Disclaimer: We are presenting this item as we received it, and we are describing what we see and what we found in our research. This bugbear is of the period, with entirely correct carving & engraving, but we cannot provide any written provenance for the item. It came from a collection out of England that included many pieces from the Anglo-Zulu War, and came without any provenance. If anyone has any further information on the piece or any further context, please do not hesitate to contact us. 

Original Item. One-of-a-Kind. On the final voyage of Captain James Cook, he commanded the HMS Resolution in an attempt to discover the fabled Northwest Passage between the Atlantic ocean and the Pacific coast of North America. After dropping Omai at Tahiti, Cook travelled north and in 1778 became the first European to begin formal contact with the Hawaiian Islands. This voyage would be Cook’s last, as during his visit to Hawaii on the way back in 1779, he was violently killed as he attempted to kidnap Kalaniʻōpuʻu, the ruling chief (aliʻi nui) of the island of Hawaii, after the native Hawaiians had stolen a longboat from Cook's expedition. This bugbear is engraved along the lid OWYHEE 1778 H.M.S. RESOLUTION, indicating that it was carved from a coconut taken in Hawaii (Owyhee is an older English spelling of Hawaiʻi, used in the late 18th and early 19th centuries) during that first European contact with the islands in 1778. There are almost no artifacts from this now-mythical voyage, the only exceptions being in museums, making this an extraordinarily scarce & once-in-a-lifetime offering.

The bugbear measures roughly 5½” in diameter and 6” tall including the lid. The coconut was expertly carved and hollowed out to allow it to be used as storage, likely for tobacco. It is correctly made with The lid has a lovely silver handle which is engraved along the edge OWYHEE 1778 H.M.S. RESOLUTION. Considering Cook’s second arrival at Hawaii was not until 1779, it is clear that this bugbear was carved & engraved from a coconut taken during that first European contact with the islands in 1778. Bugbears were almost always carved at sea while the sailor had all the spare time in the world, so this example was most likely taken from Hawaii in 1778 and carved at sea by a sailor aboard the HMS Resolution.

The bugbear comes on a lovely wooden stand built to display spherical artifacts. On the stand, the set measures roughly 8¾” tall. The bugbear is beautifully carved with floral motifs and patterns which are worthy of further research. The engraving on the lid is absolutely gorgeous and completely correct for the period.

This is a phenomenal and prestigious artifact from the first European contact with the Hawaiian Islands and final voyage of one of the most well-known figures in Naval history, James Cook. Comes ready for further research and display.

‘Bugbear’ coconut flasks were carved by sailors or soldiers on long sea voyages who visited the East or West Indies in the late 18th/early 19th centuries. The ‘green’ coconut shells were easier to carve before they dried, whilst they were still fresh. 

Edward H. Pinto, in his book ‘Treen and Other Wooden Bygones’, describes the coconut shell as ‘the raw material of all kind of nut treen’. He comments that: ‘Coconuts have also been used in their entirety as flasks, with carving used to accentuate the ‘bugbear’ marking’.

Pinto comments that: ‘often they are valuable as historic documents of costume and episodes’ and illustrates three of the finest quality carvings, which bear ‘the accentuation of the natural bugbear eyes into grotesque faces’. The largest of the nuts which Pinto depicts is a flask, also fitted with ‘eyes’ and a silver spout. There are examples of goblets and treen of similar workmanship attributed to French, English, Portuguese and Spanish sailors. French prisoners of war would carve them with a depiction of the Emperor Napoleon.

The Final Journey & Death of James Cook

Captain James Cook sailed from Plymouth on 12 July 1776. Clerke in the Discovery was delayed in London and did not follow until 1 August. On the way to Cape Town, the Resolution stopped at Tenerife to top off supplies. The ship reached Cape Town on 17 October, and Cook immediately had it re-caulked because it had been leaking very badly, especially through the main deck. When Discovery arrived on 10 November, she was also found to be in need of re-caulking.

The two ships sailed in company on 1 December and on 13 December located and named the Prince Edward Islands. Twelve days later, Cook found the Kerguelen Islands, which he had failed to find on his second voyage. Driven by strong westerly winds, they reached Van Diemen's Land on 26 January 1777, where they took on water and wood and became cursorily acquainted with the aborigines living there. The ships sailed on, arriving at Queen Charlotte Sound in New Zealand on 12 February. Here the Māori were apprehensive because they believed that Cook would take revenge for the deaths in December 1773 of ten men from the Adventure, commanded by Furneaux, on his second voyage. After two weeks, the ships left for Tahiti, but contrary winds carried them westward to Mangaia, where land was first sighted on 29 March. In order to re-provision, the ships went with the westerly winds to the Friendly Isles (now known as Tonga), stopping en route at Palmerston Island. They stayed in the Friendly Isles from 28 April until mid-July, when they set out for Tahiti, arriving on 12 August.

After returning Omai, Cook delayed his onward journey until 7 December, when he travelled north and on 18 January 1778 became the first European to visit the Hawaiian Islands. In passing and after initial landfall at Waimea harbour, Kauai, Cook named the archipelago the "Sandwich Islands" after the fourth Earl of Sandwich—the acting First Lord of the Admiralty. They observed that the inhabitants spoke a version of the Polynesian language familiar to them from their previous travels in the South Pacific.

