James Cook

I was amused by this British sea shanty about Captain Cook:

I tried to sing a cover with my banjo and Dobro:

Once I wrote about Cook (for amazon):
Like the great explorer Magellan, so also James Cook was killed at the end by natives. Too much, he probably had exploited that the Polynesians in Hawaii had mistaken him for a while with the expected god “Lono”. By his insensitive occurrence (he simply took as firewood fences of burial grounds) the positive mood of the islanders soon was destroyed. Cook, a little too high-handed, did not notice this.

The natives, becoming more and more frosty, made Cook only more imperious in his reactions. The warning signs that a dinghy was stolen (as a tribute to the previously somewhat unjust barter) – such warning also led no new patterns of behavior into Cook’s head. Is it any wonder that his head was soon after, trapped by two or three thousand Hawaiians, was cut off?

One can understand that the natives would have liked to avoid its discovery by Cook. Even the modest admirer and contemporary Georg Christoph Lichtenberg said: “Ambition and desire for wealth were probably the main motives of his actions.” On the other hand reported Lichtenberg: “The people of Ulietta sent first a girl and a pig to Captain Cook, a sign of friendship against both types of hunger..” Apparently one can forfeit good friendships also.

related: my amazon book review:
http://www.amazon.de/James-Cook-Otto-Emersleben/dp/349950569X

enjoy YouTube: