Grandma

William Parry's painting Sir Joseph Banks with Grandma and Dr. Daniel Solander , approx. 1775–76

Mai (* around 1751 , † 1780 ), known as Omai because of the Polynesian article O , was the first Polynesian to visit the British island and later return to his homeland.

Omai was the son of a landowner on the island of Ra'iatea . After fighting with attackers from Bora Bora , in which he lost his father, he had to flee to Tahiti as a child . It was there in 1767 that he witnessed the first contact between locals and English sailors under the command of Samuel Wallis .

In September 1773 Omai went in Huahine , a neighboring island of Tahiti, on board the Adventure , which accompanied James Cook and the Resolution on Cook's second South Sea expedition under the command of Tobias Furneaux . Omai made the acquaintance of Johann Reinhold Forster and his son Georg Forster and befriended, among others, James Burney, a brother of the writer Fanny Burney .

In July 1775 he reached England on the Adventure , now a full member of the ship's crew, where Joseph Banks and Lord Sandwich , the First Lord of the Admiralty (Minister of the Navy), took care of him. Titled as a prince, he was introduced to the highest circles, introduced to members of the Royal Society and even to the British King George III . He ordered him to be vaccinated against smallpox. As a result, he escaped the fate of his compatriot Autourou, who had already traveled to France with Louis Antoine de Bougainville in 1769 but died of smallpox on the return trip to Tahiti. Due to his casual and pleasant nature, Omai at times embodied the ideal of the so-called noble savage for his environment , in which natural innocence and aristocratic refinement are harmoniously combined. Omai has been painted several times, most recently by Sir Joshua Reynolds . The portrait hangs in the Tate Gallery today .

Omai returned with James Cook on his third voyage to the South Seas in 1776. Richly furnished, he settled on Huahine, where the English built a house for him. When William Bligh visited Tahiti with the Bounty in 1789, he learned that Omai had died about two and a half years after James Cook's departure in November 1777.

literature

• Eric H. McCormick: Grandmai. Pacific Envoy. Auckland University Press et al., Auckland 1977, ISBN 0-19-647952-5 .
• Eberhard Ostermann: Between two islands. Grandmai's adventurous journey from Tahiti. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, North Charleston SC 2013, ISBN 978-1-4812-7037-3 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Course of the Second Voyage , Cook Society
2. ↑ Saving the Omai Portrait , BBC News, March 26, 2003
3. ^ Richard M. Connaughton: Omai. The Prince Who Never Was. Timewell Press, London 2005, ISBN 1-85725-205-5 .

Web links

Commons : Omai  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Grandmai at the Captain Cook Birthplace Museum