American Minute with Bill Federer
Herman Melville's classic novel Moby Dick, 1851, and how a Hawaiian Missionary saved an American sailor from cannibals
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"There she blows!" cried the lookout, sighting the great white whale, Moby Dick.
The classic book, Moby Dick, was written by New England author Herman Melville, published in 1851.
In the novel, Captain Ahab, driven by revenge, sailed the seas to capture this great white whale who had bitten off his leg in a previous encounter.
The crew of Captain Ahab's ship, the Pequod, included:
- Ishmael, the teller of the tale, which begins the line: "Call me Ishmael"-the name of Abraham's son who was sent away;
- Chief Mate Starbuck, a Quaker from Nantucket, for whom the Seattle-based coffee franchise took its name;
- Second Mate Stubb;
- Captain Boomer;
- Harpooneer Tashtego, a native American of the Wampanoag Tribe; and
- Harpooneer Queequeg, a tattooed Polynesian from a mysterious cannibal island in the South Pacific.
"Tattoo" originated from "tatau" or "tatu," which were body markings originally associated with natives, aborigines, cannibals and headhunters of Southeast Asian islands, such as:
Polynesia, Micronesia, Samoa, Tahiti, Tonga, New Zealand, New Guinea, Malagasy, and the Marquesas Islands.
"Tattoo" was first mentioned by naturalist Joseph Banks, who accompanied Captain James Cook on the ship HMS Endeavour as he explored the Pacific, 1768-1771:
"I shall now mention the way they mark themselves indelibly, each of them is so marked by their humour or disposition."
Sailors brought tattoos to port cities around the world, where, for a century, they were associated with salty sailors, rough working men, slaves, convicts, and circus sideshows.
In the 1956 film Moby Dick, actor Gregory Peck played Captain Ahab.
Ahab finally caught up with Moby Dick in the Pacific Ocean.
As fate would have it, when the harpoon struck Moby Dick, the rope flew out so fast it snagged Ahab, pulling him out of the boat.
Entangled in the harpoon ropes on the side of the great whale, the revenge-filled Captain Ahab was pull underwater to his death.
The angered Moby Dick then sinks the Pequod.
The only survivor was Ismael, who spoke a line from the Book of Job, “And I only am escaped alone to tell thee.”
Melville drew inspiration for his novel from the real life fate of a whaling ship from Nantuket, the Essex.
In 1820, under the command of Captain George Pollard, Jr., the Essex chased an enormous sperm whale thousands of miles west of South America.
The whale destroyed the ship, and killed most of the sailors.
The remaining sailors, enduring gruesome starvation, attempted to sail their whaleboat thousands of miles to land.
Only eight survived.
The story of the Essex was written down by its first mate, Owen Chase, and the cabin boy, Thomas Nickerson.
Nathaniel Philbrick retold the account in his award-winning book, In the Heart of the Sea (Viking Press, 2000), which was turned into a movie in 2015, directed by Ron Howard.
Whales were hunted primarily for their blubber, which was boiled down into whale oil.
This was the main source of oil throughout the early 1800s.
Whales were being hunted to the verge of extinction.
This suddenly changed when "Colonel" Edwin Drake drilled "The Drake Oil Well" on his Pennsylvania farm in 1859.
Soon the petroleum industry in Pennsylvania and Oklahoma developed which extracted oil from the earth, thus "saving the whale."
Decades later, Winston Churchill switched the British Navy from burning coal to oil.
Britain had limited sources of oil, such as one small oil field located in the Sherwood Forest of Nottinghamshire, and another in the British Crown Colony of Trinidad.
Oil was discovered in the Middle East, and in 1908, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company was formed, which later changed its name to British Petroleum (BP).
In the early 1900s, an Ottoman-German Alliance was formed in the to build a Berlin-Baghdad Railway.
Competition over access to oil in the Middle East, Britain-Iran versus Germany-Turkey, was a factor leading up to World War I.
(Get the book What Every American Needs to Know About the Qur'an-A History of Islam & the United States www.AmericanMinute.com)
In 1807, the American whaling ship Triumph left Hawaii for New England.
Two Hawaiian boys had stowed away aboard the ship, Henry Opukahai'a and Thomas Hopu.
In New England, they heard the Gospel and converted to Christianity.
Their stories inspired Hiram and Sybil Bingham to begin a missionary movement to the Pacific islands in 1820.
