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57-666: Despite these general definitions, beachcombing and beachcomber are words with multiple, but related, meanings that have evolved over time. The first appearance of the word "beachcombers" in print was in Richard Henry Dana Jr. 's Two Years Before the Mast (1840) and later referenced in Herman Melville 's Omoo (1847). It described a population of Europeans who lived in South Pacific islands, "combing"

114-523: A merchant seaman . On August 14, 1834, he departed Boston aboard the brig Pilgrim , captained by Frank Thompson, bound for Alta California , at that time still a part of Mexico . This voyage would bring Dana to a number of settlements in California (including Monterey , San Buenaventura , San Pedro , San Juan Capistrano , San Diego , Santa Barbara , Santa Clara and San Francisco). After witnessing Thompson's sadistic practices, including

171-473: A "system or discipline enough to ensure regular and vigorous study." In July 1831, Dana enrolled at Harvard College , where in his freshman year his support of a student protest cost him a six-month suspension. In his junior year, he contracted measles , which in his case led to ophthalmia . This worsening vision inspired him to take a sea voyage. But rather than going on a fashionable Grand Tour of Europe he decided, despite his social standing, to enlist as

228-518: A flogging on board the ship, he vowed that he would try to help improve the lot of the common seaman. The Pilgrim collected hides for shipment to Boston, and Dana spent much of his time in California at San Diego's Point Loma curing hides and loading them onto the ship. Dana's description of his time on Point Loma depicted love and concern for the Hawaiians who worked there alongside him. He may have been predisposed to feel positively toward them by

285-782: A matter of speculation. Jan Tent , a Macquarie University linguist , and Dr. Paul Geraghty , former director of the Institute of Fijian Language and Culture in Suva , suggest that the word may have its origins in the travels of the Polynesians themselves. They believe that the Polynesian islanders may have encountered Malay travellers prior to contact with Europeans, and adopted the Malay word barang (meaning: imported cloth). These researchers also suggest another possible etymology –

342-427: A piece of equipment. The judge had sentenced the captain to ninety days in jail and the mate to thirty days. In 1841, Dana published The Seaman's Friend, which became a standard reference on the legal rights and responsibilities of sailors. He defended many common seamen in court. During his voyages he had kept a diary, and in 1840 (coinciding with his admission to the bar) he published a memoir, Two Years Before

399-732: A previous stay in Andover, Massachusetts , among evangelicals who had embraced Hawaiians in New England and sent the first Protestant missionaries to Hawaii. Wishing to return home sooner, Dana was reassigned by the ship's owners to a different ship: the Alert . Dana gives the classic account of the return trip around Cape Horn in the middle of the Antarctic winter. He describes terrifying storms and profound beauty, giving vivid descriptions of icebergs , which he calls incomparable. He found

456-607: A prominent abolitionist , helping to found the anti- slavery Free Soil Party in 1848 and representing the fugitive slave Anthony Burns in Boston in 1854. He was a member of the Boston Vigilance Committee , an organization that assisted fugitive slaves. In 1853, Dana represented William T. G. Morton in Morton's attempt to establish that he discovered the "anaesthetic properties of ether". In 1859, while

513-489: A sailor rather than a passenger, he shipped from Boston on August 14, 1834, on the brig Pilgrim , bound for the coast of California. His experiences for the next two years form the subject of the present volume. In the December following his return to Boston in 1836, Dana re-entered Harvard, the hero of his fellow students, graduating the following June. He next took up the study of law, at the same time teaching elocution in

570-577: A small group of beachcombers as mercenaries in the service of the Bau Island chieftain Naulivou and quickly showed their worth in fights with his enemies. Some lived on the rewards for deserters, or found replacement crewmen either through persuasion or through shanghaiing . Many, such as David Whippy , also served as mediators between hostile native tribes as well as between natives and visiting ships. Whippy deserted his ship in 1820 and lived among

627-642: A speech in Samoa , in 1830, referring to the great powers of the "papalangis". Louis Becke after having worked and travelled in the Pacific from 1869 to 1885 uses papalagi to mean a white person in stories set in what is now Tuvalu , The Rangers of the Tia Kua , Kennedy the Boatsteerer in which appears "The last native girl who occupied the proud position of Te avaga te papalagi (the white man's wife)

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684-462: A writer, brought him much social recognition on his visit to England in 1856. Three years later, his health gave way from overwork, and he set out on a voyage round the world, revisiting California, where he made the observations that appear in the postscript to this book. The postscript is titled, "Twenty-Four Years After." On his return, Dana was appointed by President Abraham Lincoln as United States Attorney for Massachusetts. In his argument before

