TONGA A NEW BIBLIOGRAPHY
MARTIN DALY
Tonga A New Bibliography
Tonga A New Bibliography
Martin Daly
University of ...
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TONGA A NEW BIBLIOGRAPHY
MARTIN DALY
Tonga A New Bibliography
Tonga A New Bibliography
Martin Daly
University of Hawai‘i Press honolulu
© 2009 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 14 13 12 11 10 09 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Daly, Martin. Tonga : a new bibliography / Martin Daly. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN 978-0-8248-3196-7 (hard cover : alk. paper) 1. Tonga—Bibliography. I. Title. Z4941.D34 2009 [DU880] 016.99612—dc22 2008040622
Map, xiv, from Becoming Tongan by Helen Morton, © 1996 University of Hawai‘i Press, p. vi.
University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources. Designed by University of Hawai‘i Press production department Composition by Santos Barbasa Jr. of the University of Hawai‘i Press
Contents
Preface Acknowledgements Chronology Map of Tonga Introduction
vii ix xi xiv 1
Bibliography The Country and Its People Geography and Environment Tourism and Travel Guides Travellers’ Accounts Flora and Fauna Prehistory and Archaeology History General Pacific General Tonga Mission and Church Pre–1900 Post–1900 Language Religion Society Kava Health and Welfare Politics and Government Constitution and Legal System Foreign Relations Economy, Trade and Labour Population, Migration and Remittances Industry, Commerce and Agriculture Fisheries Education
25 36 44 46 51 57 65 65 69 78 85 95 102 110 118 147 150 163 173 180 183 194 208 219 221
vi
Contents
Literature Material Culture Performance Arts Books, Media and Communications Academic Journals Encyclopaedias and Reference Works General Bibliographies Web Sites Addendum: Recently Published
227 232 243 249 255 257 259 263 265
Index of Authors Index of Titles Index of Subjects
267 275 287
Preface
The first edition of this bibliography was published in 1999 as Tonga, Volume 217, in the World Bibliographical Series (Oxford, Santa Barbara and Denver: Clio Press). In the nine years since, much of great significance has happened and much has been published on Tonga. Encouraged that it has been welcomed and found useful, I have continued to work on it, and I am very grateful to the University of Hawai‘i Press, the leading publisher on the Pacific, for agreeing to publish this new bibliography. This is based on the original and follows the same general principles. It is selective and includes those items that seem the most significant and accessible (and are published in English). Every item is annotated, offering a summary, and comments where appropriate. That it is both selective and annotated sets it apart from other bibliographies. I have broadly followed the same subject categories, with only minor changes. There is a new section at the end on some of the most important Web sites for the study of Tonga. Within each section the same arrangement stands: items are in alphabetical order by title. I hope that the indexes of author, title and subject will guide readers through it. In the original, PhD theses (not read or annotated) were listed separately at the beginning, unnumbered and thus unindexed. They are now placed within their appropriate sections, numbered and indexed. I have added approximately 230 new entries. Most of these are new items published in the past nine years, and new theses. A few are older items either overlooked or now thought to be worth including. The Introduction has been revised and updated. As a small and relatively isolated country, vulnerable to external forces, Tonga continues to face political, social, economic and environmental pressures, some perhaps more intense than before. Under its new king, George Tupou V, crowned in August 2008, and with its evolving political system, those of us who know and love Tonga trust that its future will be secure. I hope that this bibliography may help many who seek to know and understand more of this remarkable kingdom.
Acknowledgements
My first thanks must go to Philip Snow, pioneer bibliographer of Tonga, for suggesting to the publisher of the original bibliography that I might be able to prepare a volume on Tonga. I have drawn much on his knowledge, resources and experience. Work on this bibliography began with the library of books that my wife and I have collected for many years, but this is selective, is stronger on the old than the new, and largely consists of books, not journals. I could not have contemplated embarking on this undertaking without having available to me the superb library resources of my own institution, the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. There are to be found many of the books and journals included here. However it became obvious at an early stage that it would be necessary to supplement the holdings of SOAS from one of the major libraries in the Pacific specializing in Pacific studies, and I am most grateful to Karen Peacock and her staff in the Pacific collection of the University of Hawai‘i library for enabling me to spend a very productive time there, working through their fine collection. Other libraries in the University of London have provided materials within their own specialist areas. A particularly rich source was the library of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. Other libraries were those of University College London, King’s College, the Institute of Archaeology, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and the Institute of Education. Also in London, the library of the Natural History Museum provided access to material not available elsewhere. While in Tonga in July 1998 for the celebrations of the eightieth birthday of His Majesty King Taufa‘âhau Tupou IV, and also to gather local material, I was fortunate to meet some of the leading scholars working on Tonga, Adrienne Kaeppler, Jehanne Teilhet-Fisk, Eric Shumway and Elizabeth Wood-Ellem. I am grateful to them for their interest and encouragement. Linda Crowl and Barbara Hau‘ofa of the University of the South Pacific were helpful in many ways. I am grateful to the Tongan high commissioner in London at that time, Akosita Fineanganofo, for her interest in the work
x
Acknowledgements
and for arranging for me to obtain information in Tonga, and also to the present high commissioner, Dr. Ngongo Kioa. William Hamilton, director of the University of Hawai‘i Press, fellow publisher when I was working at SOAS, and friend for many years, made arrangements for me to visit the University of Hawai‘i library when I was preparing the original bibliography. His agreement to publish this new bibliography is a great pleasure and honour, and his advice and encouragement as I have worked on it have been of great value. I am also particularly grateful to Barbara Spina for preparing the subject index with such skill and care. My gratitude to His late Majesty King Taufa‘âhau Tupou IV, to His Majesty King George Tupou V and to all the people of Tonga whom I have come to know over nearly forty years, and who have enabled me to know something of their kingdom, is so great that it is difficult to express it adequately. My final, and greatest, debt is to my wife Diane Vahoi and to her late mother Agnes Tu‘ifua. I have, I hope, learnt something of Tonga from what I have read, but I could never have come to know Tonga in the way that I have been privileged to do, without them. I hope that this new bibliography, however inadequate, may be an attempt to return to them and to the people of Tonga something of what they have given me. Martin Daly January 2008
Chronology
c. 900 BC c. 950 AD c. 1200 1616 1643 1767 1773–74 1777 1781 1787 1797 1799 1800 1805 1807 1822 1826 1831 1837 1839 1840 1842 1844 1845 1850
Probable first settlement of Tongatapu by the Lapita people ‘Aho‘eitu, first Tu‘i Tonga Ha‘amonga trilithon built by the eleventh Tu‘i Tonga, Tu‘itâtui Schouten and Le Maire, the first Europeans to find Tonga, visit Niuatoputapu and Tafahi Abel Tasman visits ‘Eua, Tongatapu and Nomuka Captain Wallis visits Niuatoputapu Captain James Cook, on his second voyage, visits ‘Eua, Tongatapu and Nomuka Captain James Cook, on his third voyage, visits Nomuka, Ha‘apai, Tongatapu and ‘Eua Dom Francisco Mourelle discovers Vava‘u La Pérouse visits Niuatoputapu First missionaries arrive on the Duff Three of the missionaries murdered Remaining missionaries leave The Port-au-Prince attacked, William Mariner adopted by Finau ‘Ulakâlala Siege of Nuku‘alofa by Finau ‘Ulakâlala Walter Lawry arrives to reestablish the Wesleyan mission John Thomas arrives to lead the mission; Taufa‘âhau becomes ruler of Ha‘apai Taufa‘âhau baptized, taking the name of George Civil war in Tongatapu between Christians and heathens Taufa‘âhau issues the Vava‘u Code, the first written law in Tonga Further civil war First Roman Catholic missionaries arrive Taufa‘âhau asks Queen Victoria for protection against the French George Taufa‘âhau assumes the title of Tu‘i Kanokupolo, becoming ruler of a united Tonga as King George Tupou I Second code of laws
xii
1855 1862 1875 1876 1879 1880 1885 1890 1893 1900 1905 1918 1924 1927 1942 1946 1951 1955 1961 1963 1965 1970 1974 1975 1989 1990 1999 2001 2003
Chronology
Treaty of friendship with France New code of laws, emancipating the people Granting of the Constitution Treaty with Germany Treaty with Britain Shirley Baker appointed prime minister King George Tupou I and Shirley Baker establish the Free Church of Tonga Shirley Baker deported, following persecution of members of the Wesleyan Church and an attempt on his life Death of King George Tupou I, accession of King George Tupou II Treaty of Protection and Friendship with Britain Supplementary agreement with Britain Death of King George Tupou II, accession of Queen Sâlote Tupou III Queen Sâlote reunites the divided church, but a new Church of Tonga breaks away Education Act to reform schools and colleges US forces arrive to defend Tonga from Japan Niuafo‘ou devastated by volcanic eruption; first air service, linking Tonga with Samoa and Fiji Electricity generating plant installed for Nuku‘alofa; women given the right to vote First Tongan doctor and nurse complete their training and qualify Radio broadcasting begins The Tonga Chronicle begins publication Death of Queen Sâlote Tupou III, accession of King Taufa‘âhau Tupou IV Full independence within the British Commonwealth Bank of Tonga established Tonga Council of Churches seminar on land reform First shipment of squash to Japan Election returns candidates pledged to electoral reform and greater ministerial accountability Tonga becomes a member of the United Nations Loss of US$20 million of government investments through fraudulent external advice; two government ministers who were trustees resign Government attempts to ban radical and critical publications and to limit media ownership to Tongan citizens, necessitat ing an amendment to the Constitution
