The Cook Voyages Encounters: The Cook Voyages Collections of Te Papa
A comprehensive guide to the objects associated with the voyages of James Cook held at New Zealand's National Museum
By Janet Davidson
Publication: October 2019
Pages: 288
Format: Hardback
ISBN: 978-0-9941362-8-2
RRP: $65.00
This title is out of print but some copies may still be available to buy via BookHub.
Almost 250 years after James Cook first sighted Aotearoa New Zealand in October 1769, there is still world-wide interest in all aspects of his three voyages of exploration in the Pacific between 1768 and 1779: discovery (by Europeans), astronomy, natural science, and interactions with indigenous communities. For many people, the ‘artificial curiosities’ – works of human manufacture from exotic locations – collected on these voyages by Cook himself and others on his ships, including super-numenaries and servants, have held a particular fascination.
In this handsome book, widely respected Pacific scholar Janet Davidson details the collection of Māori, Pacific and Native American objects associated with the voyages held at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, one of the few significant institutional collections that have not been fully described until now. Richly illustrated and accessibly written, it is a treasure trove.
Review highlights
The Journal of Pacific History, reviewed by Billie Lythberg. “Time and space fold in the presence of artefacts collected on these voyages and the descendants of those who made them. It is a testament to Davidson’s scholarship that her work makes such things possible.”
About the author
Janet Davidson ONZM is an eminent archaeologist who had a long career first at the Dominion Museum and then at Te Papa. A graduate of the University of Auckland, in 1965 she was the E. Earle Vaile Archaeologist at the Auckland Institute and Museum, an honorary lecturer at University of Otago and later Senior Curator, Pacific, at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. She is now an Honorary Research Associate at Te Papa. Janet’s career combined active and often pioneering fieldwork across the Pacific with an imaginative approach to museum research and display that attracted young scholars. She has published extensively on the prehistory of New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. She edited the New Zealand Journal of Archaeology from 1985–2008. She was also a major contributor to the Journal of the Polynesian Society. In 2007, a major archaeology publication, Vastly Ingenious: The Archaeology of Pacific Material Culture – in honour of Janet M. Davidson was published in her honour.
