Context (Other owners)
The object was entered into the deposit register at MAA.
Event Date 18/3/1914
Author: Remke Velden

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Description (Physical description)
Catalogue card 1: 'A large paddle, neck & haft carved.'

Event Date 1/8/1995
Author: maa

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Description (Physical description)
Catalogue card 2: 'Large carved paddle.'
Event Date 1/8/1995
Author: Remke Velden

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Context (CMS Context)
The Captain Cook Collection, comprising eighty-three objects, was originally presented to Trinity College by the Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty; Found: ?East coast; Collected by: Cook.Captain.J in 1771.
Literature: See ‘Artificial Curiosities’ (1978), A. Kaeppler, p.202, figures 402-404 p.202. Evidence: Sandwich collection. Given by Cook, probably from the second voyage. Kaeppler states (p.202), ‘Some canoe paddles collected on Cook’s voyages are beautifully decorated with painting on the blades similar to painting used on house rafters, some with relief carving at midpoint or end, some with images carved on the blades in relief and some are undecorated’. Also see Shawcross, 1970, pp.320-321. (J.Tanner, June 1998).
Also see ‘The Maori Collection at the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology’ by Peter Gathercole in ‘Taonga Maori Conference’ (1990). (J.Tanner, November 1998). cf. Paddle in “James Cook: Gifts and Treasures from the South Seas” (1998), edited by Brigitta Hauser-Schäublin and Gundolf Krüger, p. 302, fig. 113. The text states, ‘The simple paddles were mostly 120 to 150 cm long, the steering paddles being longer....Some of the paddles feature paintings on the blades, similar to those found on rafters with the kowhaiwhai motif. Some have carved decorations at the end or in the middle of the shaft, or on the blade....The steering paddles were nearly always straight , the simple paddles however often featured a bend. The Maori paddled while kneeling, whereby the women also paddled. Steering paddles from famous canoes had their own names’. (J. Tanner; February 1999). cf. Paddle in “Te Maori” (ed) S.M. Mead, 1984:227:154-5. (J. Tanner, 1999). See ‘From Pacific Shores: Eighteenth-century Ethnographic Collections at Cambridge - The Voyages of Cook, Vancouver and the First Fleet’ (J. Tanner, 1999:32).

Cook Collection: Captain James Cook undertook three world voyages around the globe from 1768 - 1779. The stated purpose of the first voyage (1768-1771) on the HMS Endeavour was to send a Royal Society team to observe the transit of the planet Venus from the vantage point of newly discovered Tahiti. However, the primary governmental motivation behind the first expedition was to establish the existence of 'Terra Australis Incognita' or the 'Great Southern Continent', which was believed to exist in order to balance the great northern land mass. Cook set sail from Plymouth on Friday 26th August 1768 and headed to South America, round Cape Horn and westwards to carry out the experiment in Tahiti, and then went on to circumnavigate the globe in pursuit of the presumed continent.

The purpose of the second voyage (1772-1775) on the HMS Resolution and the HMS Adventure was to extend the search for the 'southern continent'. They sailed from Plymouth on 27 June 1772 and headed directly south past Cape Town and then set out on an eastward course of circumnavigation, crossing the Antartic Circle several times en route in an effort to seek the imagined continent. The third voyage (1776-1780) on the HMS Resolution and the HMS Discovery, was concerned with the search for a Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. They sailed from Plymouth on 13th July 1772, heading first for the Society Islands from whence they set course to search for the Northwest Passage. However, Cook was killed in Hawaii in 1779 and his command was taken up by Charles Clerke.

More than 2000 extant pieces can be traced from Cook's voyages (Kaeppler:1978), of which UCMAA has 215 identified objects. The majority of the material at UCMAA was collected from the Pacific, but also includes objects from the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America, the Northeast Coast of Asia and Tierra del Fuego in South America. Furthermore, all the three voyages are represented by objects in UCMAA's collection. (J. Tanner, 1999).
Event Date 1/8/1995
Author: maa

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Description (Physical description)
Julia Tanner (1998): 'Long, plain handle, with finial carved into several open loops. Elongated eye-shaped blade, with faint geometric painting. Slightly bulbous tip to blade, and a piece missing from one edge. At junction of blade and handle is a highly carved and raised section. Possibly paddle for war canoe.'
Event Date 1/6/1998
Author: Remke Velden

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Context (CMS Context)
Catalogue card 1 reads [handwritten in black ink:] 'Dep. 14.67 N.Zealand. A large paddle, neck & haft carved. (70".5 x 6") Cook, Colln ex Trin Coll.'
Catalogue card 2 reads [handwritten in blue ball point:] 'D.1914.67 New Zealand. Large carved paddle. Trinity Loan Coll.' [Red circular sticker top right of card.]
Event Date 9/5/2013
Author: Heather Donoghue

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Loan (Exhibition)
Tate Britain, London, 17/11/2015 to 18/04/2016, Artist & Empire
Event Date 17/11/2015
Author: rachel hand

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Context (CMS Context)
On July 6th 2015 Maori carver Steve Gibbs visited the museum and said the following about the paddle: 'Carving system called Toawaro comes from an area in New Zealand known as Uawa’a. The paddle was functonal as the bubble at the top of the paddle would have either been to catch water or drop water as the paddle moved through the water. The design is mangao pare represents the hammerhead shark in the centre and kuru fern frond. So the overall design is mangao pare kuru. On the faded side is the kape design, representing a squid known as ngu. Manaia are carved onto the handle and near the paddle. Manaia figure is where the energy is needed, the strongest part of the blade when moving through the water. The way the paddle is carved represents knowledge of the water.'
Event Date 14/12/2015
Author: alison clark

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Context (CMS Context)
On 12 October 1769, seven Maori canoes paddled out from the east coast of New Zealand south of Poverty Bay to investigate a large ship. The vessel was the HMS Endeavour, captained by Captain James Cook, and this was the first time the Maori people had encountered a European.

