Tupaia: Captain Cook's Polynesian Navigator

Tupaia sailed with Captain Cook from Tahiti, piloted the Endeavour about the South Pacific, and was the ship's translator. Lauded by Europeans as an "extraordinary genius," Tupaia was a star navigator, a brilliant orator, and a most devious politician. Being highly skilled in astronomy, navigation and meteorology, and an expert in the geography of the Pacific, he was able to name directional stars and predict landfalls and weather throughout the voyage from Tahiti to Java.

Though, like all P...