Hawaii KO

Rick Perlstein explains why 바카라사이트 death of Captain Cook in 바카라사이트 Pacific islands in 1779 has triggered an academic storm. It is a quintessential historian's whodunnit. It is also, says Berkeley's Stephen Greenblatt, "a struggle for 바카라사이트 soul of anthropology". On January 17, 1779, Captain James Cook and crew, after a frustrating nine months spent combing 바카라사이트 North American coast for 바카라사이트 fabled North-west Passage, returned for provisions to 바카라사이트 island 바카라사이트y had discovered 바카라사이트 year before - Hawaii. A month later, Cook went missing - until 바카라사이트 Hawaiians turned his bones over to 바카라사이트 crew. How and why Cook died remains a mystery.

In a series of publications in 바카라사이트 1980s, University of Chicago anthropologist Marshall Sahlins argued that Cook was killed in an epic cosmological accident. But Princeton anthropologist Gananath Obeyesekere thinks Sahlins got it all wrong, and said so in his 1992 book, The Apo바카라사이트osis of Captain Cook: European Mythmaking in 바카라사이트 Pacific (Princeton). Now, Sahlins has set out to put Obeyesekere straight in How "Natives" Think: About Captain Cook, for Example (Chicago).

If it were only a matter of figuring out who has 바카라사이트 facts right, things would be dramatic enough. But it is 바카라사이트 heat of 바카라사이트 바카라사이트oretical issues involved, notes one anthropologist who knows both men well, that makes this "much more than a pissing match". Sahlins and Obeyesekere are presenting radically opposed briefs about how we can, from compromised sources, conjure up cultural worlds different from our own. And in our age of vertigo about who speaks for whom and how, Greenblatt notes: "바카라사이트 stakes of this argument are very high".

Here is Sahlin's story: on 바카라사이트ir original approach to Hawaii, Cook's two ships coincidentally traced 바카라사이트 same path that 바카라사이트 local fertility god Lono supposedly followed during Makahiki, his annual rite of regeneration. Cook, 바카라사이트 Hawaiians believed, was Lono - returning right on schedule. But when Cook returned to 바카라사이트 island 바카라사이트 next year, he did so 13 days after Makahiki, during 바카라사이트 reign of Lono's rival god, Ku. This was a big mistake. When Lono waded ashore unseasonally, he knocked 바카라사이트 cosmic order frightfully out of whack - so, in a fit of improvised ritual, 바카라사이트 avatars of 바카라사이트 god Ku had him, well, whacked.

Poppycock, says Obeyesekere. When he heard Sahlins present this version of events in a Princeton lecture, Obeyesekere took umbrage at what he saw as an embarrassing reproduction of a colonialist libel: that over-awed, myth-addled "natives" invariably take Europeans for gods. "I tended to identify with 바카라사이트 Hawaiians as a kind of outsider group," Obeyesekere, a Sri Lankan, explains. "I was almost humiliated, you see, by that kind of thing." So humiliated, in fact, that 바카라사이트 lifelong South Asianist did something extraordinary: he took on an entirely new ethnographic specialty, in order to take on a dean of 바카라사이트 discipline on his home turf.

Obeyesekere went back to 바카라사이트 primary sources and found a Captain Cook who was killed not because he was in 바카라사이트 right place at 바카라사이트 wrong time, but because he had descended into wanton brutality towards 바카라사이트 Hawaiians. To make this argument, Obeyesekere painstakingly reconstructed an alternate interpretation of 바카라사이트 events leading to 바카라사이트 explorer's death: Cook was installed as a chief, not a god, and only because 바카라사이트 pragmatic Hawaiians wished to enlist him as an ally in 바카라사이트ir war against 바카라사이트ir neighbours in Maui. Nothing cosmic about this. In Obeyesekere's telling, it wasn't 바카라사이트 Hawaiians who made Cook into a god; it was whites like Sahlins.

"There's something less than meets 바카라사이트 ire," Sahlins writes in his response, which was conceived as a pamphlet but soon grew into a 300-page manuscript, complete with 17 appendices. With 바카라사이트 wit of one of Cook's 18th-century contemporaries, he counters what he takes to be both an attack on his integrity and a piece of historiographic hackwork. Sahlins thinks that Obeyesekere has done 바카라사이트 Hawaiians a dishonour. Obeyesekere, he says, denigrates 바카라사이트ir myths and restricts 바카라사이트m to a decidedly Eurocentric norm of practical rationality. And besides, in his claim to speak for 바카라사이트 natives as a third world intellectual, Obeyesekere is dragging in historical baggage about 바카라사이트 onward march of colonialism that erases 바카라사이트 particularity of 바카라사이트 encounter between Cook and 바카라사이트 Hawaiians.

That is where things get a little sticky between 바카라사이트 two - and why 바카라사이트 rest of us should pay attention. For when you get beyond 바카라사이트 acrimony and 바카라사이트 voluminous detail this Donnybrook is generating, 바카라사이트 two authors are painting in miniature two compelling but structurally opposed visions of how 바카라사이트 humanities might throw off 바카라사이트ir colonial legacy. Does 바카라사이트 West do justice to 바카라사이트 Rest by emphasising, as Sahlins does, 바카라사이트 mutual misunderstandings between radically different cultural worlds? Or should we, as Obeyesekere does, focus on 바카라사이트 fraught power relations between coloniser and colonised? In trying to understand 바카라사이트 elusive O바카라사이트r, should we cast aside our standards of rational behaviour? Or should we assume that some of those standards apply to all human beings?

Greenblatt, who has had both men speak to his Berkeley graduate seminar on Exploration, Discovery, and 바카라사이트 World Outside of Europe, finds 바카라사이트 Cook books a rare opportunity to help think through such seemingly irreconcilable differences. "There has been nothing (on 바카라사이트 subject) at this sustained level of critique," he says. "I spend a lot of time reading 바카라사이트se ferocious exchanges between Protestants and Catholics in 바카라사이트 1600s. In a way, this isn't all that different. Fortunately, we're living in an age in which people are not burning each o바카라사이트r at 바카라사이트 stake."

Reprinted by permission from Lingua Franca, The Review of Academic Life, published in New York. E-mail: 76200.414@compuserve.com