741-590: Is common, and it is often used by the mainstream media to describe non-Samoans of European descent. The term is now also used in New Zealand in a similar way to the Māori term Pākehā , but it is not restricted in referring to white people within Pacific-island surroundings. As with Pākehā , Samoans and Tongans initially applied palagi/palangi and papalagi/papalangi to whites of British derivation. Today,

798-569: Is now Harvard Law School , then called the Dane Law School after Nathan Dane . He graduated in 1837, and was admitted to the bar in 1840. Dana went on to specialize in maritime law . In the October 1839 issue of a magazine, he took a local judge, one of his own instructors in law school, to task for letting off a ship's captain and mate with a slap on the wrist for murdering the ship's cook, beating him to death for not "laying hold" of

855-427: Is one of the earliest activities separating anatomically modern human Homo sapiens from the ancestral subspecies of Homo erectus . Many modern beachcombers follow the "drift lines" or "tide lines" on the beach and are interested in the (mostly natural) objects that the sea casts up. For these people, "beachcombing" is the recreational activity of looking for and finding various curiosities that have washed in with

912-580: The Supreme Court that the U.S. president had the power under the U.S. Constitution to blockade Confederate ports. After the end of the Civil War, he resigned his office since he did not approve of President Andrew Johnson 's policy of Reconstruction, which was denounced by Radical Republicans as being too moderate in regard to blacks’ civil rights and the punishment of former Confederates, and entered private practice. During 1867–1868, Dana

969-671: The U.S. Senate was considering whether the United States should try to annex the Spanish possession of Cuba , Dana traveled there and visited Havana , a sugar plantation, a bullfight, and various churches, hospitals, schools, and prisons, a trip documented in his book To Cuba and Back . During the American Civil War , Dana served as a United States Attorney , and, in the Prize Cases , successfully argued before

1026-462: The cannibal Fijis for the rest of his life. The Fijis would sometimes capture the crew of a stranded ship for ransom, and eat them if they resisted. Whippy would try to rescue them but sometimes found only roasted bones. Ultimately he became American consul to Fiji, and left many descendants among the islands. There had always been a small number of castaways in the South Pacific since

1083-473: The penal colonies there. It is estimated that in 1850 there were over 2,000 beachcombers throughout Polynesia and Micronesia . The Polynesia and Melanesia communities were usually receptive to beachcombers and castaways who were absorbed into the local community, usually by formal adoption or by marriage, with the beachcombers and castaways often being considered a status symbol of the local chief. Beachcombers who returned to Europe conveyed tattoo styles of

1140-620: The College, and in 1840 he opened an office in Boston. While in law school he had written the narrative of his voyage, which he now published; and in the following year, 1841, issued The Seaman's Friend . Both books were republished in England and brought him an immediate reputation. After several years of practicing law, during which he dealt largely with cases involving the rights of seamen, he began to take part in politics as an active member of

1197-568: The Floating World ); eco-educator Dr. Deacon Ritterbush ( A Beachcomber’s Odyssey ); sea glass experts Richard LaMotte ( Pure Sea Glass ) and C.S. Lambert ( Sea Glass Chronicles ); geologist Margaret Carruthers ( Beach Stones ); shell specialists Chuck and Debbie Robinson ( The Art of Shelling ), and zoologist Dr. Blair Witherington and Dawn Witherington, ( Florida's Living Beaches: A Guide for the Curious Beachcomber ). Along

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1254-586: The Free Soil Party. The Free Soil Party was founded in 1847–48 in opposition to the extension of slavery into the western U.S. territories newly acquired from Mexico. During the operation of the Fugitive Slave Act he served as counsel on behalf of the fugitives Shadrach Minkins , Thomas Sims , and Anthony Burns , and on one occasion suffered a serious assault as a consequence of his zeal. His prominence in these cases, along with his fame as

1311-583: The Government and people of this country." A conviction, even "if obtained, will settle nothing in law or natural practice not now settled, and nothing in fact not now history...." In 1868, Dana ran as an independent candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Essex County, Massachusetts . He lost to incumbent Republican Benjamin Butler and also received fewer votes than Democrat Otis P. Lord . In 1876, his nomination as minister to Great Britain

