Tupaia: The Remarkable Story of Captain Cook's Polynesian Navigator - Signed Copy

Random House, Auckland 2011. First edition. Illustrated hard cover in tidy condition. Minor fading to front cover and spine. Contents tight and clean. Signed by author on title page. 440pp with illustrations. This is a heavy book so please check postage with bookseller.
Tupaia sailed with Captain Cook from Tahiti, piloted the Endeavour about the South Pacific and was the ship's translator. Tupaia was a master navigator, a brilliant orator and a devious politician. Being highly skilled in astronomy, navigation, meteorology and an expert in the geography of the Pacific, he was able to name directional stars and predict landfalls and weather throughout the voyage from Tahiti to Java. Tupaia drew a chart of the Pacific that encompassed every major group in Polynesia and extended more than 4000 kilometres from the Marquesas to Rotuma and Fiji. Tupaia became one of the ship's important artists, drawing lively pictures to illustrate what he described and he could justly be called the Pacific's first anthropologist. Despite all this, Tupaia has never been part of the popular Captain Cook legend.