Captain Cook's Shoes by Dr Tom Ryan

Mythologising the Great Explorer.

Through his voyages of exploration in the Pacific, Captain James Cook - or 'Kapeni Kuki' as he had become known to some ind
igenous communities in the region - became arguably the most famous living person on earth.
Following his death in Hawai'i in 1779, the process of mythologisation became, if anything, even more intense. Two-and-a-third centuries later, debate continues apace over Cook's 'true' place in history, the sites he actually or allegedly visited, and whether or not he was viewed at the time as a man or as a 'god'.

This presentation will critically review some of these debates, and reflect on the commonalities or otherwise in the mythologisation processes as manifested in Western and Pacific cultures respectively.

Dr Tom Ryan has postgraduate qualifications from the University of Auckland and Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, and for two decades has taught anthropology at the University of Waikato. He has undertaken intensive research on and about the Polynesian island of Niue, and published widely on the history of anthropology and the historical anthropology of the Pacific, including the voyages of Captain Cook. Currently Dr Ryan is president of the New Zealand Tertiary Education Union, based in Wellington.

In association with The University of Waikato in Tauranga.

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