Chronology
2004 2005 2006 2007
xiii
Royal Tongan Airlines closes after financial difficulties; media legislation and constitutional amendment declared null and void by the chief justice; government announces that some members of Parliament will be appointed cabinet ministers Election, most pro-democracy candidates successful; six-week general civil service strike for new salary scales; after mass demonstrations the government concedes all demands; National Committee for Political Reform established September, death of King Taufa‘âhau IV, accession of King George Tupou V; November, riots in Nuku‘alofa destroy much of the central business district, following prolonged demonstrations for the immediate implementation of political reforms The legislative assembly approves changes in the political structure; Tonga negotiates a soft loan of T$118 million from the People’s Republic of China to fund the recon struction of Nuku‘alofa; Tonga joins the World Trade Organization
Tonga
Introduction
Many older people in Britain may have had the same first experience of Tonga as I did: seeing Queen Sâlote in an open carriage as the rain poured down on the coronation procession of Queen Elizabeth II in London in 1953, beaming with joy. Others, more recently, may have come to know of Tonga through the Tongans’ great performance in the 2007 Rugby World Cup. ‘Where in the world is Tonga?’, many have asked. It was a question asked so forcefully by her classmates in the United States that Samantha Fisk, going to Tonga with her anthropologist mother, wrote a delightful book for them under that very title (item 32). The Kingdom of Tonga, about 1,800 km north of New Zealand and about 800 km east of Fiji, consists of three main groups of islands, with three outliers to the north and one to the south, spread over approximately 900 km, between 15° and 22° south and 173° and 175° west. While Tonga is just to the east of the 180° meridian, the International Date Line was adjusted so that Tonga is to its west, and thus within the same day as New Zealand and Fiji. However Samoa, although almost due north, is to the east of the line and thus twenty-four hours behind Tonga. Tonga time is Greenwich Mean Time plus thirteen hours, one hour ahead of New Zealand and Fiji, thus Tonga had the best claim, despite some creative claims by others, to be the first country in the world to see in the new millennium. From such cartographic quirks does fame come. Tonga consists of about 150 islands. Of these, about forty are currently inhabited, though some with no resident population are farmed for their produce from neighbouring islands. The 2006 census (item 545) gives the total area of the inhabited islands as 648.78 sq. km and the total population as 101,134. The main island of the southern group, Tongatapu, on which is situated the capital and seat of government, Nuku‘alofa, and the main ports of entry by sea and air, contains seventy percent of the population (71,260), a figure that has been growing steadily as people have moved there from outer islands. A short distance to the south is ‘Eua (population 5,165). The seventeen islands of the central Ha‘apai group have a population of 7,572, showing a steady decrease over thirty years. The thirteen islands of the Vava‘u
2
Introduction
group to the north have 15,485 people, showing only a very small decrease over ten years. The populations for the three northern outliers are Niuafo‘ou 650, Niuatoputapu 934 and Tafahi 68. These are steadily decreasing. Many people visiting Tonga for the first time have been captivated by the country and its people. Captain Cook, writing in his journal on his second voyage when he visited Tonga in October 1773, noted, ‘Benevolent Nature has certainly been very bountiful to these isles . . . No one wants the common necessities of life, joy and contentment is painted on every face; indeed how can it be otherwise, here an easy freedom prevails among all ranks of people, they injoy every blessing of life and live in a climate where the extremes of heat and cold is unknown.’ So impressed was he by the people, misleadingly as it turned out, that he called their country the Friendly Islands. Some people, on the other hand, found a picture of depravity and wickedness in the description of Tonga and the other Pacific islands given by Cook, and felt and responded to an evangelical call not to accept and enjoy but to change and convert. Today’s traveller or visitor will find Tonga a fascinating and subtle combination of a traditional Polynesian kingdom—the only one to survive the impact of colonization in the 19th century and remain independent—and a thoroughly Christian country of a curiously 19th-century variety. It might be said that what the imperial powers could not achieve, the missionaries did. They did their work well. The Christian faith pervades the country, largely Methodist but with many churches and denominations represented and with a strong Mormon presence. All meals start and finish with a grace, which is not just a formal phrase or two but a long, all-encompassing, extempore prayer. Prayers will be just as naturally offered at the opening of a commercial building or a petrol station. Older guidebooks and travellers’ accounts describe arrival by ship, the line of trees gradually coming into view along the Nuku‘alofa waterfront, then the low buildings, white wood with red tin roofs; or the journey up the spectacular channel to Neiafu in Vava‘u, which has been described as the finest natural harbour in the world. Sadly there are no regular passenger shipping services to Tonga today, though some cruise ships do call. A few visitors arrive on their own yachts, but most arrive by air, flying to Fua‘amotu airport on Tongatapu, noting what also struck Captain Cook, the neatness of the plantations on this largely agricultural island and the vivid blues and greens of the waters around the coast. The degree of shabbiness in Nuku‘alofa, however, is also striking. With no facilities for disposal, abandoned cars lie rusting. ‘The Kingdom of Tonga, ancient Polynesia’ is the slogan on the tourist literature, and it is the survival of a Polynesian kingdom, whose regime still affects many aspects of daily life, that is so remarkable about Tonga and that makes it unique, even if the amalgam of traditional and modern is some-
Introduction
3
times uneasy. A ‘compromise culture’ it has been called, containing some of the best of both, and some of the less than best as well. Tonga is not paradise. No one’s best interests are served by ignoring the problems—demographic, political, social, economic and environmental—that face Tonga as they do other small isolated countries lacking significant natural resources other than their land, their seas and their people; some of these problems have become seemingly more intractable rather than less in the past ten years. But it is sad that some journalists seem to go to Tonga determined in advance not to like, or at least not to try to understand, what they find. The islands Given the small spread of the islands forming the Kingdom of Tonga, the differences in their geological structure and appearance are remarkable. Starting at the southern end, ‘Eua is a series of raised limestone terraces on a volcanic base, a high island with dramatic cliffs and some of the last remaining native forest in Tonga, where parrots may be seen. Tongatapu, the main island, an area of raised reef limestone on a volcanic base, is largely flat, rising gently from northwest to south and east, with rich and fertile soil. The Ha‘apai group consists of two parallel chains. To the east is a line of low coral atolls, with poor, sandy soil. To the west is a line of volcanic islands, of which the cone of Kao is the highest point in Tonga (1,109 m) and Tofua is still active. The islands of the Vava‘u group have a volcanic base and present a more varied aspect. To the north again, Niuafo‘ou is an active volcano, a ring of land around a crater lake. The volcano last erupted in 1946 (item 220). Niuatoputapu is the eroded remnant of a large volcano, while Tafahi, a few kilometres to the north, is an extinct volcano cone. All three have rugged shores on which landing is difficult. To the east of the whole chain is the Tonga Trench, with depths of more than 10,000 m—some of the deepest ocean in the world. Tonga’s climate is subtropical rather than tropical, with winter temperatures never less than about 17°C and summer temperatures never warmer than about 33°C. Vava‘u is noticeably warmer than Tongatapu. High humidity can make the months of December to March rather uncomfortable. These are the months of highest rainfall and also of cyclones. The last major cyclone, Isaac, was in 1982, but there have been other destructive cyclones since, for instance Cora in December 1998, which caused damage assessed at T$19.6 million to crops and buildings in Ha‘apai, Tongatapu and ‘Eua. History Historians of the Pacific used to place the settlement of the islands of Polynesia by their present peoples within the first millennium AD. But the
4
Introduction
