Omai in Yorkshire

E.H. McCORMICK

The extract on these pages is from E.H.McCormick's book, Omai: Pacific Envoy, a comprehensive account of the first Polynesian to visit Britain, which is to be published in August by the Auckland and Oxford University Presses. This passage describes Omai's visit to Yorkshire in the summer of 1775. By this time he had been in England more than a year and had travelled widely with his patron Joseph Banks. In July 1776 Omai left England with Captain Cook, reaching the island of Huahine in September 1777. The bicentenary of that event will be marked by an exhibition, The Two Worlds of Omai, to be held in The Auckland City Art Gallery.

Omai's travels had extended even farther in the weeks since the Resolution's return. On parting from Sandwich and Miss Ray early in August, Banks journeyed north with his friends until they reached York where they were joined by the playwright George Colman and his son, another George, then in his thirteenth year. After attending the races, they set off on an expedition which long remained in the memory of Colman the Younger and found a place in the diffuse and elaborately facetious reminiscences he aptly entitled Random Records. There were six in the party - the Colmans, Constantine Phipps, his youngest brother Augustus (a boy of George's age), Omai, and his 'bear-leader and guardian', as Colman termed Banks...

They 'rumbled' from York in a coach, the 'ponderous property' of Mr Banks, 'as huge and heavy as a broad-wheeled waggon', yet not too huge for its contents. Besides the half-dozen inside passengers, it carried the luggage of Captain Phipps, 'laid in like stores for a long voyage': 'boxes and cases cramm'd with nautical lore, - books, maps, charts, quadrants, telescopes, &c. &c.' Even more formidable was Mr Banks's 'stowage': 'unwearied in botanical research, he travell'd with trunks containing voluminous specimens of his hortus siccus in whitey-brown paper; and large receptacles for further vegetable materials, which he might accumulate in his locomotion.' Their progress, 'under all its cumbrous circumstances', was still further retarded by Mr. Banks's indefatigable botanizing. They 'never saw a tree with an unusual branch, or a strange weed, or anything singular in the vegetable world, but a halt was immediately order'd... ' Then out jumped the botanist, out jumped the two boys, and out jumped Omai. This was the excursion Banks had forgone in the previous summer, and their destination was the Phipps family estate at Mulgrave near Whitby; but instead of taking the direct inland route they travelled by way of Scarborough.

F BARTOLOZZI
Omai, a Native of Utaietea, 1744
engraving after a drawing by N. Dance, 464 x 291 mm.
(collection of The British Museum)

It was from an eminence near the town that they saw 'the German Ocean' and George had his first glimpse of the sea. He was hugely disappointed, and 'peremptorily pronounced' it 'nothing more than a very great puddle; - an opinion which must have somewhat astounded the high Naval Officer, who had not long return'd from his celebrated Voyage of Discovery towards the North Pole, and the Philosopher who had circumnavigated the globe.'

On reaching Scarborough, George ran from the inn to the beach and early the next morning returned 'to take a dip, as the Cockneys call it'. He was on the point of plunging in from a bathing-machine, he relates, when Omai appear'd wading before me. The coast of Scarborough having an eastern aspect, the early sunbeams shot their lustre upon the tawny Priest, and height'ned the cutaneous gloss which he had already received from the water; - he looked like a specimen of pale moving mahogany, highly varnish'd; not only varnish'd, indeed, but curiously veneer'd; - for, from his hips, and the small of his back, downwards, he was tattow'd with striped arches, broad and black, by means of a sharp shell, or a fish's tooth, imbued with an indelible die, according to the fashion of his country.

Omai hailed George as 'Tosh' - He had, on Colman's doubtful authority, greeted His Majesty with "'How do, King Tosh?" - and invited the boy to join him. George complied and, clinging to the islander's back, set out, 'as Arion upon his Dolphin'. But this Arion had no musical instrument to play, 'unless it were the comb which Omai carried in one hand, and which he used, while swimming, to adjust his harsh black locks, hanging in profusion over his shoulders.' His 'wild friend', Colman noted, 'appear'd as much at home upon the waves as a rope-dancer upon a cord' and safely delivered his passenger after spending three-quarters of an hour in the North Sea (the supreme test, surely, of Omai's adaptability and physical stamina).

Awaiting them on the shore were the other members of the party - Augustus, 'vex'd' that he was not with them, Colman Senior, a little grave at his son's being so 'venturous', the captain and the philosopher, laughing heartily as they called George 'a tough little fellow'. Henceforth, he wrote, Omai and he were constant companions.