In 1822, African-American Betsey Stockton went to Hawaii on the second ship of Christian missionaries, being the first single female missionary sent out from America.
Betsey was the teacher at the very first mission school in Hawaii for common people.
In 1840, the whaling ship Acushnet left New England.
On board with the crew was the young Herman Melville on his first whaling voyage.
Herman Melville, born AUGUST 1, 1819, was the grandson of a Boston Tea Party "Indian."
At the age of 12, his father died.
His mother raised him, inspiring his imagination with biblical stories.
The Acushnet, after a year and a half at sea, visited the Marquesas Islands in the Southern Pacific.
The Marquesas Islands are considered by some as the remotest place in the world.
They were first visited by American Maritime Fur Trader Joseph Ingraham in 1791, who named them Washington Islands.
In 1813, Commodore David Porter claimed the islands for the United States, but Congress never ratified it.
France began claiming the islands in 1842.
At the Marquesas Islands, Herman Melville and his friend, Toby, jumped ship from the Acushnet, and deserted.
They climbed up high into the island mountains to avoid being arrested and carried back to the ship.
His friend, Toby, injured his leg in a fall.
They unfortunately fell among cannibals, where Melville and his friend were given sumptuous food and were befriended by a beautiful tribal maiden.
Tribesman adamantly forbade them from trying to leave the village.
Just before a big native feast, Melville's friend, Toby, suspiciously disappeared.
Melville was not allowed to be at the feast.
Afterwards, when Melville inquired about his friend's whereabouts, the tribesmen quickly changed the subject, leading Melville to suspect he was eaten.
When a small boat piloted by a passing native providentially came close to shore, Melville fought his way into the water and climbed into it, barely escaping with his life.
He wrote of the experience in his first book, Typee (1846), concluding:
"These disclosures will ... lead to ... ultimate benefit to the cause of Christianity in the Sandwich Islands."
The film, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006), has a scene of escaping cannibals on a South Pacific island.
In 1853, a native Hawaiian, Samuel Kauwealoha, sailed as a Christian missionary from Hawaii to the Marquesas Islands where he planted churches and started schools.
Titus Coan, the son-in-law of missionary to Hawaii Hiram Bingham, wrote in his 1882 account Life in Hawaii (ch. 13, The Marquesas Islands ... Hawaiians Send a Mission to Them):
"The missionary at this station was the Rev. Samuel Kauwealoha, a native of Hilo ... Pupils recited the Lord's prayer and the Ten Commandments, with some other lessons, in tones and inflections of voice which were soft and melodious."
Another missionary from Hawaii to the Marquesas Islands was James Kekela.
In 1864, James Kekela rescued an American seaman from death at the hands of angry cannibals in the Marquesas Islands.
In gratitude, Abraham Lincoln sent James Kekela an inscribed gold watch.
Robert Louis Stevenson related the story in his book, In The South Seas when he visited the Marquesas Islands in 1888-89:
"During my stay at Tai-o-hae ... a whole fleet of whale-boats came from Ua-pu ...
On board of these was Samuel Kauwealoha, one of the pastors, a fine, rugged old gentleman, of that leonine type so common in Hawaii.
He ... entertained me with a tale of one of his colleagues, James Kekela, a missionary in the great cannibal isle of Hiva-oa.
It appears that shortly after a kidnapping visit from a Peruvian slaver, the boats of an American whaler put into a bay upon that island, were attacked, and made their escape with difficulty, leaving their mate, a Mr. Jonathan Whalon, in the hands of the natives.
The captive, with his arms bound behind his back, was cast into a house; and the chief announced the capture to James Kekela ..."
Robert Louis Stevenson continued relating the story of Mr. Whalon's rescue from the cannibals:
"In return for his act of gallant charity, James Kekela was presented by the American Government with a sum of money, and by President Lincoln personally with a gold watch.
From his letter of thanks, written in his own tongue, I give the following extract. I do not envy the man who can read it without emotion.
'When I saw one of your countrymen, a citizen of your great nation, ill-treated, and about to be baked and eaten, as a pig is eaten, I ran to save him, full of pity and grief at the evil deed of these benighted people.
I gave my boat for the stranger's life ...
It became the ransom of this countryman of yours, that he might not be eaten by the savages who knew not Jehovah."
