Italian imposter starts to wear out welcome

By ELEANOR BLACK

High above the breaking waves of Poverty Bay, a European imposter has been tricking the people of Gisborne for three decades.

In the city which prides itself on being the site where Captain James Cook first set foot on New Zealand soil, an Italian statue has been masquerading as the explorer since 1969, when the city celebrated the bicentenary of his landing.

It was not until 1999 - when the Historic Places Trust set the record straight with a plaque admitting that the Italian's identity was a mystery - that most locals realised they had been duped.

This week, the city's leaders - tired of the jokes - called for submissions from the public on what to do with the "crook Cook," who is now regarded as a character in his own right and, for the most part, a harmless oddity.

Suggestions for dealing with the imposter have ranged from the sensible to facetious, with calls to blow him up, melt and recycle him, replace him with a monument to surfing, or preserve him as a quirky piece of East Coast history.

The "pasta Cook" is a bronze casting of a marble statue imported from Italy in the 1890s by Auckland-based Captain Cook Breweries, which operated from Khyber Pass Rd, where Lion Breweries now stands.



Captain Cook Breweries made a bronze cast for its own use, still on display at the Lion site, and gave the city of Gisborne £1000 to put towards an identical monument for the bicentenary.

The gift was warmly received, but the seeds of doubt were soon planted.

A Wellington sculptor, J.A. McCready, remarked that the face did not look a bit like Cook's.

A man described by the local newspaper as "a Royal New Zealand Navy expert" said the uniform was wrong.

Members of the local authority's committee dedicated to the celebrations reportedly knew the statue was a fake.

"It was common knowledge on the committee that the statue had some defects, that it wasn't really Captain Cook, but it was good enough," said Harold Williams, a retired engineer who worked for the council.

"I take history fairly seriously and, frankly, I don't think we should be perpetuating the whole saga."

Nonetheless, the statue became a noted landmark, which still features on postcards and is used in promotional material sent overseas.

Not everyone admired the statue.

Sir Henry Ngata, a kaumatua, said that while Maori might not have made their feelings known at the time, there was a strong sense that Titirangi, which had been occupied by Maori for at least 400 years before Cook arrived, should remain bare.

In 1990, the one-and-a-half-tonne Italian was pushed off his pedestal and tumbled down the hill, only to be dusted off, repaired and restored to his prime spot.

Ten years later, Deputy Mayor David Scott was horrified to see the Italian admiral gracing a tourism brochure used by Japanese tour companies, promoting the statue as a key attraction and dismissing entirely the new, authentic Cook, commissioned in 2000, which sits at the mouth of the Turanganui River.

He is responsible for renewed interest in the faux Cook and insists that the city can no longer afford to be "intellectually dishonest."

His academic stance is not shared by many ratepayers, who have expressed great concern at what the removal might cost. One disgruntled homeowner returned a petition against removing the Italian with a postscript describing exactly where Deputy Mayor Scott could put the statue.

"The thing is, on a good dark night, with a front-end loader and large crane we can remove this thing," joked Mr Scott.

Historian Sheila Robinson, who has watched the drama unfold with wry amusement, thinks she has the ideal solution. The Cook stand-in should be given to the museum, she says.

He could be sited outside next to a cannon which bears the plaque: "Not Captain Cook's cannon."