as an intact collection,” the museum director, Mary-Louise Williams, said today. “We are delighted to ensure they stay together and that the collection remains in Australia for everyone to see.”

Ms Williams said very few objects of such historical significance and unquestionable provenance from the European exploration of the Pacific remain in private ownership.

The three pieces are themselves rare and beautiful, but they are even more significant as ethnographic objects created before there was any thought to satisfy European taste or appeal to a European ‘souvenir’ market.

The two Tongan clubs, 1150 mm long in wood, are flared in shape. Both have complex geometrical patterns carved along their length. The Maori hand club, carved from whalebone, is 430 mm long without any decorative features. All three pieces are in exceptionally good condition.
The buying price is in line with values established in comparable museum purchases in recent years, Ms Williams said today.

These new acquisitions will add depth to the Australian National Maritime Museum’s collections relating to Cook, the European exploration of the Pacific and the interaction between Europeans and the Indigenous people of Australia and the Pacific islands.

“We are focused on James Cook and his expeditions,” she said. “We have the magnificent replica of HM Bark Endeavour which is open here as a floating museum for a large part of the time but also voyages regularly to other ports on the Australian coast.

“We have been actively involved in the search for remains of the original Endeavour on the floor of Newport Harbour in Rhode Island USA, and we have significant historical objects – like the sternpost of HMS Resolution and other related material – in our National Maritime Collection.”

Ms Williams said the Omai Relics will go on display at the museum in time for the busy Christmas – New Year holiday season.