The New York Times published the article "Lincoln and the 'Cannibals'" by Jeffrey Allen Smith, Feb. 25, 2014:
"The American whaling ship Congress from New Bedford, Mass ... dropped anchor ...
Sailors lowered two longboats loaded with trade goods, and a small detachment of men led by the first officer, Jonathan Whalon, rowed toward the beach in Puamau Bay ...
Foolishly, Whalon went ashore alone with the Marquesans ... Once well inside the tree line, the Paumau men seized Whalon, stripped him of his clothes and bound him ...
Tribal members reportedly pinched him, tweaked his nose, bent his fingers back over his hands, menacingly swung hatchets at him and eventually began building a fire with which to cook him.
A Hawaiian missionary improbably named Alexander Kaukau (Kaukau is Hawaiian pidgin for "food" or "to eat") and Bartholomen Negal, a local German carpenter, tried and failed to dissuade Mato, the Paumau chief, from killing Whalon ...
Fate interceded with the arrival of another Hawaiian missionary, James Kekela, the first Hawaiian ordained as a Christian missionary and Kaukau's senior. He had fortuitously just returned from a neighboring island to reports of a 'white man is about to be roasted ...'"
(Get the book Miracles in American History-Vol. TWO: Amazing Faith that Shaped the Nation www.AmericanMinute.com)
The New York Times article continued:
"... Kekela donned his black preacher's jacket and, with only his Bible in hand, set off for Mato's village.
The negotiations were tense, and at one point Kekela declared he would trade 'anything and everything he possessed' for the sailor's release ...
Ultimately Kekela purchased Whalon's freedom with much less: his black preacher's jacket and prized whaleboat ...
Kekela returned Whalon to the waiting Congress, which sailed to Honolulu, where tales of 'cannibals' capturing an American sailor and Kekela's heroics prompted the American minister to Hawaii, James McBride, to write a note to Secretary of State William H. Seward.
McBride's letter, dated Feb. 26, 1864, detailed the harrowing events in the Marquesas and requested that Seward 'show to the world ... we have tender regard for each one of our number, and that we highly, very highly, appreciate such favors.'
Taking almost a month to make its way across the Pacific, the letter arrived on Seward's desk by April 18, 1864.
Three days later Seward replied that he had submitted McBride's account of the rescue to Lincoln and that the President had 'instructions' for the diplomat.
McBride was directed to 'draw on this department for five hundred dollars in gold' to purchase presents for Whalon's rescuers ...
On Feb. 14, 1865, McBride ... sent gifts to the Hawaiian missionary Kaukau, the German carpenter Negal and even the young Marquesan girl who warned the sailors in the two long boats ...
He gave Kekela two new suits and a gold Cartier pocket watch with the inscription,
'From the President of the United States to Rev. J. Kekela For His Noble Conduct in Rescuing An American Citizen from Death on the Island of Hiva Oa, January 14, 1864' ...
Kekela wrote a seven-page letter of thanks in Hawaiian ... retelling of how he saved 'a citizen of your great nation, ill-treated, and about to be baked and eaten, as a pig is eaten ...'
The heartfelt prose in Kekela's letter to Lincoln moved many, including Robert Louis Stevenson, who wrote in his book In the South Seas:
'I do not envy the man who can read it without emotion.'"
Robert Louis Stevenson recorded the words of James Kekela:
"(The Gospel) was planted in Hawaii, and I brought it to plant in this land and in these dark regions, that they might receive the root of all that is good and true, which is love ..."
James Kekela concluded:
"Great is my debt to Americans, who have taught me all things pertaining to this life and to that which is to come. How shall I repay your great kindness to me?
Thus David asked of Jehovah, and thus I ask of you, the President of the United States.
This is my only payment - that which I have received of the Lord, love-(aloha).'"
Herman Melville opened his classic novel, Moby Dick (1851), with a reference to the Bible story:
"With this sin of disobedience ... Jonah flouts at God ...
He thinks that a ship made by men will carry him into countries where God does not reign."
In 1983, The U.S. District Court stated in Crockett v. Sorenson:
"Better known works which rely on allusions from the Bible include Milton's Paradise Lost ... Shakespeare ... and Melville's Moby Dick ...
Secular education ... demands that the student have a good knowledge of the Bible."
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(Get William J. & Susie Federer's book Miracles in American History-Volume TWO: Amazing Faith that Shaped the Nation www.AmericanMinute.com)
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