current view, based on the most recent excavations, is that Tongatapu was first settled by the Lapita peoples around 900 BC (items 110, 125). Discoveries in the last thirty years of distinctive pottery made by the Lapita peoples (named after a site in New Caledonia where it was first found) have established this much earlier date for the movement of a people from Southeast Asia, through Melanesia and into Polynesia. A comprehensive treatment of the whole topic, with a bibliography of all published references to date, is in P. V. Kirch’s The Lapita peoples (item 111), supplemented by the later references noted above. From the archaeological record it seems that these people were largely shore-dwellers, living on fish and shellfish. Why the making of their distinctive pottery died out remains unclear. The evidence, both archaeological and linguistic, indicates quite clearly that the Polynesian peoples, the Tongans among them, came from Southeast Asia, and the efforts of Thor Heyerdahl to prove that they came from South America must be discounted, though there is some recent evidence that Polynesians may have reached South America. This is not to deny that there are many unanswered questions as to the relationship between the Polynesians and the Melanesians of Fiji, the Solomon Islands and other groups to the west and north and as to the order in which the Lapita peoples settled the island groups of Polynesia and thus became the Polynesians that we know today. But the basic direction of the movement and its approximate dating are now well established. Because the word Tonga means ‘south’ it is suggested that they may have come from Samoa to the north, but the Tongan legends tell of no migration, only of creation by the gods, among whom Maui fished up the islands from the bed of the sea. Radiocarbon dates for Lapita pottery indicate that Tongatapu was settled first, before Ha‘apai to the north. The first phase of Tongan history of which oral records tell is the emergence of ‘Aho‘eitu as the first Tu‘i Tonga about 950 AD. He was born, so legend tells, from the union between the sun god Tangaloa and a beautiful Tongan girl. The origin myth makes it clear that the Tu‘i Tonga was a sacred king, as much priest as ruler, possessed of mana (presence, authority). He was head of a society based on tapu (prohibition, hence probably the one Tongan word taken into English, taboo), which governed all behaviour and relationships within a highly structured society. From ‘Aho‘eitu there is a record of a continuous line, oral until the coming of the Europeans and then written, until the thirty-ninth, Laufilitonga, who died in 1865. Long before then, however, in the early 15th century, a second royal line developed, the Tu‘i Ha‘atakalaua, taking on the temporal authority of the Tu‘i Tonga and leaving him with only his sacred role. Early in the 17th century a third line developed, the Tu‘i Kanokupolu, also a temporal line whose power had, by the time of European contact, become greater than that of the other two. The Tu‘i Tonga title was absorbed
Introduction
5
by King George Tupou I on the death of Laufilitonga, and the three lines were brought together by successive royal marriages, so that all are embodied in the person of the present King George Tupou V. Tonga was not a peaceful place during the reigns of the early Tu‘i Tongas, some of whom met violent deaths. The earliest recorded stories tell of the tenth, in the 12th century. The eleventh, Tu‘itâtui, built the Ha‘amonga trilithon, one of the most remarkable sights in Tonga today, made of three huge stones each weighing forty tons and five metres high that, whatever its other purposes, served as an astronomical marker for the passing of the seasons. This was also the period of the building of the langi, massive stone terraced tombs which may be seen around the old capital of Mu‘a. The first sighting of Tonga by Europeans was in 1616 when the Dutch explorers Schouten and Le Maire visited briefly the far northern islands of Niuatoputapu and Tafahi. The first visit to Tongatapu was by Abel Tasman in 1643. The first significant visit, however, had to wait for over a century, when Captain Cook visited ‘Eua, Tongatapu and Nomuka on his second voyage in 1773–74 and, for a much longer period on his third voyage in 1777, Nomuka, Ha‘apai, Tongatapu and ‘Eua. Cook’s virtues as a captain, a navigator, a cartographer and an observer, a man of humanity and learning, have been written about often and need no repetition here. Suffice it to say that his journals, and the printed accounts of his voyages, which had enormous circulation and influence and were rapidly translated into many other European languages, offer a sympathetic, comprehensive and informed account of the islands that he visited, the Tongans whom he met, and their way of life. Even if in some respects he misunderstood what was happening, all serious study of Tonga must begin with him. I have been navigated around Nuku‘alofa harbour by a sailor using Cook’s chart, which he said had never been bettered. However, for some the picture of the Pacific islands presented by Cook and other explorers was not one of paradise but of depravity. For Protestants, inspired by the evangelical revival of the 18th century, and later for Catholics, Tonga was a mission field. In 1796 the London Missionary Society equipped the ship Duff to place missionaries in Tonga and other islands. Ten were left in Tonga, but the mission was a disaster. They were all men of great zeal but little formal education, and their strategy of reaching Tongans for the Christian faith by teaching them their trades was quite impractical. Some missionaries were killed, and within a few years all those left were withdrawn. They had arrived at a time of increasing unrest within Tonga, a time of rivalries between chiefs in the three island groups that was to culminate in a long period of civil war. In the meantime the Christian presence was reestablished, this time by the Wesleyan Missionary Society that first sent
6
Introduction
Walter Lawry, from 1822–23, and then John Thomas and John Hutchinson and their wives, who arrived in 1826. In 1831 the young chief Taufa‘âhau was baptized, taking the Christian name of George. He gained authority in Vava‘u, and on the death of the Tu‘i Kanokupolu in 1845 he assumed that title and became the ruler of a united Tonga as King George Tupou I. The achievements of his long reign (he died in 1893, aged ninety-six) were without parallel in the Pacific, although some opposition and disaffection continued until about 1860. Whether he called upon and used the expertise of his missionary advisers, and in particular his prime minister for many years, Shirley Baker, to work to his own ends, or whether Baker directed him, is a matter of debate, with Rutherford (item 209) and Lâtûkefu (item 190) presenting different aspects of the question. However by the end of his reign King George I had united the kingdom, given Tonga a code of laws, culminating in the Constitution of 1875 that established personal freedoms and transformed the old chiefs into new nobles, and ensured that land remained vested in Tonga forever and could never be alienated to foreigners. Above all he kept Tonga independent by playing one European power against another by a series of treaties that ensured that Tonga never became a colony. Baker imported for the king from New Zealand the royal palace, which still dominates the waterfront of Nuku‘alofa today, and devised a flag and coat of arms. However it seems that it was King George himself who devised the Tongan motto. ‘God and Tonga are my inheritance’, a country united under the Christian monarchy of the house of Tupou. There were many European residents and traders who mocked what they saw as the pretensions of the king and Baker. Baker eventually had to be expelled after an attempt was made to assassinate him following unrest over the establishment of a national Wesleyan church independent of Australia. Attempts to enforce this led to the violent persecution of those who wished to retain the status quo and to the exile of some. It was after this, and the king’s death, that in 1900 Britain imposed a Treaty of Protection and Friendship by which a British agent and consul was appointed, who was not to interfere in internal affairs but was to advise the king on foreign affairs and on local and financial policy as requested. The achievements and status of King George Tupou I are summed up by Rutherford in his Friendly Islands: a history of Tonga (item 143): ‘The Kingdom of Tonga was his own creation and the independence, prosperity and well being of his people his lifetime care. He was the greatest Tongan of his own and probably any other century’. Yet Tonga was not as well-founded as it might seem, and the reign of his great-grandson King George Tupou II was less happy. Since 1890 government had fallen into administrative and financial chaos. Rivalries emerged. The king alienated many by vacillating between two possible wives, and his choice made him so unpopular that for
Introduction
7
a time he could not leave the palace without an armed guard. His government had to borrow money from traders, and king and Parliament were set against each other. Such was the concern of both foreign residents in Tonga and the British government that Britain imposed a supplementary treaty in 1905 further restricting Tonga’s independence and enforcing a change of ministers. And yet the affair of the Tonga ma‘a Tonga kautaha (items 230, 231) showed that the power of the British consul was limited and could not totally override the king and his government. The rest of the reign saw a greater degree of unity and some economic progress. Even so, the early years of the reign of his daughter, Queen Sâlote Tupou III, who succeeded at the age of eighteen in 1918, were far from easy. From a later perspective her long reign, ending in 1965, was a golden age of stability, with the recovery of important elements of Tongan tradition that had been unnecessarily lost: a pride in being Tongan together with a careful acceptance of that which was best and most appropriate from the West, and quiet progress in the economy, health and education. The definitive account of the reign is Dr. Wood-Ellem’s biography (item 223). The early years of Queen Sâlote’s reign were distinctly unsettled, but her attempt to bring together the divided churches (item 285), her presence in the villages, her work during the Second World War when many American troops were stationed in Tonga, exposing it for the first time to Western culture on a large scale, and much else, including her presence in London in 1953, gave her people a new self-confidence in the value of their own Tongan identity, while ensuring that Tonga was a stable unit within the region and the British Commonwealth. An important part of this was her concern, with the help of Western scholars such as Elizabeth Bott (items 340, 356) working with her and with other Tongans, for recording Tongan tradition and history. Her death in 1965 prompted the deepest grief in Tonga. For sixteen years Queen Sâlote was assisted as prime minister by her elder son, who succeeded her as King Taufa‘âhau Tupou IV. A law graduate from the University of Sydney, he saw that Tonga could not remain protected from the larger world, that it needed investment in health and education, in transport and communications and an economy based less on subsistence agriculture than on industry and commerce. All of this, he knew, would need external funding through development aid and loans. Early in his reign, in 1970, Tonga achieved full independence from Britain, within the British Commonwealth. Earlier, in 1968, surface oil seepages raised hope of commercially exploitable oil that could fund Tonga’s development, but after much exploration no oil was found. However, much was done in the early years of the reign. A hotel was built, a radio station and newspaper started, and a bank established. But, with a population growing because of improved health care, pressure on the limited land resources increased. No longer could every young man receive the tax allotment to which he had
