S1-E44: Tahiti: Greeks of the South Seas

Podcast 05 November 2025

For several weeks, the HMS Resolution anchors off the coast of Tahiti. Georg Forster and his father explore the island’s rich botany—yet it is the tangled web of royal succession, secret love affairs, and political upheaval that most deeply marks their stay.

In vivid detail, we hear how Queen Oberea, once honored by Captain Wallis, is now only a visitor bearing pigs. Her former husband Ammo—reduced to obscurity. Power has shifted to a young king, O-Tuh, whose army drills with war canoes and whose sister slips nails into her robes while smiling sweetly.

"Hiwa Bretanni": As night falls over Tahiti, fireballs rise from the masts of the HMS Resolution—thunder and starlight conjured by foreign hands. For thousands watching from the shore, it is both spectacle and omen. – Click on the image to listen to this episode on YouTube.

Meanwhile, a stolen musket threatens peace, and Cook enacts retribution by seizing sacred canoes. A dazzling firework display follows—Hiwa Bretanni, the British Festival—leaving awe and unease behind.

This is a portrait of an island caught between myth and modernity. Between Homeric war drills and whispered betrayals. Between the volcanic peaks and the flickering lights of empire.