On the other hand, the 137 islands of the Hawai'ian archipelago have developed an independent design language over the past 1000 years. Because of the islands’ abundant bird life, hundreds of thousands of sacred red and rare yellow feathers were used to make feathered cloaks (ahu 'ula), feathered helmets (mahiole), and feathered gods (ki'i hulu manu) like nowhere else in Polynesia. Hawai'ian bark bast (kapa) had a much wider range of colors and patterns than the brown-black ngatu of Tonga or the white-yellowish tapa of Tahiti. Such differences were noticed by Captain Cook and his fellow travelers, who traded hundreds of “South Seas curiosities” in Hawai'i. James Burney, for example, Cook’s escort officer on his second and third voyages around the globe, was able to replenish his “collection” at Owhyhee/Big Island not only with sacred bark cloth, but also with the sacred feather image of a deity.
The unusual willingness of the Polynesians to place sacred items in the hands of strangers probably had to do with a momentous misunderstanding: When the two British ships anchored in Kealakekua Bay on Big Island on January 17, 1779, Captain Cook was mistaken by the locals for a glorious returning ancestral god, Lono-i-ka-Makahiki, and was celebrated accordingly. Cook cared little about correcting this mistake. Not only did he receive plenty of provisions, but was also received by the supreme leader (ali'i nui) Kalaniop'u on January 26, 1779, during a ceremony in which a large number of valuable Hawaiian cultural artifacts were presented to the British.
In the end, however, the divine treatment could not save James Cook from dying in the same place, in Kealakekua Bay: First Cook and his crew had left Hawai'i, then mast broken during a storm forced them to return, but in the meantime, a taboo (kapu) against anchoring in Kealakekua had come into force When the British disembarked and the Hawai'ians seized one of the ship’s boats, Cook attempted to take high-ranking Hawaiian ali'i hostage in order to regain the boat. A scuffle ensued, during which the captain opened fire on advancing Hawai'ian warriors, and Cook was subsequently stabbed to death by them. The two ships of Cook’s third expedition finally returned to England in 1780 without their famous captain.