1785 The Natche, a Great Feast for the King's Son at Tongataboo
DESCRIPTION
The Natche ceremony held for the son of the king of Tonga appears in this excerpted plate from the French edition of the official account of Captain Cook's third voyage.
In it, a long line of men in wrapped cloths files across a clearing with poles borne on their shoulders, while others carrying staves attached with fishes bring up the rear at right. Great crowds sit along the edges of the ground and in a ring beneath a low wooded mound, and a massive tree spreads over a fenced enclosure at right. The caption reads "Natche, ou grande fête en l'honneur du fils du roi de Tongataboo," or "The Natche, a great feast in honor of the son of the king of Tongataboo."
Cook's Third Voyage
Captain James Cook's third and final voyage, aboard the Resolution and Discovery from 1776 to 1780, crossed the Pacific by way of Tonga and Tahiti before sailing north to the coast of northwest America, Alaska, and the Aleutian Islands. Cook was killed in Hawaii in 1779, and his ships returned home under other commanders. The expedition's artist, John Webber, recorded the people, places, and objects they encountered, and his drawings were engraved for the official account published in London in 1784. A French translation followed in Paris in 1785, with its plates re-engraved under the direction of Robert Bénard.
CONDITION
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