Post #89027 by makemake on Thu, Apr 29, 2004 8:11 PM

In his book Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook has Gone Before Tony Horowitz cover this mystery in depth. He has a whole chapter on Cook's last days. About the arrow, he tells the following:

One piece of the puzzle still lingered: the fate of Cook's remains. Cliff Thornton, back in England, regaled me with e-mails about his ongoing search for the arrow allegedly made from Cook's shinbone. He'd managed to track the relic from an exposition in London in 1886 to its transfer, soon after, to the government of New South Wales in Australia. From there the trail went cold.
I delved into the archives... but I couldn't find the arrow, even though it was listed as belonging to the library's collection... further digging led me to the nearby Australian Museum, where I met the head antropologist... he agreed to have a look in the museum's vast "Pacific Storeroom." I followed [him] through the aisles lined with trays until he located a box marked "H68 Arrow." Taking it to a brightly lit table, [he] donned white gloves and opened the box. Inside lay an arrow of about two and a half feet in length, with a metal point, feathered fletching, and a shaft made from a bamboo like stem affixed to a pale, mottled substance... An old card inside the box said: "Arrow stated to be partly made from the small leg bone of Captain Cook... Eventually, officials at the Museum became intrigued... only a DNA test could take the investigation further. The museum, concerned that extracting a DNA sample might damage the arrow, balked at conducting the test; months have passed without a decision.

Anyway, that's how the test came about, I suppose. Only about 2 years after this book was published.

BTW, if you haven't read "Blue Latitudes" I highly recommend it. The author travels all over the pacific, visiting the places Cook did, all the while recanting Cook's adventures, and finding out what the natives think of him now. Funny, sad, terriffic stuff.