1368-778: The Malay word for European, as used in the 17th and 18th centuries, was faranggi . However, they discount this possibility as the word palangi seems to have originally referred to cloth; only later was the word transferred to the people. Captain Cook noted the expression " ko e vaka no papalangi " (the boats of Papalangi) in Tonga , with Cook's transcription being "Towacka no papalangie" and his translation as "cloth ships". The specific origin of this term remains uncertain. The term has gained widespread use throughout much of western Polynesia including Tokelau, Tuvalu, 'Uvea and Futuna, etc., with

1425-483: The Mast . The term "before the mast" refers to sailors' quarters, which were located in the forecastle (the ship's bow ), officers' quarters being near the stern. His writing evinces his later sympathy for the oppressed. With the California Gold Rush later in the decade, Two Years Before the Mast would become highly sought after as one of the few sources of information on California . Dana became

1482-497: The Pacific islands. The social and commercial role of beachcombers ended when missionaries arrived, and with the growth of a commercial community with European ( palagi ) traders, resident on each island, who were the representatives of trading companies. Many beachcombers made the transition to becoming island traders. In Uruguay , a similar term has been naturalized into the Spanish form Bichicome. According to folk etymology,

1539-650: The Samoan term " gagana fa'a Palagi ", the Tongan term " lea fakapālangi " and the Tuvaluan term "faka-Pālagi" still refer to the English language specifically, even though it is understood that many ethnic Europeans who are considered "palagi" do not speak English but rather German, French, Spanish, etc. While the term is generally applied to people of European ancestry as a means of differentiation or categorization, some feel

1596-600: The U.S. Supreme Court in the Prize Cases , which upheld Lincoln's blockade of Southern ports, he greatly increased an already brilliant legal reputation. He spoke out in favor of African-American voting, education, property, and firearms ownership, stating: We have got to choose between two results. With these four millions of Negroes, either you must have four millions of disfranchised, disarmed, untaught, landless, thriftless, non-producing, non-consuming, degraded men, or else you must have four millions of land-holding, industrious, arms-bearing, and voting population. Choose between

1653-546: The U.S. to pay $ 5,500,000 to the British government. Towards the end of his life he went to Europe to devote himself to the preparation of a treatise on international law, but the actual composition of this work was little more than begun when he died in Rome, January 6, 1882. His son, Richard Henry Dana III , married Edith Longfellow, daughter of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow . Additional biographical information and insights into

1710-480: The arrival and exposure of rare finds. They also practice eco-conservation and do not kill mollusks for their shells, dig holes in the sand, or gouge cliff faces for fossils or reefs for coral specimens. Many beachcombers serve as excellent stewards of the seashore, working with government agencies to monitor shore erosion, dumping and pollution, and reef and cliff damage, etc. Recognized beachcomb experts today include oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer ( Flotsametrics and

1767-579: The beach and nearby water for flotsam, jetsam , or anything else they could use or trade. When a beachcomber became totally dependent upon coastal fishing for his sustenance, or abandoned his original culture and set of values ("went native"), then the term "beachcomber" was synonymous with a criminal, a drifter , or a bum. While the vast majority of beachcombers were simply unemployed sailors, many may have chosen to live in Pacific island communities; as described by Herman Melville in Typee , or Harry Franck in

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1824-630: The book Vagabonding Around the World . After enduring a voyage of danger and hardship, it was not uncommon for a few sailors to desert a whaling ship when it arrived in Tahiti or the Marquesas and reside, at least for a while, in the South Sea islands of Polynesia . If another beachcomber was ready to take his place in order to get home, the captain might let the disgruntled crewman go; otherwise,

1881-532: The captain would offer the natives a reward to find and return the deserter , and deduct the reward, plus interest, from the deserter's pay. In other words, the deserter, if caught, would end up working the entire voyage for no pay at all, or even return home in debt to his employers. In Typee , Melville deserted, not once but twice, before signing on as a crewman on a Navy frigate , without fear of repercussions. Some beachcombers traded between local tribes, and between tribes and visiting ships. Charles Savage led

1938-535: The coast of British Columbia in Canada, beachcombing or log salvage is the occupation of retrieving stray logs from the sea for resale to the lumber industry. It has been an activity since the 1880s and is still carried out under licence from the province. Both the recreational and utilitarian aspects of beachcombing or “ wrecking ” were celebrated in the film The Wrecking Season , an award-winning film that portrays playwright Nick Darke ’s passion for beachcombing on

