Thank you for downloading this episode of A History of the World in 100 Objects from BBC Radio 4.
In 1778, the explorer Captain James Cook was in the Pacific on board HMS Resolution, looking for the Northwest Passage,
hoping to find a sea route over the north of Canada that would connect the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans.
He didn't find the Northwest Passage, but he did redraw the map of the Pacific.
He was charting coastlines and islands, collecting specimens of plants and animals.
In 1778, he and his crew landed in Hawaii, returning again early in 1779.
It's impossible for us to imagine what the islanders made of these European sailors,
the first outsiders to visit Hawaii for over 500 years.
Whoever the Hawaiians thought Cook was, however, they presented him with the gift of a chieftain's helmet,
a rare and precious object made of yellow and red feathers.
Cook recognized it as an acknowledgment by one ruler of another, a clear sign of honor.
But a few weeks later, Cook was dead, killed by the same people who had given him the helmet.
Something had gone drastically wrong.
The object is enormously significant as an expression of a particular moment of the very beginnings of European contact with Hawaii,
the very beginnings of a complex, very troubled history marked by moments of generosity and respect,
but also violence, misunderstanding, long-term cultural damage.
The idea that this is for the future so that everyone can understand the way
that the Hawaiian people experienced the world as well as how they want to share that.
A History of the World in 100 Objects.
Hawaiian Feathered Helmet, from the 18th century.