Polynesian navigator sketching Lobster exchange

Tupaia, Captain Cook’s Polynesian navigator, sketched a Maori man exchanging a large, live spiny lobster for a piece of cloth when the Endeavour landed in New Zealand in 1769. (VIA)

How the invaded recorded the invaders

The earlier post of the Inuit carving of a Viking reminded my of Julia Blackburn's 1979 book 'The White Men, the first response of aboriginal peoples to the white men'. It's a collection of drawings, artefact and stories that remind us that just as 'they' entered our history, we entered theirs. The book begins with an excellent foreword by Canadian anthropologist Edmund Carpenter and continues with a zillion documents from Africa, North America, Oceania and Indonesia illustrated with artworks. The texts are a bit much for me but the images are stunningly fascinating as you can see for yourself in the small sample below. 

West African legend says that the white men came from a hole in the ground, a mud sculpture from Nigeria.

Fully rigged ship on a New Caledonian bamboo pole (1850ties).

Portrait of a missionary from the Western Congo. (1930-40ties)

Mask of a sailor from the West Coast of Africa around 1900.

Nicobar Island scare-devil in the form of a policeman.

Cave Painting in Arnhem Land showing the recent surge of European visitors. (1940ties)

A 1850ties Eskimo seal skin showing whales, ships and people. A map? 

A Dutch couple depicted by a South African bushman in the mid 1850ties.

Papua New Guinean Christ after WWII

Brass bracelet made by the Dogon in Mali.

How the Skraeling saw the Norse

This figurine was made between 1250 and 1300 and records the meeting of the Skraeling coming from the west and the Norse coming from the east in a short period of a warmer climate. It was found on Baffin Island, it 's 5,3cm high, carved from driftwood (though my books says walrus ivory), in typical Inuit style but showing western clothing with a cross incised at the chest.