Tupaia (navigator)

He died in December 1770 from a shipborne illness contracted when Endeavour was docked in Batavia for repairs ahead of its return journey to England.

I therefore have resolved to take him ...I do not know why I may not keep him as a curiosity, as well as some of my neighbours do lions and tigers at a larger expense than he will probably ever put me to; the amusement I shall have in his future conversation and the benefit he will be to this ship as well as what he may be if another should be sent to these seas, will I think fully repay me."

He was welcomed aboard at the insistence of Sir Joseph Banks, the Cook expedition's official botanist, on the basis of his evident skill as a navigator and mapmaker: when asked for details of the region Tupaia drew a chart showing all 130 islands within a 2,000 miles (3,200 km) radius and was able to name 74 of them.

[4] Banks welcomed the Raiatean's interest in travelling with Endeavour to England because of his usefulness for the ship as well as the envisaged conversation and amusement (possibly even genuine friendship according to Australian researcher Vanessa Smith).

[3] As Cook at first refused to allow Tupaia to join the expedition for financial reasons, Banks agreed to be responsible for the Raiatean's welfare and upkeep while on board.

[5] As Cook intended to spend several weeks in the Society Islands before heading south, Tupaia assisted the expedition as an interlocutor and interpreter with local tribes.

His grandfather and father had passed to Tupaia the knowledge as to the location of the major islands of western Polynesia and the navigation information necessary to voyage to Rotuma, Samoa and Tonga.

[7] It was also assumed that Cook was less pleased than Banks with Tupaia's evident navigational skills, resolving instead to rely on his own exploration of the region.

Tupaia invented a cartographic system for Cook and his men which located a northern bearing from any island he drew in the centre of his Chart (marked by the word 'avatea', this is '[the sun at] noon').

One, midshipman Joseph Marra, recorded that:Toobia ... was a man of real genius, a priest of the first order, and an excellent artist: he was, however, by no means beloved by the Endeavours crew, being looked upon as proud and austere, extorting homage, which the sailors who thought themselves degraded by bending to an Indian [sic], were very unwilling to pay, and preferring complaints against them on the most trivial occasions.

Cook recorded his passing in his journal: "He was a Shrewd, Sensible, Ingenious Man, but proud and obstinate which often made his situation on board both disagreeable to himself and those about him, and tended much to promote the deceases that put a period to his life.