This engraving is after a drawing by John Webber from John Hawkesworth's account (1773) of the voyages of Captain James Cook, Joseph Banks and Captain John Byron.

Captain James Cook (1728-1779) made three separate voyages to the Pacific (with the ships Endeavour, Resolution, Adventure, and Discovery) and did more than any other voyager to explore the Pacific and Southern Ocean. Cook not only encountered Pacific cultures for the first time, but also assembled the first large-scale collections of Pacific objects to be brought back to Europe. He was killed in Hawaii in 1779.

Cook was in Mangaia in the Cook Islands from March 29-30th, 1777.

In Hawkesworth's account, a descriptive account of the men is given: we learn that they were dressed with only a girdle between their legs (the maro), that they wore beads, knotted their hair on the crown of their head and held it together with a string of cloth.

One Mangaian man was induced to come on board the Resolution where, through Omai's services (Omai was a Pacific islander that travelled back to England with Cook), he was questioned about his island. He was called Mou'rooa (also Mourua and Kavoro). Anderson made an indirect reference to him when he described the ear-lobes of the Mangaians, nothing that they were 'pierc'd or rather slit, in which one of them stuck a knife.'

This engraving probably depicts Mou'rooa.


Loosely bound in album with PAI3893-PAI3897, PAI3899-PAI3936.; Plate No.11.