From Hawaii, he went northeast on 2 February to explore the west coast of North America north of the Spanish settlements in Alta California. He made landfall on 6 March at approximately 44°30′ north latitude, near Cape Foulweather on the Oregon coast, which he named. Bad weather forced his ships south to about 43° north before they could begin their exploration of the coast northward. He unknowingly sailed past the Strait of Juan de Fuca and soon after entered Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island. He anchored near the First Nations village of Yuquot. Cook's two ships spent about a month in Nootka Sound, from 29 March to 26 April 1778, in what Cook called Ship Cove, now Resolution Cove, at the south end of Bligh Island, about 5 miles (8 km) east across Nootka Sound from Yuquot, a Nuu-chah-nulth village (whose chief Cook did not identify but may have been Maquinna). Relations between Cook's crew and the people of Yuquot were cordial, if sometimes strained. In trading, the people of Yuquot demanded much more valuable items than the usual trinkets that had worked for Cook's crew in Hawaii. Metal objects were much desired, but the lead, pewter, and tin traded at first soon fell into disrepute. The most valuable items the British received in trade were sea otter pelts. Over the month-long stay the Yuquot "hosts" essentially controlled the trade with the British vessels, instead of vice versa. Generally the natives visited the British vessels at Resolution Cove instead of the British visiting the village of Yuquot at Friendly Cove.

After leaving Nootka Sound, Cook explored and mapped the coast all the way to the Bering Strait, on the way identifying what came to be known as Cook Inlet in Alaska. It has been said that, in a single visit, Cook charted the majority of the North American northwest coastline on world maps for the first time, determined the extent of Alaska, and closed the gap between the Russian (from the west) and Spanish (from the south) exploratory probes of the northern limits of the Pacific.

By the second week of August 1778, Cook was through the Bering Strait, sailing into the Chukchi Sea. He headed northeast up the coast of Alaska until he was blocked by sea ice at a latitude of 70°44′ north. Cook then sailed west to the Siberian coast, where he was unable to pass a point he called Cape North, today's Cape Schmidt. He then followed the Siberian coast southeast back to the Bering Strait. By early September 1778 he was back in the Bering Sea to begin the trip to the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands. He became increasingly frustrated on this voyage, and perhaps began to suffer from a stomach ailment; it has been speculated that this led to irrational behaviour towards his crew, such as forcing them to eat walrus meat, which they found inedible. From the Bering Strait the crews went south to Unalaska in the Aleutians where Cook put in on 2 October to again re-caulk the ship's leaking timbers. During a three-week stay they met Russian traders and got to know the native population. The vessels left for the Sandwich Islands on 24 October, sighting Maui on 26 November 1778.

The two vessels sailed around the Hawaiian Archipelago for some eight weeks looking for a suitable anchorage, until they made landfall at Kealakekua Bay, on the west coast of Hawaii Island, the largest island in the group, on 17 January 1779. During their navigation around the islands, the ships were accompanied by large numbers of gift-laden canoes whose occupants came fearlessly aboard the vessels. Palea, a chief, and Koa'a, a priest, came aboard and ceremoniously escorted Cook ashore where he was put through a long and peculiar ceremony before being allowed back to the ship. Unbeknown to Cook, his arrival coincided with the Makahiki, a Hawaiian harvest festival of worship for the Polynesian god Lono. Coincidentally, the form of Cook's ship, HMS Resolution—specifically the mast formation, sails, and rigging—resembled certain significant artefacts that formed part of the season of worship. Similarly, Cook's clockwise route around the island of Hawaii before making landfall resembled the processions that took place in a clockwise direction around the island during the Lono festivals. It has been argued that such coincidences were the reasons for Cook's (and to a limited extent, his crew's) initial deification by some Hawaiians who treated Cook as an incarnation of Lono. Though this view was first suggested by members of Cook's expedition, the idea that any Hawaiians understood Cook to be Lono, and the evidence presented in support of it has been challenged.

After a month's stay, Cook got under sail to resume his exploration of the Northern Pacific. However, shortly after leaving Hawaii Island, the foremast of the Resolution broke and the ships returned to Kealakekua Bay for repairs. It has been hypothesised that the return to the islands by Cook's expedition was not just unexpected by the Hawaiians, but also unwelcome because the season of Lono had recently ended (presuming that they associated Cook with Lono and Makahiki). In any case, tensions rose and a number of quarrels broke out between the Europeans and Hawaiians. On 14 February at Kealakekua Bay, some Hawaiians took one of Cook's small boats. Normally, as thefts were quite common in Tahiti and the other islands, Cook would have taken hostages until the stolen articles were returned.

Indeed, he attempted to take hostage the King of Hawaiʻi, Kalaniʻōpuʻu. The Hawaiians prevented this when they spotted Cook luring King Kalaniʻōpuʻu to his ship on a false pretext and sounded the alarm. Kalaniʻōpuʻu himself eventually realized Cook's real intentions and suddenly stopped and sat where he stood. Before Cook could force the king back up, hundreds of native Hawaiians, some armed with weapons, appeared and began an angry pursuit, and Cook's men had to retreat to the beach. As Cook turned his back to help launch the boats, he was struck on the head by the villagers and then stabbed to death as he fell on his face in the surf. Hawaiian tradition says he was killed by a chief named Kalanimanokahoowaha. The Hawaiians dragged his body away. Four marines, Corporal James Thomas, Private Theophilus Hinks, Private Thomas Fatchett, and Private John Allen, were also killed, and two others were wounded in the confrontation.

The esteem in which he was nevertheless held by the Hawaiians caused their chiefs and elders to retain his body. Following the practice of the time, Cook's body underwent funerary rituals similar to those reserved for the chiefs and highest elders of the society. The body was disembowelled and baked to facilitate removal of the flesh, and the bones were carefully cleaned for preservation as religious icons in a fashion somewhat reminiscent of the treatment of European saints in the Middle Ages. Some of Cook's remains, disclosing some corroborating evidence to this effect, were eventually returned to the British for a formal burial at sea following an appeal by the crew.