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Tupaia

Tupaia is the name of:

  • Tupaia (navigator) — an 18th-century Tahitian navigator, arioi ("high priest") of local noble lineage, who accompanied Lt. James Cook as navigational guide on the latter's famous first voyage of discovery in HM Bark Endeavour. Tupaia died in Batavia of the disease malaria in 1770 whilst Lt. James Cook visited the dry docks for urgent repairs to the HM Bark Endeavour.
  • Tupaia - a genus of treeshrew (order Scandentia)
Tupaia (navigator)

Tupaia (also known as Tupaea) (c. 1725 – December, 26 1770) was a Tahitian Polynesian navigator and arioi (a kind of priest), originally from the island of Ra'iatea in the Pacific Islands group known to Europeans as the Society Islands. His remarkable navigational skills and Pacific geographical knowledge were to be utilised by Lt. James Cook, R.N. when he took him aboard HMS Endeavour as guide on its voyage of exploration to Terra Australis Incognita. Tupaia travelled with Cook to both New Zealand and Australia, acting as the expedition's interpreter. He died in December 1770 from a shipborne illness contracted when Endeavour was docked in Batavia for repairs ahead of its return journey to England.

Tupaia (genus)

Tupaia is a treeshrew genus in the family Tupaiidae that was first described by Thomas Stamford Raffles in 1821. The name of this genus derives from the Malay word tupai meaning squirrels or small animals that resemble squirrels.

Usage examples of "tupaia".

The grovelling Mole and creeping Shrew are as unlike the sprightly Tupaia, as it springs from branch to branch, whisking its long bushy tail, as it is possible to conceive.

He mentions that on one expedition the famous Captain Cook had onboard a Tahitian named Tupaia who, apart from being the island chief, was also a navigator priest.

Cook was astounded at the detailed knowledge Tupaia had - without charts or instruments - of a vast area of the Pacific spanning roughly the size of the Atlantic from the U.

During a voyage to Hawaii, more than two thousand miles away, Tupaia always knew the direction in which his home island, Tahiti, lay.

Among several men whose early deaths are much to be lamented as a loss to scholarship, was Tupaia, a Tahitian priest and navigator who had joined the expedition as a refugee from the political disturbances of his homeland.