Cultural death

I will reflect on how the white civilizational dominance portrays the Polynesians to the white culture as people who needed a divine to make sense of themselves and which was actually consensual. This approach neglects the cultural essence of the natives and instead imposes a European sense of native culture. It is also evident in the dominant European historiography of Captain Cook. He is projected as the benevolent figure who “described” Polynesia for the European world. This word is important because it shows how the culture, then alien to the Europeans, was acquainted with them through a white person. It misses the voice of the people Cook talked about to his countrymen. Cook’s interaction with the Polynesians is depicted in children’s books as a white man’s noble gesture towards the natives. He is shown as a “decent” man who cared for the rights of humans and had “sympathy” for them. All these attributions for Cook portray him as the divine help welcomed by the natives. However, it treats the culture of the other in a reductionist manner by deeming a culture in need of being taught. His humble gestures are themselves an exercise of power on the natives. The love for them implies that they have lagged in the path towards rationality and as younger ones need care. There is also an underpinning assumption that these people need to be represented by the Europeans on their terms. In a figure which is part of a children's story, he is described as a “god of the tribe”. This story resonates through white culture because the kids and the students are taught about the European cultural superiority under the guise of a revered figure to the natives. Apparently, the story is about Cook’s apotheosis, but in fact, it has visual representations of his elevated figure. The propagation of Cook in the history books with a single narrative of his kindness towards the natives is a deliberate act to make him the embodiment of European cultural domination. It shows that European exploratory missions endeavored to elevate the natives to their moral standards.

Cook stands out from other colonizers because of his above-mentioned characteristics. Unlike others who, according to European references in the text, perpetrated violence in the colonies, he is seen as someone who upheld the standards of kindness and humanity. His interaction with other humans on “equal terms” shows that he elevated the rather inferior natives to the level of Europe. He inculcated the European moral codes in them and carved out a native similar to a European individual neglecting cultural differences between natives and the Europeans. Cook as an inculcator of humanity with no preconceived judgments about other cultures, hence, has contradictions. His bias is evident in his expression of kindness and benevolence because these gestures come after assuming that the natives needed a leader who would guide them towards true cultural progress. The creation of the god Lono was a deliberate implication of that European conception about the natives. This, in turn, shows how the native culture was reduced to the European view that the natives needed a divine figure who would guide them towards the straight path. The Hawaiians were depicted as if they did not have a conception of the outsider. The world was nothing but their community and whoever came from outside, was someone divine.