8
Introduction
been entitled. Many, encouraged by the government, emigrated to New Zealand, Australia and the United States, seeing that as the only answer to economic problems; considerable literature on the interrelated themes of population, migration and remittances and their impact on the Tongan economy (items 514–53) demonstrates their crucial importance to Tonga today. At the same time it is perhaps both ironic and inevitable that Tonga has not been able to establish an export-led economy based on small-scale industry and on tourism. The success of vanilla and squash (though in the last few years declining as other countries enter the market) and the potential for kava and for fish, suggest that the resources of land and sea remain Tonga’s best hope. The king was indefatigable in his efforts to improve his kingdom and the lot of his people, taking initiatives and pursuing opportunities wherever they presented themselves. Some were more successful than others. Attempts to create an international airline, to give Tonga greater control over transport both for passengers and for freight, ultimately failed. Unscrupulous entrepreneurs from overseas did Tonga no favours, losing Tongan funds in an American insurance scam and establishing a ship registry that was misused and produced no income. However the extraordinary national celebrations for the king’s eightieth birthday in July 1998, the days of feasting and dancing, of church services, concerts and displays, the decorated archways erected over every main road in Nuku‘alofa, the presence of distinguished visitors from around the Pacific, all served to demonstrate that the monarchy is still at the heart of the Tongan polity. His death in September 2006 saw an outpouring of national grief reminiscent of that at his mother’s death forty-two years earlier. In a statement issued after the king’s death the prime minister set out what he saw as the five major achievements of the reign: his drive to give all Tongans access to both basic and higher education, his endeavours to improve his people’s wealth and standard of living, his tireless efforts to facilitate his people’s emigration, his refusal to assent to legislation that would have dispossessed Tongans living abroad of their land allotments, and, perhaps most significant, his decision to set a precedent on the appointment of cabinet ministers ‘based on the recommendations of a prime minister elected by the people’. He was succeeded by his eldest son, as King George Tupou V, who, for twenty-five years, until 1998, had been Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence. Political system Only two months after the death of the king, with the country still in mourning, Nuku‘alofa erupted into an orgy of rioting, arson and looting on 16 November 2006 that saw much of the central business district
Introduction
9
destroyed and burnt to the ground. First estimates put the cost of the damage at T$123 million. The minister of finance estimated that twenty per- cent of gross domestic product was lost on that day. It was estimated that rebuilding might cost around T$90 million. The coronation of King George Tupou V was postponed from August 2007 to August 2008. To try to understand why this happened, the culmination of a period of approximately twenty years of dissatisfaction by some in Tonga at the political system and of calls for reform, it is first necessary to describe the present constitutional position. Tonga is a monarchy, the only Polynesian monarchy to survive, and the monarch not only reigns but also rules. The role of the monarch is set within the parliamentary system established by the Constitution of 1875, but this does not give sovereignty to a democratically elected parliament in the Western style, and it is over this that significant tensions have appeared. The Constitution provides for a sovereign and Privy Council. The monarch is both head of state and head of government, and appoints a prime minister and all members of the cabinet. (The monarch with the cabinet forms the Privy Council.) Tonga has had only five prime ministers in the past sixty years: from 1949 to 1965 the crown prince, later King Taufa‘âhau Tupou IV, during the latter part of the reign of his mother Queen Sâlote; from 1965 to 1991 the king’s brother Prince Fatafehi Tu‘ipelehake; from 1991 Baron Vaea, from 2000 the king’s youngest son Prince ‘UlukalalaLavaka-Ata and since 2006 Dr. Feleti Sevele, the first commoner to hold the post. All members of the cabinet sit in the single-chamber legislature, along with nine Nobles’ Representatives elected by the nobles from among the thirty-three of them, and nine People’s Representatives elected by universal suffrage. There are no political parties as such. A group, loosely formed, calling itself the Tonga Pro-democracy Movement, emerged in the late 1980s, and recorded a strong vote in the general election of 1987, with a number of People’s Representatives with large majorities, committed to a programme of political reform. The 1990 election saw this group strengthened, with popular concerns about the accountability of ministers, the sale of passports and other matters, and the group continued to do well in subsequent elections in the 1990s. In October 1998 they chose as their new name the Tongan Human Rights and Democracy Movement, calling for greater ministerial accountability and suggesting that cabinet ministers should be drawn from among elected representatives rather than appointed by the king. They were, however, bound by no common ideology or specific programme of reform and at times fell out among themselves. There was little apparent feeling that the monarchy should become subservient to Parliament, let alone that it should be replaced by a republic. Most calls for reform were set within the limits of the existing system.
10
Introduction
Through the 1990s voter support for pro-democracy candidates rose: 1990 58.1 percent, 1993 65.2 percent, 1996 65.5 percent, but in the 1999 election (item 433), though democracy and accountability were the main issues, support fell to 39.6 percent. In the 2002 election (item 443) prodemocracy candidates again won most seats, but turnout was below 50 percent. There seemed no programme for change: voters again seemed to be seeking transparency and accountability in government, rather than radical reform. The 2005 election (item 440) followed a difficult period for the government, with dissatisfaction over the pace of democratic reform, the loss of government investments through fraud in the USA, unsuccessful attempts to control the media, which the government saw as irresponsible and inaccurate in some of its reporting, and the failure of the Tongan airline with considerable losses. Pressure for greater democracy had already led the king to agree that two elected representatives each of the people and the nobles should be appointed to the cabinet as ministers. Pro-democracy candidates were again largely successful, and the promised changes to the cabinet were implemented. However the civil service then began a damaging general strike in support of salary increases ranging between sixty and eighty percent, to which the government ultimately had no option but to concede, at a cost of T$35 million. Subsequently members of Parliament voted themselves a salary increase of sixty percent, backdated to July 2005. A National Committee for Political Reform was established in November 2005, led by H.R.H. Prince Tu‘ipelehake, to consult the public on the type of political reform that should take place. From January 2006 it held consultations throughout all the islands of Tonga and also among Tongans living overseas. Tu‘ipelehake and his wife were tragically killed in a car crash in California in July 2006 while discussing plans with Tongans residing in the USA. Nevertheless the final report was presented to the king shortly before his death in September 2006. It recommended one model for a fully elected parliament. The government and the People’s Representatives each recommended their own separate models, and the government proposed that these models should be considered by a parliamentary committee. A week of inflammatory speeches in a public space in Nuku‘alofa, widely reported by the local media, exacerbated feelings that were already strong, and incited the explosion of violence and destruction on 16 November, which initially the Tonga Defence Force and the police could not control. Eight people were killed. Troops and police from Australia and New Zealand were brought in to maintain order. More than 700 people, including five People’s Representatives, were arrested on charges of incitement, arson and robbery, and, trials are at the time of writing, making their way through the courts. Two factors may have contributed to the violence.