The friendship thus begun continued to flourish when they reached Mulgrave. The commander of the North Pole expedition and the visitor to the South Seas, disdaining any game more common than a penguin or a bear, left the grouse on neighbouring moors to hired keepers. But Omai entered into the sport with abandon. Now quite familiar with European weapons, he 'prowl'd upon the precincts', gun in hand, popping at 'all the feather'd creation which came in his way; and which happen'd, for the most part, to be dunghill cocks, barn-door geese, and ducks in the pond.' Sometimes, as Colman tells, he reverted to his own more primitive methods of hunting: One day, while he carried his gun, I was out with him in a stubble field, (at the beginning of September,) when he pointed to some object at a distance, which I could not distinguish; - his eye sparkled; he laid down his gun mighty mysteriously, and put his finger on my mouth, to enjoin silence; - he then stole onwards, crouching along the ground for several yards; till, on a sudden, he darted forward like a cat, and sprang upon a covey of partridges, - one of which he caught, and took home alive, in great triumph.

His treatment of other livestock could be quite as ungentlemanly. On another occasion, 'with the intent to take a ride', he seized a grazing horse by the tail, whereupon 'the astounded animal gallop'd off, wincing and plunging, and dragging his tenacious assailant after him, till he slipp'd from his grasp', leaving Omai in the mire but miraculously unhurt. 'He was not always so intrepid:' Colman continues, ' - there was a huge bull in the grounds, which kept him at a respectful distance; and of which he always spoke reverentially, as the man-cow.'

S.N. BUCK
Scarborough in 1745
detail of an engraving,
242 x 780 mm.
(collection of
The Victoria & Albert Museum)

Encouraged by George, Omai continued his efforts to master English, while he in' turn introduced the boy to his native tongue: 'reciprocally School-master and Scholar', they began by pointing to objects which each named in his own language. From words they advanced to phrases and short sentences until at the end of the first week they could hold something like a conversation, 'jabbering to each other between Otaheitan and English.'

At the same-time, under the tutelage of their elders, the two boys were extending their knowledge in other directions. Banks explained the rudiments of Linnaean system in a series of nightly lectures, the first of which he illustrated by cutting up a cauliflower, and early every morning sent them to gather plants in the woods. Captain Phipps for his part organized expeditions to open 'the tumuli, or Barrows, as they are vulgarly call'd'.

Since their archaeologizing took place at some distance from the house, they dined in a tent on dishes which they prepared themselves. Banks made very palatable stews in a tin machine, but 'the talents of Omai shone out most conspicuously; and, in the culinary preparations, he beat all his competitors.' As before at Hinchingbrooke, he built an earth oven to practise 'the Otaheitan cuisine', using English substitutes for native commodities: 'he cook'd fowls instead of dogs. . . for plantain leaves, to wrap up the animal food, he was supplied with writing paper, smear'd with butter; - for yams, he had potatoes; for the bread fruit, bread itself, - the best homemade in Yorkshire.' Nothing, Colman decided, could have been 'better dress'd, or more savoury' than Omai's dish; and he singled out for praise the special flavour, that 'soup(:on of smokiness', imparted to the fowls by 'the smouldering pebble-stones and embers of the Otaheitan oven'.

One of Captain Phipp's guests lost no time in writing of their bucolic pleasures and exotic repasts to a friend who was equally prompt in his reply. 'My dear Colman,' David Garrick addressed the playwright on 29 August, 'I expect to see you as brown and hearty as a Devonshire plough-boy, who faces the sun without shelter, and knows not the luxury of small beer and porter. He sent compliments to 'those mighty adventurous knights', Banks and Phipps, if Colman was still risking his neck with them, and referred knowingly to their rustic feasts: 'I must lick my fingers with you, at the Otaheite fowl and potatoes; but don't you spoil the dish, and substitute a fowl for a young puppy?' He passed on obscure items of theatrical gossip - Foote had thrown the Duchess of Kingston 'upon her back' (in his Trip to Calais), Miss Pope the actress had sent her 'penitentials' - and spoke hopefully of his infirmities. He had been upon the rack since Colman left him, Garrick confessed, but at the Duke of Newcastle's an old Neapolitan friend commended a remedy which had worked wonders. Now his spirits were returned and he even meditated authorship on his own account. 'By the bye', he announced, 'I had some thoughts to make a farce upon the follies and fashions of the times, and your friend Omiah was to be my Arlequin Sauvage; a fine character to give our fine folks a genteel dressing.'

(Copyright@ 1977 The Auckland and Oxford University Presses)