Between 1768 and 1771, British sea Captain James Cook made the first of his great exploration voyages through the South Pacific. His ship, Endeavour, stopped at several of the islands where, by and large, the Polynesian population welcomed the voyagers. In turn, Cook’s crew worked to understand the cultures they encountered, but actually, neither the Brits nor the islanders really comprehended the other very well.

One stop was the island of Raiatea in what is today the Society Islands of French Polynesia. There, at a place called Taputapuatea, Cook saw a cluster of temples and massive stones that comprised the religious center of the island people. It is in ruins today, but Cook’s time, it was an active site of worship.

The native term for the place was marae, but because of the language and cultural barriers, Cook didn’t understand the significance of the site or the name. A Raiatean chief Cook befriended asked the name of Cook’s marae. Cook had learned the literal, narrow definition of the word ... “the place where our bodies return to the dust” ... and so he took the chief’s question to be, “Where will you be buried?” Cook answered by naming the London parish where his family lived.

For the islanders, though, marae had a larger meaning. It was an essential part of their social structure and their connection to their gods. Thus what the chief was really asking Cook was, “What place are you particularly identified with?” If Cook had understood the question, he probably would have had a harder time answering it, for he was a rover and he wasn’t really identified with any place. (The meaning of the marae and Cook’s conversation with the Raiatean chief are described by Tony Horwitz, Blue Latitudes [New York: Henry Holt & Company, 2002], 88-89.) But the chief could look at his marae and have a sense of identity, along the lines of “This place tells me who I am.”

For Christians, Calvary is the place tells them who they are.