RELICS OF CAPTAIN COOK.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XL, Issue 5804, 8 May 1912, Page 8

RELICS OF CAPTAIN COOK.

A VALUABLE COLLECTION

Some valuable and interesting relics of Captain Cook have arrive;! n Wellington, and are \o- be placed in the Dorrimion Museum, w tore part of the collection will be exhibited as soon as .an be arranged. Included amongst ■the*" relic; are the feathered cloak ?nd helmet j.auti.ularly described in Captain Cook's journal as having been presented to him by the Chiei Tcrrcobjo (Tiarreboo, or Tairapu) shortly before his death. The chief him?clf threw the cloak over Cook, and placed his hdnr-'t on iii- head the natives tt that time regirding Cook almost a-.? a god. There'is a! o in the collection a cloak made principally of the black feathers of the povvhee bird, bordered with red and yellow; a fly'fli.ker belonging to Captain Cook, , the handle being made of the arm bone of a chief taken in battle; a military gorget worn by tho warriors of Otakeite, two nose futos from the Sandwich Manas, a very line cutting knife edged with * hark"'s teeth; two idols and jadestone from New Zealand; pears, war ciubs^ paddles, and arrow-; waist cloth of mother of pe<ri; an African horn, two African fans, and a pouch; flint and ban:- instruments, and so on.

The collection has been presented to the Government and people of New Zealand by Lord St. Oswald, in whose family they have been since 1819.

What is" believed,.to be a genuine relic of Captain Cook is in the possession of a well-known native resident of Waingake, Poverty Bay. whp holds it as a treasured heirloom. It is an ancient axe, which, according to Maori tradition, was given by Captain Cook to an important Maori chieftain of the Mahia Penimula in 1769. Many natives were living at Mahia at the time, the three leading chieftains respectively being Whenuariri, Kahntia, and Powhero. It is related that the latter, considering Captain Cook to be merely the chief of a strange war party, desired to put him to death, but was restrained by the two other chiefs. To the latter Captain Cook made a present of an aye each, while to his would-be executioner he. handed some cabbage seeds. It is one of these axts that is claimed to be the historic family heirloom held by a direct descendant of Whenuariri.