Cook’s Description of Hawaiian Heiau and Kapu

Record summary

James Cook’s third voyage encountered Hawai‘i during a period when heiau temples, priestly specialists, and kapu restrictions were active components of chiefly authority. His journals and expedition narratives describe temple spaces, offerings, images, funerary customs, and ritual protocols, although briefly and through European categories. The material offers a comparison with other Polynesian sacred complexes and with later Hawaiian accounts recorded after conversion. The historical picture is incomplete because Cook’s observers did not understand the language or the full social context of what they saw.