A helmet’s voyage

In ancient Hawai‘i, feathered helmets, mahiole, and cloaks, ‘ahu‘ula (of which the National Gallery of Australia has a small but beautiful example), were the reserve of ali‘i, the top rank of the ruling chiefly elite. Both were signs of nobility and, more importantly, of the wearer’s closeness to divinity. In 1971, Australia’s Commonwealth Art Advisory Board purchased a mahiole at auction in London for the future National Gallery of Australia’s Pacific arts collection. Not much was known about the helmet’s history until recently, when a small, typed note on Warwick Castle letter-headed paper, which was tucked away in an archival file of correspondence, came to light.

Purchased without its covering of yellow, red and black feathers, the battered old helmet was a shadow of its former self. However, the finely made basketry at its core remained, and layered over it was exceptionally intricate netting that, on close inspection, showed the tiny remnants of feathers that would have once broadcast its wearer’s considerable prestige and status. At its prime, it would have resembled the helmet John Webber recorded in A chief of the Sandwich Islands 1787.

The most important aspect of both the mahiole and ‘ahu‘ula was the feathers, which were collected by specialists, who plucked then released the birds from which they came. The black and sacred yellow feathers were from the ‘ō‘ō, a species of bird that became extinct in the 1930s, while the red feathers were from the ‘i‘iwi, the tiny Hawaiian honeycreeper. Red feathers held great mana and protected the wearer of such objects.

The netting and binding of the feathers to a mahiole was done by priestly artists, who worked accompanied by the singing of ritual prayers to ensure the feather’s spiritual power, or mana, was absorbed into the helmet to protect the wearer’s head, the seat of a noble person’s mana. To wear red was to be next to godliness, as red was an important colour associated with divinity.

In 1778, Captain James Cook was the first outsider to visit Hawai‘i and was received with gifts of the finest craftsmanship, as Lieutenant James King recorded during one of the landfalls: ‘We conducted them into the tent, where they had scarcely been seated, when the king rose up, and in a very graceful manner threw over the captain’s shoulders the cloak he himself wore, put a feathered helmet upon his head, and a curious fan into his hand’. Within a few decades, by the 1820s, the era of the ali‘i and the use of feather helmets and cloaks had dissipated.

The note from Warwick Castle about the helmet acquired by the National Gallery read: ‘Dear Mr Kelson, Mr Howard Ricketts has forwarded a letter to me regarding a Hawaiian Helmet. I regret that we have no knowledge of when it came into the collection here. Yours Sincerely, Lord Brooke’. Brendon Kelson was the then secretary of the Commonwealth Art Advisory Board, whereas Lord Brooke was the 8th Earl of Warwick, David Robin Francis Guy Greville.

Not much is disclosed by Lord Brooke’s words, but what the note reveals is that the helmet came from Warwick Castle. This is an important piece of information and led me to an enquiry into the helmet’s most likely path from Hawai‘i to the seat of the Greville family, the Earls of Warwick and one of the wealthy great houses of England. One member of the family, Charles Francis Greville, who spent the latter part of his life at Warwick Castle, until 1806, stands out as a notable collector and seems most likely to have received the helmet into the castle’s collection. But from whom?

Sir Joseph Banks is the most likely candidate. The two had been close friends since they were young men in the 1760s, and Banks even honoured Greville by naming the Australasian Grevillea after him. The very famous Banks built significant collections of flora, fauna and material culture — then known as ‘Artificial Curiosities’ — during his wide-ranging travels. He was, of course, the leader of the Royal Society scientific expedition team on Cook’s first Pacific voyage of 1768–71, and it is documented that Pacific objects collected by Banks during this voyage made their way into the Warwick Castle collection. So, it is very plausible that the mahiole was a gift from Banks to Greville.

Banks gave away many artefacts and natural history specimens to important dignitaries, patrons, colleagues, friends and the British Museum. But not everything Banks gave away was collected on his voyages. Many were items given to him by a variety of people, and were from a variety of places. He is noted, for example, for giving a Hawaiian feathered cloak to his secretary despite never having visited Hawai‘i himself. Similarly, with regard to the helmet, if it were (as it seems likely) a gift between friends, we can be sure it was not collected directly by Banks.

Could the helmet have made its way to Greville through another channel, though? After Cook’s death on the shore in Hawai‘i in 1779, it was seven years before another western ship visited in 1786, and perhaps less than 10 official British ships visited Hawai‘i by the time of Greville’s death in 1809. There were some 60 to 70 visiting ships to Hawai‘i between 1786 and 1806, but these were mostly American whalers, British sandalwood traders and other entrepreneurs in the South Seas, even Chinese traders. But all these are improbable sources for the helmet to find its way to Warwick Castle.

There is a slim possibility the mahiole was collected on the voyage of Captain George Vancouver, who visited Hawai‘i three times between 1791 and 1794. Banks had some association with Vancouver. But, with scant information available, their link might have been slight indeed. Cook and Banks, however, did have a strong connection, and Banks and Greville had a very strong one. While it would not have come from Cook to Banks directly, Banks had a relationship with another high-ranking figure on Cook’s third voyage, so the helmet may still have been among the 25 collected on the expedition. The location of 16 of these helmets is known today. Could the National Gallery’s mahiole be one of nine now missing? It is possible, but difficult to prove definitively.

Once Cook famously met his fate at the hands of the Hawaiians, Captain Charles Clerke of HMS Discovery took up command of the expedition and continued to explore the northern Pacific coast in search for a navigable northwest passage before making the long journey back to England. Clerke was undoubtedly of high enough status to receive gifts from Hawaiian ali‘i chiefs, and it is recorded that he was presented with a feathered cloak. Also being given at least a single mahiole is then highly likely. He was on all three Cook voyages and had built a good relationship with Banks on the first expedition. And Hawaiian objects that Banks gave to the British Museum are now known to have been from Clerke originally.

Clerke had been unwell for the entire third voyage. He had tuberculosis, which had reduced him to skeletal thinness during the last months of the expedition. He understood he was dying and wrote a will five days before his death on 22 August 1779, his 38th birthday. His will is a list of his worldly goods to bequeath to family, colleagues and friends, and it included the following: ‘To my honoured friend Joseph Banks esquire of New Burlington Street, all my Curiosities Natural and Artificial which I have collected in the course of this voyage, in token of my gratitude and respect for his friendship’.

While much of the evidence is circumstantial, this rare survivor from Hawai‘i’s ruling elite of the 18th century may yet prove to be one of those known to have been collected during Cook’s third and final voyage. We know that gifts were presented to Cook, Clerke and others who were seen as equals in the eyes of the ali‘i elite — the gifts intended to create strong, friendly and rewarding relationships. And we know that Clerke bequeathed objects from Cook’s third voyage to Banks, and that Banks often gifted these objects on. One of these gifts may well have been a mahiole to his close friend Greville, who was a collector. More research is required to find concrete links in this tantalising historical puzzle, but the possibility is intriguing.