Introduction
11
One was the presence in Tonga of youths formerly residing in the USA and New Zealand but deported back to Tonga for criminal offences. The other was xenophobia: Chinese stores and businesses seem to have been particular targets. Tonga still lives under a state of emergency, renewed monthly, while plans are made and finances raised (through a soft loan of T$118 million from China to the government, which will be passed on to private businesses) for the reconstruction of central Nuku‘alofa. In a speech closing the parliamentary session on 23 November 2006 King George Tupou V pledged to move ahead with democratic change, affirming that the differences between the three models could be resolved through dialogue, and a select committee of the legislative assembly was created to review the different models and address other issues relevant to political reform. The committee recommended that there should be nine Nobles’ Representatives and seventeen People’s Representatives and that these twenty-six elected members elect the prime minister, who would then advise the king of those he has selected to be cabinet ministers, for his approval. It was also recommended that the king should independently select four representatives, either from those already elected but not selected by the prime minister for cabinet posts or from outside the legislative assembly, at his pleasure. This proposal was approved by the legislative assembly in September 2007, to be implemented in 2010. The elections planned for April 2008 will have been conducted according to the then existing structure. In his address at the opening of Parliament in May 2007 the king was able to report good progress in planning and financing the reconstruction of Nuku‘alofa and an economy more robust than at first expected. Main areas of focus were to be tourism, manufacturing, agriculture, fisheries and infrastructure. Diplomatic missions were to be set up in Australia and New Zealand, and the education system was to be expanded, with the starting age lowered from six to five and the leaving age raised to eighteen, with 90 percent of school leavers to be accepted into institutes of higher education or technical training within five years. These are ambitious and impressive targets. In a statement following the first meeting of the Privy Council with the new king in September 2007 the prime minister said that the government supported change that is controlled and not too rapid, ‘Changes which Tonga can manage properly, peacefully and with stability and I have no doubt that changes will continue. I have no doubt the unifying force that the monarchy has on Tonga will continue’. (For a detailed account and assessment of events from the beginning of 2005 until the death of King Taufa‘âhau Tupou IV in September 2006, see the article by Heather Young Leslie on Tonga in the Political Reviews section of The Contemporary Pacific, vol. 19, no. 1 (2007) pp. 262–75. I. C.
12
Introduction
Campbell covers the riots of November 2006 and the events leading up to them in his most recent paper in The Journal of Pacific History, added at item 740.) Foreign relations Although Tonga signed its first treaties of friendship with France (1855) and with Germany (1876) it was Britain from which came the first significant explorer, Cook, and the first missionaries through whom Tonga became a Christian country, united under a Christian king, George Tupou I. There were advocates of full colonization, particularly from the British in New Zealand, but Tonga retained its independence even after it became a protected state of Britain with the treaties of 1900 and 1905. There was a significant German trading community, but Britain gave up rights in Samoa in return for Germany giving up rights in Tonga by a treaty in 1899. French Marists had a leading position in the Roman Catholic Church, which they had established. However Britain had ultimate control over Tonga’s foreign policy, exercised through the British consul. When Tonga became fully independent in 1970 it remained within the British Commonwealth. The British Consulate in Tonga became a high commission and resident diplomatic missions were established by Australia, New Zealand and Taiwan. A number of other countries, including France and Germany, had honorary consuls. Tonga for its part established a high commission in London, covering many of the countries of Europe and also the European Union in Brussels, in order to play its full part in the important negotiations between the EU and the Africa, Caribbean, Pacific (ACP) group of former dependent territories over trade and aid. Aid that formerly came from Britain is increasingly channelled through the EU. Britain recently closed its high commission in Tonga, as in several other small Pacific states, centralizing its presence in Fiji. Many regretted the end of this long and significant presence in Tonga. During this period Tonga often followed a resolutely independent path of friendship with all, for instance with France even when most of the Pacific island countries were united in their opposition to the continuing French colonial presence in the Pacific, and in particular to their nuclear tests. In 1998, there was a major development—the transfer of diplomatic relations from Taiwan to the People’s Republic of China (item 473). Subsequently Tonga established an embassy in Beijing. Whatever the long-term motives of the PRC in developing alliances with small states of the South Pacific (perhaps fishing rights, satellite slots, or simply general strategic support for the Chinese position), this has been accompanied by an increasing presence of Chinese in Tonga in the business sector. The main hotel in Nuku‘alofa, the Dateline, is now owned by the Chinese, who have
Introduction
13
invested considerable sums in its development and expansion. Many of the small village shops are also run by Chinese. Some members of the Tonga Defence Force have been trained in Chinese military academies, and Tongans study at Chinese universities. The PRC has been generous with aid, and negotiations are under way for it to supply a large loan for the rebuilding of Nuku‘alofa after the riots and destruction of November 2006. In 1999 Tonga, which was already a member of some of the subsidiary agencies of the United Nations, became a full member of the UN. Tonga has also maintained close and warm relations with the United States, remembering with gratitude the US presence in Tonga during the Second World War when Japanese invasion was a real threat. Tonga supported the US invasion of Iraq, and currently a small contingent from the Tonga Defence Force is serving in Iraq. The economy For economists accustomed to near-balanced national accounts, the Tongan economy must appear alarming. Tonga has what is classified by economists as a MIRAB economy, in which the main elements are migration, remittances and bureaucracy. It is only the large volume of remittances from Tongans now living overseas together with overseas aid that has funded the value of imports fuelled by a rising standard of living. Table 1 shows the statistics from the National Reserve Bank of Tonga for the last four financial years. Some of the money received has been spent on social obligations to family and church, but much received by families from their kin overseas has been spent on the construction of houses, on cars and on other imported consumer durables, as well as on food, much of which is imported. There are concerns that not much has been invested in local businesses. There are many signs of apparent prosperity, at least in Nuku‘alofa where the number of vehicles has increased so much in recent years that there are
Table 1. Tongan Balance of Payments 2002–2006
2002/3
2003/4
2004/5
2005/6
Exports
38.6
28.3
31.1
32.6
Imports
163.0
169.0
204.2
235.6
Remittances
149.6
184.4
208.1
204.5
Note: Table numbers are in millions of T$. Source: Nationa Reserve Bank of Tonga.