1995-555: The coast of Cornwall , UK . A popular Canadian family television drama, The Beachcombers , focused on a two-man business salvaging logs from beaches in late-twentieth-century British Columbia . In the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service , Bond gets two weeks leave, and when Moneypenny asks him where he is off to, he replies: "just some place to laze about. Beachcombing". Richard Henry Dana Jr. Richard Henry Dana Jr. (August 1, 1815 – January 6, 1882)

2052-478: The collector. (However, this usually does not include the great bulk of marine debris , most of which is neither useful nor decorative.) Edmund James Banfield is an example of the modern beachcomber in his residence on Dunk Island in the early twentieth century where he studied and wrote about the vegetation, bird and sea life of the island. Sophisticated recreational beachcombers use knowledge of how storms, geography, ocean currents, and seasonal events determine

2109-518: The crew after the rounding of the Horn. In White-Jacket , Herman Melville wrote, "But if you want the best idea of Cape Horn, get my friend Dana's unmatchable Two Years Before the Mast . But you can read, and so you must have read it. His chapters describing Cape Horn must have been written with an icicle." On September 22, 1836, Dana arrived back in Massachusetts. He then enrolled at what

2166-564: The earliest Spanish explorers, but the numbers increased dramatically in the early 19th century with the beginning of the whaling era circa 1819. It is estimated that 75% of beachcombers were sailors, particularly whalemen, who had jumped ship. They were predominantly British but with an increasing number of Americans, particularly in Hawaii and the Carolines. Perhaps 20% were English convicts who had been transported to Australia and escaped from

2223-499: The expansion of use of the term being though to have occurred in the 18th century when Tongans, and to lesser extent Samoans, regularly interacted with white sailors, beachcombers, convicts, missionaries, and whalers who clearly delineated ethnoracial boundaries between themselves (papalagi/papalangi) and the Polynesians they encountered. The missionary John Williams , of the London Missionary Society , records

2280-468: The first American minister to Russia and later became chief justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts; his father was distinguished as a man of letters. He entered Harvard College in 1831; but near the beginning of his third year an attack of measles left his eyesight so weak that study was impossible. Tired of the tedium of a slow convalescence, he decided on a sea voyage; and choosing to go as

2337-549: The first time, European missionaries enter the country. Their skin being a different color made them think they were men sent from the gates of heaven. Tcherkézoff (1999) argues that such an interpretation is a European projection to explain Polynesian cosmology. Tent and Geraghty (2001) comment that the origin of the Western Polynesian Papālagi~Pālagi and the Fijian Vāvālagi~Pāpālagi remains

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2394-586: The life of Richard Henry Dana Jr. are in the "Introductory Note" to the Harvard Classics edition of Two Years Before the Mast , edited by Charles W. Eliot, L.L.D., and published by P.F. Collier & Son in 1909. Here is an excerpt: Richard Henry Dana, the second of that name, was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, August 1, 1815. He came of a stock that had resided there since the days of the early settlements; his grandfather, Francis Dana , had been

2451-405: The most incredible part of the journey the weeks and weeks it took to negotiate passage against winds and storms—all the while having to race up and down the ice-covered rigging to furl and unfurl sails. At one point he had an infected tooth, and his face swelled up so that he was unable to work for several days, despite the need for all hands. He also describes the scurvy that afflicts members of

2508-534: The sense of temporarily unemployed sailor, hanging about in the port and living from hand to mouth; nowadays it means a vagabond or a hobo. In archaeology the beachcombing lifestyle is associated with coastal shell- middens that sometimes accumulate over many hundreds if not thousands of years. Evidence at Klasies River Caves in South Africa , and Gulf of Zula in Eritrea , show that a beachcombing option

2565-453: The term Pālagi is also used in Niuean . The etymology of the term Palagi is disputed. An explanation that emerged in the 19th century is that word is derived from the Polynesian root words "pa" (meaning: gates) and "lagi" (meaning: sky or heaven), hence the standard translation "gates of heaven" It has been suggested that the compound word comes from the Polynesian's reaction to seeing for

2622-530: The term is derogatory, especially when aimed pointedly toward half-caste Samoans or ethnic Samoans who were born and raised in western, metropolitan societies; " fia palagi " and " fie palangi " are commonly applied to ethnic Samoans and Tongans, respectively, who are viewed as favoring the "white man's" lifestyle or culture in lieu of traditional Polynesian modes of speech, dress, housing, interpersonal relations, etc. Tcherkezoff (1999) comments, "Europeans are still called Papālagi in today's languages. In Samoan, it

