Omai

Omai (Mai) (c. 1753–1778) was a man from Raiatea in the Society Islands who in 1774 volunteered to sail to England with Tobias Furneaux on the Adventure (the sister ship to the Resolution on James Cook’s second voyage of discovery). As a boy, Mai had fled Raiatea when it was attacked by people from the neighbouring island of Bora Bora. He took refuge in Tahiti and then Huahine, where Cook and Furneaux met him in 1773. On board the Adventure, Mai was tutored in English language and manners by the ship’s second lieutenant, James Burney, who described him as being ‘possessed of many great qualities’. Arriving at Spithead in 1774, Mai met with Lord Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty, and was placed in the care of Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander, who, with Burney, were among the few able to communicate with him. Banks installed Mai in his London residence; paid his bills for such things as clothes, wine and servants; and, with Solander, presented him to King George III and Queen Charlotte. While in London, Mai was introduced to such eminent figures as Samuel Johnson and Burney’s sister, Fanny, the novelist and diarist. Mai’s bearing and social skills made him a great success and he was embraced by London society as an embodiment of popular notions of the charm and sensuality of the South Seas. Mai also sat for his portrait to artists including Sir Joshua Reynolds and Nathaniel Dance, whose splendid representations of his ‘tall and very well made’ frame were then issued as engravings, evincing Mai’s appeal to the worldly eighteenth century imagination and the currency of ideas regarding the ‘Noble Savage’. For Mai, however, the London sojourn had a clear political agenda: to seek British support (and firearms) for a war by which he hoped to reclaim Raiatea from its invaders. Supplied with muskets and gunpowder among various other items, Mai sailed home with Cook when the navigator left on his third voyage in 1776. Fearing bloodshed should Mai return to Raiatea, Cook settled him on Huahine. Mai died there two years later.