Galleances and guinea fowl

A MYSTERY

Well, old ships' logbooks can be fascinating, because of the mysteries they hold, as well as the strange events and observations they reveal.

As part of my research into the story of Tupaia, the Polynesian priestly navigator who sailed from Tahiti on the Endeavour with Captain James Cook and rich young botanist Joseph Banks, I'm transcribing the log kept by Captain Samuel Wallis on the Dolphin, June-July 1767, when Tupaia and his fellow Tahitians were enduring (or enjoying) their first encounter with British seamen.

And, in the course of this, I have come across what may be a strange animal. Well, it could be an artifact, but it is included in a list of shipboard livestock. Wrote Wallis on July 8, 1767, "Employed as before. Served Pork & fruit to the ship's company, gave the Old Man a Goose & Gander, a Turkey Cock & Hen & Three Galleances, an Iron Pot many sorts of Garden Seeds & shewd him how to Plant them, sot in different places Plumb, Peach Cherry Apples, Mellon and Pumpkin, Lime, Lemon & Orange Seeds. ―I was taken very ill again ―"



Galleances were new to me -- what are (or were) they? I thought of hens and roosters, but Tahiti had plenty of hen and roosters already. (Wallis called them "fowles.") Then again, he could have been playing with a Latin word. Galliformes, I found, are game birds, terrestrial, grain-eating, and ground-nesting. They include the common fowl -- also pheasants, partridges, grouses (grice?), turkeys, guinea fowl, and peacocks.

Peacocks? I love the idea! However, John Hawkesworth, in his 1773 book about important eighteenth century voyages (An Account of the Voyages Undertaken by the Order of His Present Majesty for Making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere), claims that on Friday 14 July 1767, Captain Wallis sent "the queen" of Tahiti (Purea) "two turkies, two geese, three Guinea hens, a cat big with kitten, some china, looking-glasses, glass bottles, shirts, needles, thread, cloth, ribands, peas, some small white kidney beans, called callivances, and about sixteen sorts of garden seeds, and a shovel, besides a considerable quantity of cutlery wares, consisting of knives, scissars, bill-hooks, and other things."

Well, those callivances were new to me, too, but obviously there were lots of those small white kidney beans, while there were only three Guinea hens, exactly the same number as the mysterious galleances -- so could they be one and the same? It's possible, because Hawkesworth took liberties with his material, and it would have sounded a lot more important if the "queen" had been given all those fancy presents, instead of a helpful but ordinary old man -- who probably had to pass them on to Purea, anyway, for she was a chief, and chiefs tended to appropriate such things.

So, having plumped for poultry, I went to the library and looked up books on chooks, and though I found not a single galleance, I learned a lot about guinea fowl. They were called that because they came from Africa. The word "guinea" originally meant "foreign" but was then adapted to mean "African." Fascinatingly, the people of Bristol were very familiar with guinea fowl in the 18th century, because ships came in with flocks of guinea fowl perched in the rigging.

They were exceptional at foraging for themselves in open country, so were presumably a good bet for acclimatisation, too. They were also very good watch dogs (watch birds?), being even better at the job than geese. One book assured me they make excellent pets, being very affectionate -- but I leave that to someone else to prove.

Meantime, the galleances remain a mystery -- which might or might not be solved. Perhaps there are international guinea fowl fanciers out there who know the answer?