2679-500: The term is used to describe foreigners. The word is both a noun e.g. a Palagi (European person) or an adjective e.g. Palagi house (non-traditional Samoan house). The word is a cognate in other Polynesian languages and has gained widespread use throughout much of western Polynesia, including in Tokelau , Tuvalu , 'Uvea and Futuna . Written Pālagi or Papālagi in Samoan, and Papālangi or Pālangi in Tongan,

2736-413: The tide: seashells of every kind, fossils , pottery shards ( sea pottery ), historical artifacts, sea beans ( drift seeds ), sea glass (beach glass), driftwood , and messages in bottles . Items such as lumber, plastics, and all manner of things that have been lost or discarded by seagoing vessels will be collected by some beachcombers, as long as the items are either decorative or useful in some way to

2793-560: The two! Which will you have? His sentiments were echoed by future U.S. President James A. Garfield in his speeches, who agreed with Dana's message. Palagi Palagi (pronounced IPA: [/'pɑːlʌŋiː/] – singular ) or papalagi ( plural ) is a term in Samoan culture of uncertain etymology, sometimes used to describe foreigners. Papālagi~Pālagi is a word in the Samoan language describing non-Samoans, usually white foreigners of European or American descent. In Samoa

2850-457: The word traces its origins to the English term and refers to poor or lower-class people. The Spanish form also draws on the similarities to the Spanish bicho (small animal/insect) and comer (eat). Similarly, the term has entered the Greek slang through sailors, in the form "pitsikómis" (πιτσικόμης). The Russian word бич (and a rarer form бичкомбер, бичкомер) appeared not later than 1930s, in

2907-495: Was a member of the Massachusetts legislature and also served as a U.S. counsel in the trial of Confederate President Jefferson Davis . On August 24, 1868, Dana wrote a letter to Attorney General William Evarts arguing that the United States should abandon the prosecution because, even though there was no doubt that Davis had committed treason, a jury in Virginia would be unlikely to convict, which "would be most humiliating to

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2964-602: Was a native of the island of Maraki"; Samoa, A Basket of Bread-Fruit , At a Kava-Drinking in which appears " alii papalagi (white gentleman)" and "this wandering papalagi tafea (beachcomber)", The Best Asset in a Fool’s Estate in which appears "the papalagi mativa (poor white)”; and the Tokelau , Challis the Doubter . Largely because of the growing Pacific Islander culture in New Zealand, this word has been adopted by other Pacific cultures. Its usage in New Zealand's Pacific Islander media such as television and radio

3021-571: Was an American lawyer and politician from Massachusetts , a descendant of a colonial family, who gained renown as the author of the classic American memoir Two Years Before the Mast and as an attorney who successfully represented the U.S. government before the U.S. Supreme Court during the Civil War in the Prize Cases . Both as a writer and as a lawyer, he was a champion of the downtrodden, from seamen to fugitive slaves and freedmen. Dana

3078-522: Was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts , on August 1, 1815 into a family that had settled in colonial America in 1640, counting Anne Bradstreet among its ancestors. His father was the poet and critic Richard Henry Dana Sr. As a boy, Dana studied in Cambridgeport under a strict schoolmaster named Samuel Barrett, alongside fellow Cambridge native and future writer James Russell Lowell . Barrett

3135-477: Was defeated in the Senate by political enemies William Beach Lawrence and Benjamin Butler, partly because of a lawsuit for plagiarism brought against him for a legal textbook he had edited, Henry Wheaton 's Elements of International Law (8th ed., 1866). Immediately after the book's publication, Dana had been charged by the editor of two earlier editions, William Beach Lawrence, with infringing his copyright, and

3192-429: Was infamous as a disciplinarian who punished his students for any infraction by flogging. He also often pulled students by their ears and, on one such occasion, nearly pulled Dana's ear off, causing the boy's father to protest enough that the practice was abolished. In 1825, Dana enrolled in a private school overseen by Ralph Waldo Emerson , whom Dana later mildly praised as "a very pleasant instructor", though he lacked

3249-694: Was involved in litigation that continued for thirteen years. In such minor matters as arrangement of notes and verification of citations the court found against Dana, but in the main Dana's notes were vastly different from Lawrence's. In 1877, Dana was one of the counsel for the U.S. federal government , appearing before the Halifax Fisheries Commission , appointed under the Treaty of Washington (1871) to resolve outstanding issues, including fishing rights. The Commission gave an award directing

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