KEY POINTS:
Imagine a Maori detective with the physical attributes of a Hurricanes rugby player.
Then put him on an American exploration expedition in the 1830s.
Maritime historian Joan Druett did, and the result was Wiki Coffin, sleuth extraordinaire and translator on the United States Exploring Expedition, which set off
in 1838 to chart and explore the Pacific.
Wiki's adventures have become the basis of a maritime historical mystery series by the Wellington-based author. The third in the series, Run Afoul, was published recently.
Wiki was born in the mind of the former teacher in 2003 when she reviewed Nathaniel Philbrick's book about the expedition, Sea of Glory, for an American newspaper.
"I was intrigued with the expedition itself and so I started reading the journals that went with it," said Druett, "and then I became even more intrigued because there was a Maori chief, they called him Jack Sac." The man's native name was written as Tuatti, which Druett thinks could have been a phonetic spelling of Te Aute.
Jack Sac joined the expedition as a translator for leader Lieutenant Charles Wilkes.
"He'd gone to America in about 1828 and he put himself on show in circuses. He was fully tattooed and he did the haka and war dances and that sort of stuff.
"So he was an enterprising sort of bloke and he joined the expedition in order to get home to New Zealand."
Jack Sac wanted to rejoin his family at Maketu in the Bay of Plenty.
Druett was intrigued by the way the expedition's officers wrote about him.
"They were so unconsciously racist," she said. "He is civilised in a manner, eats cooked meat, and has some idea of a God," wrote one of the midshipmen, William Reynolds. "We often have him to dance and sing after the manner of his nation -'tis as good as a play."
All the midshipmen liked to "talk with him about his youthful days, his feelings on leaving home, his impressions on landing in America and the change which came over him when he was able to think and reason for himself"'.
Druett says she began to wonder what he thought of them " ... if he'd had the chance, if he'd had the fluency, the ability and he'd written a journal, what would he have written?
"So the character of Wiki began to take form in my mind. If he was half-Yankee, educated, and fluent in English as well as Pacific Islands languages, he could have a great deal to say - but he wouldn't have the chance to say it unless he had a very good friend on board. And so the character of Captain George Rochester came into being, too."
Druett attached a seventh fictional ship to the real six-vessel expedition and away sailed Wiki.
Druett says she tried to research Jack Sac, who stayed with the expedition until Hawaii, though details were sketchy. "This is a fascinating person in his own right," she said.
"Meanwhile I was stuck on the idea of a Maori with the expedition and what his view of it would be and I really had to make him half-American so he could have had education. So Wiki was formed and he was born in response to circumstances.
"My agent rang me and said she wanted me to do a mystery series set at sea. I wrote the first three chapters and sent them to her.
"She fell in love with Wiki. She said 'write the rest of the book', and she sold it to St Martins Press who were extremely enthusiastic about it."
Druett says that, physically, Wiki and the other Polynesians on the expedition are based on Hurricanes rugby players.
As for the other characters, some are based on real members of the expedition.
"Wilkes, of course, is real. What he does and says is straight out of the book," she added.
"He was very, very clever and I have a huge admiration for him. That's why I have Wiki speaking out for him all the time.
"What he accomplished was amazing, but he must have been murder to deal with."
Druett has plans for possibly 20, maybe more, Wiki Coffin mysteries.
Australian publishers Allen and Unwin have picked up the series and the first three novels will be published in June, July and August next year, just before the fourth mystery comes out in September.
Druett says that although the expedition accomplished much and amassed a huge amount of scientific information, it also did a lot to establish American dominance in the Pacific.
It was intended to stamp America on the face of the globe and make the Pacific safe for American trade and commerce.
"It's a fascinating background, and it's so much fun writing about it ... and making it accessible to all," she says.
- NZPA