14
Introduction
now traffic jams at busy periods. Many Tongans now have mobile phones, served by one of two networks, and televisions, with several channels available. A report by the Asian Development Bank in 2004 identified the difficulties of households in meeting subsistence costs and the real hardship facing some Tongans, not least because the traditional safety net of the family is no longer as effective as it used to be. Yet standards of living are rising, and a recent United Nations Development Program human development index survey ranked Tonga 54th in the world, ahead of all its Pacific island neighbours. Nevertheless the position is challenging, and foreign currency reserves have at times fallen to low levels (T$36.9 million in 2002–03 but recovering to T$83.2 in 2005–06). Tonga faces all the problems of a small group of islands nearly 2,000 km from its nearest potential major market, New Zealand, with high shipping costs and services that are not always reliable. Tonga is a primarily agricultural country that before European contact produced more than enough staple foods for all (albeit with a population of probably no more than 20,000) with surpluses the size of which amazed early explorers when presented on ceremonial occasions such as the ‘inasi (first fruits) for the Tu‘i Tonga. Indeed the volume of food, whether presented for ceremonies or for feasts, can still amaze the visitor today. On the whole Tongan dietary problems are more of being overweight than of malnutrition, though diet may not always be well-balanced. A recent survey suggested that 68 percent of Tongans are clinically obese, the third highest figure in the world. Cheap but fatty mutton flaps, imported from New Zealand, form a major part of the diet, and contribute to very high levels of high blood pressure and diabetes. Coconut oil and copra, the flesh of the coconut, used in the production of soap and margarine, were in the 19th century and remained for long the main export crops. Attempts to diversify and develop new export crops (coffee, cotton and sugar) were made in the 19th century but never became significant, though a little coffee is still grown today. By the 1970s the world price of copra had fallen so low that the trade became unremunerative, and efforts, financed by overseas aid, to develop the export of both copra and bananas came to nothing. In recent years two significant new export crops have been developed. The first, vanilla, grown largely in Vava‘u, commands a good price in the world market if of good quality. However other producing countries have now entered this market and the price fluctuates. More recently has come squash (pumpkin) for the Japanese market, which Tonga has been able to supply for a short period at the end of the year when there are no other suppliers. Much land has been turned over to squash production, sometimes to the detriment of the production of staple foods for domestic consumption, and some people have grown very rich through this trade. However in recent years, with increasing competition from other
Introduction
15
sources and declining yields, perhaps because of overexploitation of the soil, the price has been low, and growers have not been able to produce their full quota. There is some export of traditional Tongan root crops, yam and sweet potato, to New Zealand for the large Tongan community there. There might be new export markets for tropical fruit and maize, and a coconut-replanting scheme is planned. In all about 90 percent of Tonga’s exports are of agricultural produce. Another factor affecting all agricultural production, domestic or export, is the weather. Tonga is prone to hurricanes, which can devastate crops for many years, and also to drought, which can greatly reduce yields. Yet there are hopes for agricultural exports. The price of copra did recover from the low levels of the 1970s. It was hoped that there might be a significant market for kava in the United States and Europe for the production of a natural tranquilizer, but its use has not yet been approved for medicinal purposes, and the main export market for kava is other Pacific countries for traditional use. At one time it seemed that there might be a good market in Japan for a seaweed, but this has not yet developed. Many growers produce in the short term and take profits for immediate consumption. There is too little capital investment in agriculture, and supplies are not consistent enough to meet regular demand from export markets. There have been attempts to start small businesses producing for export, and a Small Industries Centre, developed outside Nuku‘alofa, was hailed as a model for small Pacific island countries. However, the distances over which raw materials (largely wool for knitwear and leather for coats) had to be imported and finished goods then exported militated against success, and it seems unlikely that small-scale manufacturing or assembly can be a significant part of the answer to Tonga’s problems. Commercial fishing has yet to produce significant exports, while Tonga imports considerable quantities of tinned fish. Tourism, as in many such countries, has been seen as a generator of employment as well as an earner of foreign currency, but it has not developed in Tonga to the extent hoped. Tonga could never be a large-scale tourist destination such as Fiji or Hawai‘i: there are neither the facilities nor the transport links, and standards have not always been what today’s tourists expect. Tonga’s hope for tourism has to rest on smaller groups with particular specialist interests such as yacht cruising, which is developing in Vava‘u, along with diving and deep-sea fishing, and most recently whale watching. The hunting of whales, which was only for local consumption, was banned by royal decree in 1978. Humpback whales migrate from Antarctic waters to Tonga between July and November to give birth and mate, and since the late 1990s a whale-watching industry has been established in Vava‘u that, it has been estimated brings in over T$1 million a year in tourist expenditure on local services. Yet there are Tongans who would like to
16
Introduction
substitute whale meat for imported mutton, and there is a difficult balance to be held. Yet overall the Tongan domestic economy seems in reasonable shape, and the review by the minister of finance of the economy in 2007 (item 507) is very positive, even after the double impact of the cost of damage caused by the November 2006 riots and the large salary increase for civil servants, as a result of which over half of government revenue goes to salaries, leaving little for public utilities and services and a heavy dependence on foreign aid and remittances. The domestic business sector has been remarkably resilient. Gross domestic product has increased in the last four financial years by 3.2 percent, 1.4 percent, 2.3 percent and 1.9 percent, with 1.6 percent forecast for 2006–07, and the prime minister, in a statement in September 2007, said that he hoped for around 2.5 percent in the next two years, with growth particularly in tourism, agriculture and fisheries. Society Traditional Tongan society is highly stratified and its interrelationships often complex. The extensive literature on rank and status and on social relationships as they have been observed (items 290–370) bears witness to the fascination of the subject over the 230 years since Captain Cook recorded his observations. At its simplest, below royalty is a clear and sharp distinction, based on birth and thus on inherited rank, between tu‘a (commoners) and ‘eiki (chiefs). This extends to three levels of language for monarch, nobles and commoners. In pre-European times the distinction was absolute. Not only did tu‘a have no rights in this life, only ‘eiki could reach the afterlife in Pulotu. While King George Tupou I’s Code of Laws of 1862 removed from the chiefs the right to demand exactions from commoners, and the Constitution of 1875 transformed the chief into a parliamentary noble, those did nothing to affect social relationships and ranking, and the stratification remains. Rank (acquired by birth) and status (acquired by achievement) are not always identical, and the literature on the relationship between one and the other, and on how rank is acquired and transmitted, is highly technical. Every Tongan seeks to know where he or she stands in the social order, and for a child part of the process of growing up is becoming poto (skilled) in knowing one’s place in society and operating within it, as demonstrated by Helen Morton in her book Becoming Tongan (item 294). The picture now, however, is not as clear as it once was. There is a growing number of commoners, better educated than some nobles, holding senior positions in government and business, including now the prime minister. Some writers have seen the development of what they call a middle class. The reciprocal relationship of nobles and commoners, each with
Introduction
17
both obligations and responsibilities, has on occasions been a one-way process. Concepts of democracy and of equal political rights, as noted above, are seen by some to be valid elsewhere but not in Tonga. Rank still remains central, and it is necessary to be aware of this in any attempt to understand Tongan society today. Kava Kava occupies such an important place in Tongan society, and in life generally, that it merits its own section (items 371–79). Kava is a drink made from the pounded root of the kava plant (Piper methysticum), mixed with water. The taste is slightly peppery and muddy, and for most non-Tongans it is an acquired taste. Its chemical composition is alkaloid; it is an anaesthetic and analgesic, and its effect is generally soporific. It is not, as is sometimes stated, alcoholic, nor does it have the same effect. As noted above in the section on agriculture, it is in demand in the United States and Europe as the basis of a natural tranquilizer, though some countries do not approve its use. The social drinking of kava, without any ceremony, in informal groups or in kava clubs in every village, is central to the daily life of most Tongan men (not usually women). Here information is shared and matters of common concern are discussed long into the night. However, a formal kava ceremony, where kava is ceremonially mixed and shared on major occasions such as the conferring of a title on a noble, is also a deeply significant social ritual. The strict arrangement of seating in the circle, the gifts that accompany the kava, and the order of precedence signified by the sequence in which the kava is distributed to each person present, all ratify and affirm the hierarchies of Tongan society. As Urbanowicz writes in his paper on kava (item 372), kava is ‘a seal on all occasions . . . a model of Tongan society’. Others have interpreted the kava ceremony at a deeper level, from a psychoanalytical viewpoint (item 374), seeing it as resolving some of the tensions inherent in Tongan society from its mythic beginning. Others still, as Christians, have seen it as a powerful prefiguring of Holy Communion. The altar in the Roman Catholic cathedral at Nuku‘alofa is in the form of a giant kava bowl. However, at whatever level it is interpreted, or simply observed and experienced, to witness a major kava ceremony is to see the traditional Tongan society made visible. The essence of Tonga How, then, can one sum up the essence of this complex society? What can be identified as its governing principles as they can be seen by observers from outside?
