1-629-275 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'A Human Sacrifice in a Morai, in Otaheite; in the presence of Captain Cook', c1773. Captain James Cook and his officers watching a group of Tahitians chanting as a man and some pigs are prepared for sacrifice on the island of Otaheite (Tahiti). This is one of the events witnessed by Cook, the famed navigator and hydrographer, during the second of his three exploratory voyages to the Pacific region in 1772-1775 when they crossed latitude 70 degrees - the furthest south then reached by Europeans. These voyages transformed our knowledge of the region. From Story of the British Nation, Volume III, Walter Hutchinson. [London, c1920s]