The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that Captain James Cook and his crew were some of the first Europeans to witness and record Polynesians surfing?
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Melvyn Bragg, Simon Schaffer, Rebekah Higgitt, Sophie Forgan (3 December 2015). "In Our Time". BBC Radio 4.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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GettingSwole has added this article to Category:Deified men – I wonder whether that makes sense? The article says: "Cook was considered by some indigenous peoples to be an ariki (high chief), and therefore the embodiment of the powers and attributes of certain atua (Polynesian gods).... Many Hawaiians thought Cook was an embodiment of the Polynesian god Lono."
Category:Deified people say: "This category is for human beings who have been worshipped as deities or divine beings". And Apotheosis says it's about "the glorification of a subject to divine levels".
I don't see evidence for Cook being particularly worshipped or glorified by anybody, hence I have some doubts about the appropriateness of that category. Gawaon (talk) 20:44, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Footnote [aj] has a good summary ("Regarding the differences between atua and Western gods, ..."). I don't think he was worshiped in any meaningful way. And he was not considered a "god" in the normal Western sense. From the descriptions of the category, it would probably be imprecise to include him. The absence of written historical, contemporary records by the Hawaiians doesn't help. Noleander (talk) 21:26, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Deification, however, is a far more specialized term. And we don't do OR here, so unless Cook is explicitly described as "deified man" in reliable sources, we cannot do so either. Gawaon (talk) 22:08, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@GettingSwole - Perhaps you could first update the category description (in the category page) to use broader wording, so it clearly encompasses non-western concepts (such as ancestor spirits, etc). That might also help avoid confusion for many other (future) articles. If the category definition is broadened, then the inclusion of JC may be more of a slam dunk. Noleander (talk) 22:19, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've nominated this article to appear on the Wikipedia front page on 14 Feb 2026, the anniversary of Cook's death. The nomination is at Wikipedia:Today's_featured_article/requests/James_Cook. The nomination includes a "blurb" which is a one paragraph summary of the whole article. If anyone wants to improve the blurb, feel free. However, the volunteers that manage the front page have a huge workload, so it is sorta rude to make them do any extra work, therefore make sure any edits to the blurb are immaculate: no grammar or prose errors; 100% accurate; no ambiguous links, and the total number of characters must be between 925 and 1,025 characters (including spaces and the (including the final "Full article" words at the end). If you want to give the suggested improvement to me, that is okay, and I'll implement it. Noleander (talk) 23:44, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"He completed the first recorded circumnavigation of the main islands of New Zealand" is implicitly euro-centric, even if you say "recorded", as that implies a European standard of what it means to record something. See for example Kupe. I would specify "by a European", as you do in the next sentence. RoySmith(talk)12:47, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Better is: "He completed the first known circumnavigation of the main islands New Zealand." The wording, "He completed the first circumnavigation of the main islands of New Zealand by a European" implies that some non-European did it beforehand. The oral legends of Kupe do not state that he circumnavigated the two main islands of new Zealand, if fact they state that he did not. Unless there is some recorded and widely accepted story of a non-European circumnavigating New Zealand it is more accurate to say that Cook was the first known person to do so. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 23:55, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Done. If anyone wants to make any more changes to the "new Zealand" sentence, perhaps we should get consensus first here in this Talk page, to avoid thrashing that sentence. Noleander (talk) 15:20, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Kupe is legendary and even in the legends he is not said to have circumnavigated New Zealand. Stating that Cook completed the 'first recorded circumnavigation of the main islands of New Zealand' is entirely correct. Traumnovelle (talk) 20:51, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
level-3 vital article is rated FA-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
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