18
Introduction
The ability to adopt and absorb without losing its essential character seems to be a continuing thread running through Tongan society. For all the Western influences that have deeply affected it, Tonga, 230 years after the first significant European contact, is still remarkably distinct. A former deputy prime minister and minister of education, Dr. Langi Kavaliku, identifies ‘ofa (love) as the principal characteristic feature of Tongan society (item 334). All aspects of life in Tonga, at its ideal best, are governed by ‘ofa. Of course not all relationships in Tonga reach this ideal. Yet the very fact that, writing towards the end of the cynical 20th century, this could even be recognized as an ideal is significant. Tongans may disagree strongly about almost everything—politics, religion, the family or business. They are, it has been observed, highly litigious, often ready to go to court against each other. Yet, as Marcus records in investigating litigation and succession disputes (item 461), the use of lawyers to avoid direct confrontation allows harmonious relations to resume after a case, whichever way the verdict may go. The proliferation of churches of different denominations is very apparent. Even a small village may have two or three. But they all work together when necessary, for instance if labour is required for a new building. Western and traditional medicine coexist, and indeed Claire Parsons, writing about this (item 418), sees the maintenance of harmony in relationships as central not just to health but to life generally. Christianity and concepts of evil spirits coexist too. Both the causes of and the remedies for illness are seen as complementary rather than exclusively the domain of only one system of belief and knowledge. Tongan graves are decorated with all sorts of Western material such as bottles and fabrics (item 658) that might be thought incongruous to Western eyes. Yet why should they be? At a celebration both the police silver band or one of the many school brass bands may appear, and also traditional dance and music troupes performing in very much the way observed by Captain Cook. Tonga has learnt and taken much from the West, not all for the good. In some ways Tonga is now a very materialistic society. But the West has not yet swamped or transformed Tonga. Perhaps it is because Tonga is largely a homogeneous society, with no alienation of land and no significant immigration, that it has been able both to adopt and to retain, and to become a truly ‘compromise culture’. Alongside this ability to adopt and absorb is the fact that traditionally no Tongan stands alone, living a purely private, individual life. Life is lived as part of a wider network of extended family and kin. It has been stated that ‘we’ is more important than ‘I’ in Tonga. Thus, you do not save money for yourself first, but for the needs of your kin, your village or your church. There is no social security in Tonga. The care of the elderly is the welcomed responsibility of those who can support them. It can be more difficult where the owner of a small shop is expected to give goods or credit to his kin, or
Introduction
19
where a businessman or farmer is trying to accumulate capital to develop his business. For the non-Tongan the fact that a Tongan is seldom alone can be difficult to appreciate. To go for a walk or read a book on your own is simply not usual. Some younger Tongans, particularly if brought up overseas, may find it less easy to live in this way. But to anyone spending any time in Tonga the sense of the communal is palpable. This is ‘ofa in practice. How far this may all survive in the 21st century must remain an open question. A younger generation increasingly exposed to the values of Western individualism may find it less easy to maintain the balance. Many of the writers whose works are featured in this bibliography are concerned with one aspect or another of this situation. The system may seem to some, both inside and outside, to be something of an anachronism. Others may feel that, without characteristics such as these, Tonga would no longer be Tonga. Knowledge of the best that is Tongan is one way to ensure that the best survives. Social change is inevitable. Societies are dynamic, not static, and no society can isolate itself from the rest of the world. F. O. Kolo, in his paper on the myth of indigenous authenticity (item 144), notes, ‘After all the years of teaching that we are primitive and have an inferior culture to that of the Europeans, all of a sudden we are told that our culture is beautiful and, that we should go back and live by it’. He calls for scholars to list all available Tongan articles of historical significance, to collect all written materials produced by non-Tongans such as early descriptions by traders, voyagers and others, and to collect articles by scholars on all Tongan subjects. Sadly there is as yet no national library in Tonga in which such material could be deposited. However it is hoped that this bibliography may contribute to this process, and thus to the well-being of Tonga within a wider world. Scope and arrangement of the bibliography It would be almost impossible to do now what Philip Snow set out to do forty years ago in his A bibliography of Fiji, Tonga and Rotuma (item 719): to provide a complete listing of all material, not only books and academic papers but also newspaper articles. Far too much has been published since for this to be even conveniently listed, let alone annotated. However that is not the aim of this bibliography. I have attempted as far as possible to follow the brief given to me by the publisher of the series in which this bibliography first appeared, and to give preference to material more recently published and more generally available, though including older and more specialist material where useful. However in the case of Tonga, in many subject areas few books are published and the bulk of the literature is contained within papers in academic journals. For example, reasonably recent general works
20
Introduction
of synthesis have been published on the Lapita people (item 111), on the reign of Queen Sâlote Tupou III (item 223) and on the art of Tonga (item 636). On the other hand, virtually all of the large literature on the complex matter of Tongan social structure, status and rank is to be found in papers in academic journals or collected volumes, and it has thus been necessary to cover these more fully. The same applies to the subjects of migration and population. At the same time standard monographs on some subjects, though now old, have not been superseded. The standard work on the plants of Tonga was published in 1959 (item 96), that on the canoes of Oceania in 1936 (item 640), and the standard grammar of Tongan in 1953 (item 260). Thus it must be stressed that this bibliography is selective and makes no claim to completeness. I have done my best to cover all significant works that I have been able to locate. However I am aware of some works that I have not been able to find in any of the libraries available to me, and I have therefore not been able to include them. I have no doubt that I have missed works that others would have included, and that my judgment as to what should be included and what not may not be that of others. There are many books on the Pacific islands generally, or on regions within it, which have brief sections on Tonga. These I have excluded unless it has been necessary to include them for want of anything more specialized. I should also make it clear that I am not a professional scholar or bibliographer in the field of Pacific studies. My annotations attempt not to evaluate the validity of an argument but to offer a factual summary of what the author has written, with brief comments of my own only where I hope they may be helpful or relevant. Any attempt to review the whole literature on Tonga reveals one sad fact, that so little about Tonga is written by Tongans themselves. For example, few of the PhD theses listed here are by Tongans. First explorers and visitors such as Cook and Mariner, then missionaries and teachers such as Collocott and Wood, and in more recent times scholars from Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand have made substantial contributions to the study of Tonga. Tongans will tell you that some of these authors have misunderstood aspects of their subjects, in some cases perhaps because they did not know the language themselves and had to work through interpreters, or because their informants had a partial view. For a small country of limited resources, it is not easy to train young scholars through to PhD standard with the prospect of an academic career and the opportunity to research, write and publish. The University of the South Pacific in Fiji, the university for the region, has done much, through the work of the Institute of Pacific Studies, to encourage writing and make possible the publication of work by Pacific islanders, but much of this necessarily consists of brief papers in collected volumes. The Tonga Research Association, through its
Introduction
21
conferences and subsequent published volumes of papers, also encourages Tongan scholarship. It is to be hoped that more Tongans in the future will be encouraged and trained to interpret their country to the wider world. A note on names and spelling Tongan lacks some of the letters of the European alphabet. It has no j, r or b, using s, l and p. Further, every syllable concludes with a vowel. Once this is understood, many names and words that seem unfamiliar become clear. Thus, Sâlote is Charlotte, Semisi is James, Sione is John, Kalonikali is Chronicle, kolisi is college, siupeli is jubilee.
Bibliography
The Country and Its People 1
The Commonwealth yearbook 2006 Edited by Richard Green. Cambridge: Nexus Partnerships, 2006. 512pp. 56 maps
In the most recent edition of this yearbook, published for the Commonwealth Secretariat in London, general essays on aspects of the Commonwealth are followed by surveys for each member country. The section on Tonga (pp. 378–81) provides brief summary information on its history, geography, politics and Constitution and a few key facts on society and the economy.
