Captain James Cook As God Of The Natives History Essay

Captain James Cook As God Of The Natives History Essay In anthropology one of the famous debates associated with the understanding of religious rituals and historical events about the death of Captain James Cook, the British discoverer of Hawaii. Whether the Hawaiian native took Captain Cook as their returning God Lono, or whether this may have been an understanding of apotheosis under the European myth model, in this essay I will analyse the anthropological debate, and in a similar case of apotheosis in which the discoverer of Mexico, Hernan Cortes was taken for the returning god QuetzalCoatl, according to records. A debate between Marshall Sahlins (1981, 1985, 1989, 1995) and Gananath Obeyesekere (1992) regarding the apotheosis or meaning of Hawaii’s discoverer Captain James Cook, has become quite famous in Anthropology. Captain Cook the leader of the English exploration ship â€Å"Resolution† came to Hawaii on January 17, 1779 and died by the native Hawaiians on February 14, 1779 (Beaglehole 1974; Hough 1995). On one si de of the debate, Sahlins disgusts that Cook’s death fits within the Hawaiians’ Makahiki calendrical rituals, where Cook is known as the returning God Lono and, his life must be ritually claimed by chief Kalaniopuu, who in turn is known as Lono’s rival God, Ku (1981:11). Cook’s case is tried to show Sahlins’s structural understanding of culturally attached historical processes (1981:7). On the other side of the debate, Obeyesekere questions Sahlins’s analysis is that his historical sources were taken for granted, and their credibility was not completely checked (Obeyesekere 1992:66-67). Furthermore, he disgust that Cook’s death was accidental. (Obeyesekere 1992:20). One of the most important points where the Sahlins-Obeyesekere debate appears to be important is the question of Captain Cook’s apotheosis or, promotion by the Hawaiians native. Obeyesekere makes a difference between â€Å"apotheosis† â€Å"(which he defines as a European myth of white man taken as a God by natives)†, and â€Å"deification† â€Å"(a Hawaiian custom in which a dead chief is conferred a God status)† (1992:91) Obeyesekere questions the apotheosis of Captain Cook as a fact. In his opinion, the apotheosis is a mystification which he attributes to the European imagination of the 18th century. His hypothesis is based on the myth models â€Å"pertaining to the redoubtable explorer cum civiliser who is a God to the natives† (Obeyesekere 1992:3). Obeyesekere claim that it is the Europeans that created the â€Å"European God for the natives,† therefore forging a myth of victory, imperialism and civilization (1992:3). Captain Cook as the God Lono Much of the debate of Captain Cook’s apotheosis seems to come from the issue of being called Lono, the name of one of the chief God in the Hawaiian temple. The problem comes from Cook’s classification as Lono is central to the alternative in terpretation suggest by Obeyesekere, which suppress Sahlins’s hypothesis on Captain Cook’s apotheosis. Cook’s name â€Å"Lono† is related with a variety of cases, the most unlikely being Hawaii’s political crisis at the time of Cook’s arrival and the potential need to give him a status that would guarantee his bond in Hawaiian warfare. Obeyesekere finds proof in the ship’s journals that Cook was identify as a human (1992:76). The ship’s officers acknowledge that Lono is a name given to other highly placed people. For this reason many had interpreted Lono as a title, when truly is a title.