They were at first reluctant to approach the ship but then, according to the diary of ship’s surgeon William Monkhouse, “very soon enter’d into a traffick with our people for [Tahitian] cloth… giving in exchange their paddles (having little else to dispose of) and hardly left themselves sufficient number to paddle a shore.”

Two examples (D 1914.67- 67) of these finely carved and decorated paddles are held by MAA where an innovative research project ‘Artefacts of Encounter’ has been working with Polynesian communities to understand what the earliest Europeans to visit the Pacific Islands made of the people they met, and what those people made of them.

Rather than turning to the written evidence of Europeans, the researchers have placed at the heart of their investigation the objects the Polynesians gave in exchange for goods. For the Polynesians, the paddles and pots, feathered cloaks and woven helmets, nose whistles and shell horns are often the only surviving evidence of a contact with other cultures that happened centuries ago.

“Artefacts help us to study what parties on either side of the encounters were trying to achieve through these seminal transactions,” explained researcher Dr Julie Adams. “They help us to consider new evidence of the nature of these encounters and of the changes in social practices, ideas and beliefs they engendered, both in the Pacific and in Europe. Artefacts are key to understanding how socio-cultural change unfolds.... The paddles would have been part of a set used to paddle a waka taua, a large canoe embodying the spiritual potency (mana) of a kin-group personified by their chief. They were probably given as a gift to Tupaia, the Tahitian priest-navigator-interpreter who accompanied Cook and his men to New Zealand, possibly in an effort to bind him and his own mana to the local genealogical networks.”


Tupaia was to die of typhus at Batavia and his possessions were brought back to Britain, where they were sent by Lord Sandwich, then Lord of the Admiralty and Cook’s patron, to Trinity College, Cambridge, in October 1771. After being exhibited for many decades in Trinity College Library, they were deposited in the Museum in 1914.


The project has taken a lead from present-day Polynesians, who assert strong ancestral interests in these encounters and their artefacts. A key aspect of the project has been collaboration with a Māori tribal group, Te Aitanga a Hauiti (represented by the arts management group Toi Hauiti) – whose forefathers encountered early European explorers from the arrival of Cook in 1769. For six months, Carl Hogsden worked with Toi a Hauiti to help create a digital research network that allows the Cambridge-based system to share content with a digital archive under development by the Maori community and local web developers, CodeShack.

“This work forms the basis for a reciprocal relationship between networked research hubs where ownership and control of information lies with the source,” explained Hogsden. “Although the networked content is collaboratively produced, the interpretation of digital objects differs. This is important because the Maori community views objects in a highly relational way – everything is connected to everything else – and so whereas our database is object-centric, theirs is relationship-centric. The two databases can nonetheless talk to each other and share content.”

For the paddles, members of the project team visited New Zealand to discuss the objects with the Ngai Tamanuhiri tribe, whose ancestors were probably part of the party who paddled out to the Endeavour in 1769. The importance of the paddles as early examples of kowhaiwhai painting has been recognised by those engaged in the revitalisation of Maori arts, and research is in progress to establish their genealogical connections to present-day Maori communities.

[From an article http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/features/captain-cooks-maori-paddles-an-artefact-of-encounter, accessed 2015.7.27]
Event Date 27/7/2015
Author: Rachel Hand

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Context (CMS Context)
Exhibited at Tate Britain in 'Artist and Empire', 23 November to 10 April 2016. Paddle D 1914.66 was requested but D 1914.67 was sent instead.
Event Date 21/4/2016
Author: Remke Velden

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Loan (Exhibition)
Tairawhiti Museum, Gisbourne., 1/10/2018 to 1/10/2019, 250th anniversary of meetings between tangata whenua and the crew of the Endeavour
Event Date 1/10/2018
Author: rachel hand

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Description (Physical description)
Paddle with long, plain handle, with finial carved into several open loops. Elongated eye-shaped blade, with faint geometric painting. Possibly paddle for war canoe.
Event Date 5/6/2018
Author: Remke Velden

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Research Visit (Anthropology)
RES.2018.2477 | Filming of objects for the BBC4 documentary 'Oceans Apart'.
Event Date 5/6/2018
Author: Remke Velden

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Loan (Exhibition)
Royal Academy of Arts, 14/09/2018 to 09/12/2018, Oceania
Event Date 14/9/2018
Author: Rachel Hand

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Loan (Exhibition)
Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, Paris , 11/03/2019 to 07/07/2019, Oceanie
Event Date 11/3/2019
Author: rachel hand