Tupaia, Captain Cook's Polynesian Navigator

He was an expert navigator who drew a chart of the Pacific encompassing 2,500 miles and locating nearly 100 islands totally unknown to Europeans. This man was also a translator, an artist, a high priest, a brilliant orator, and a most devious politician. A European polymath? No, merely the greatest known Polynesian navigator of the 18th century.

Tupaia sailed with Cook from Tahiti, piloted the Endeavour across the South Pacific, and interceded on behalf of the European voyagers with the warr...