2
The definition of authentic Oceanic cultures with particular reference to Tongan culture Sione Lâtûkefu. Pacific Studies, vol. 4, no. 1 (1980), pp.60–81
Lâtûkefu shows how Tongan culture has undergone radical changes, from a stratified society with a chiefly political system, abundant staple crops and simple living requirements, in which social organization and relationships played a significant part in the production and distribution of wealth. Relations between the classes were governed by the traditional values of faka‘api‘api (respect), fatongia (obligation) and mateaki (loyalty). It was a well-integrated system, yet dynamic and full of potential for change. The influence of European explorers, traders, missionaries, tourists and others has been significant, as has the migration of Tongans overseas. The first areas of change were material culture, technology and economy. Western-style housing has largely superseded the traditional. Transport and the growth of the monetary economy have brought changes in diet. The principles of respect, obligation and loyalty still govern social relationships, but the Christian emphasis on the importance of family life has made the nuclear family more important. Yet traditional hospitality, lavish feasting to support king, government and church are still central to Tongan life. Traditional material culture and performing arts survive, though adapted to the needs of tourists. The language has taken in many European words, and thought patterns have changed with formal education. However, Lâtûkefu sees all this as evidence of the strength of Tongan culture, ready to adopt what it finds best from outside while in no way affecting its distinct identity. Looking ahead, he believes that traditional values will continue to be ascribed willingly to church and state, though significant reforms will be needed in the parliamentary and land tenure systems. All new influences accepted into Tongan culture will be made to work in a Tongan setting and become accepted as a genuine part of it. For over twenty years this prediction seemed to hold up remarkably well, though with some strains. Now one might be less certain.
26
3
The Country and Its People
Euro-American acculturation in Tonga Edward Winslow Gifford. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 33, no. 4 (1924), pp.281–92
In the form of brief notes from his personal observation, Gifford presents examples of the progress of Euro-American acculturation in Tonga. He records that both European and Tongan ceremonies were conducted for Queen Sâlote’s coronation in 1918. He describes the ways in which ancient deities still manifest themselves, the experience of ghosts and of exorcisms, the relationship of the Christian sabbath to the ancient tabu, and the role of Christianity as a democratizing factor and in developing a village-dwelling society. He observes the recent arrival of the cinema, the typewriter and the telephone, cricket and horse racing, cloth and the sewing machine, and automobiles. He concludes that acculturation has made greatest headway in religion, and some in material culture, while society has been altered least, and that the hybrid culture of his time will maintain its distinctiveness. Three quarters of a century later the picture is far more complex, in many respects more European, yet also strongly traditional. The resulting tensions are explored in many of the studies listed in this bibliography.
4
The Far East and Australasia London: Europa Publications, 1969–, annual
The 33rd edition, 2003, of this standard reference guide provides much information on Tongan history, including recent political developments, the economy, some key statistics, the Constitution, politics and government, religion, media, finance and education.
5
Finding treasure in Tonga Lyn Greenall. Nuku‘alofa: Friendly Islands Bookshop, 1996. 151pp. 2 maps
Australian, the author came to know Tonga when her husband was appointed external auditor to the Free Wesleyan Church. This meant long visits and much travel around the islands. She writes about Tonga and the life of its people with enthusiasm and affection, dealing particularly with the schools, hospital and church. She states that she lost her heart in Tonga, that she is ‘most content when there’. She admits the need to adapt to a different way of life, where the community is more important than the individual, where being is more important than doing. But she does not disguise the converse, the lack of privacy, the dilapidated medical and educational facilities, and the noisy nights. She adds, ‘I also found magnificent music, kind people, balmy weather, a slower pace of life, a Christian ethos, a lack of materialism and technology’; this may in some respects be a little too idealistic.
6
Friendly island Patricia Ledyard. Sydney: Pacific Publications, 1974. 2nd ed. 252pp.
The second edition of Patricia Ledyard’s general description of her early years in Tonga was published in the same year as her ‘Utulei, my Tongan home (item 31) and
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covers some of the same ground. First published in 1956, it ranges more widely over Tonga beyond Vava‘u and still conveys her early enchantment and wonder at Tonga, the attraction of the islands and the life of its people.
7
Gentle people: into the heart of Vava‘u, Kingdom of Tonga Donna Gerstle. San Diego, California: Tofua Press, 1973. 65pp. map. bibliog.
Donna Gerstle arrived in Vava‘u in 1971 to work for the US Peace Corps, and was captivated by the quiet, communal, caring quality of life, unlike anything she had known. Her book tries to convey the essence of Vava‘u and its people, with an introduction full of her own enthusiasm followed by a history woven around extracts from the writings of Tongans, visitors and explorers, from the Spaniard Maurelle (so here, but correctly Mourelle) in 1781 to Queen Sâlote.
8
The happy isles of Oceania: paddling the Pacific Paul Theroux. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1992. 541pp. 14 maps
Paul Theroux seems not to have been happy as he travelled to the ‘happy isles’ of Oceania with his collapsible kayak. He seems not to have been able to judge their peoples by any standards other than his own. He did not like Nuku‘alofa, where he spent some days waiting for an interview with the king. He found it scruffy and unfriendly. But he loved Vava‘u for its peace and beauty, finding some serenity staying on small uninhabited islands. Nevertheless some of his observations on Tonga ring true, even if he dwells more on the frustrations than the joys and even if his experience was limited. We must accept that this was what he found, and his account is vivid and interesting.
9
How Tongan is a Tongan? Cultural authenticity revisited Helen Morton. In Echoes of Pacific war. Edited by Deryck Scarr, Niel Gunson, Jennifer Terrell. Canberra: Target Oceania, 1998, pp.149–66
Through research in Tonga and among Tongans in Australia Morton examines ways in which people measure themselves and other Tongans against a notion of ‘true’ or ‘real’ Tonganness, made not in respect of genetic inheritance but in relation to the image of ‘the traditional Tongan.’ The relationship between traditional and modern or Western culture takes many forms. In Tonga both tradition and Christianity are regarded as the essence of all that is authentically Tongan. Much of what is called tradition today emerged with King George Tupou I, and has been absorbed. Those in power have used tradition to support the status quo. With democracy, tradition would be lost, they claim. Tongans may be alike in ancestry, language and knowledge of Tongan ways, but Tongan migrants in Australia may have some of these, and still not be accepted as ‘real’ Tongans. She sees two criteria of identity as emerging, ‘blood’ and ‘heart,’ i.e., descent and family, as against something experienced but not easily judged. She examines the legal definition of a Tongan. She tells how some overseas Tongans try to retain Tongan culture, bring up their
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children the Tongan way, and are then shocked when they visit Tonga and find how much has changed. But Tongans attempting to incorporate elements from their host culture are often confused in their identity. She examines how far Tongan language is taught and traditional Tongan dress and dances are known and preserved. Tongan culture, she concludes, has survived because it is constantly changing, and Tongans will have to continue to reaffirm, reject, rework and reevaluate their notions of cultural authenticity.
10
Ko e me‘akai faka-Tonga/Tongan food Tupou L. Pulu. Anchorage, Alaska: National Bilingual Materials Development Center, 1981. 100pp.
The purpose of this book, produced by the migrant Tongan community in Alaska, is to help Tongans away from home to prepare their traditional food in a healthy way, usually baked or roasted, never fried or boiled. Pulu describes the many uses of the coconut, the preparation of the ‘umu (earth oven), the main types of food plants, and the preparation and cooking of fruit and vegetables, fish, shellfish, crabs, pigs, chickens, whales, turtles, fruit bats and birds. The text is in both Tongan and English.
11
The new Friendly Islanders: the Tonga of King Taufa‘ahau Tupou IV Kenneth Bain. London, Sydney, Auckland: Hodder & Stoughton, 1993. 207pp. 2 maps
Bain first went to Tonga in 1953 as secretary to government when it was still a British protected state and not yet fully independent. He wrote an earlier book, The Friendly Islanders (1967) about the Tonga of that time. Wanting to know how much had changed, he returned in 1991. Tonga still seems to him a ‘steadfast anachronism’. As he writes of his meetings with the king, with politicians, teachers, business people and others, he reveals, with a light touch, something of the more recent Tonga. He shares the views of many in Tonga regarding the lack of accountability by government and the lack of leadership by nobles. He believes that the two things necessary to keep Tonga intact in the 21st century are change in the attitude to privileged status and reform of the structures and tools of government. Given these changes there would be an even chance of survival intact. As the king writes in his foreword, Bain ‘has been a close observer looking in from outside’. The book offers an informed general view of Tonga in transition. There have been many changes since he wrote.
12
Obscure kingdoms Edward Fox. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1993. 240pp.
This book’s title came one night to Fox, a bored newspaper reporter in West Virginia; it is an attempt to report fleeting glimpses of the universal model of kingship in some of its many forms. He visited Tonga, for him the ‘distant kingdom’, in 1987. He describes seeing the king in public, obtaining a personal interview with him and
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attending the opening of Parliament, and goes on to sketch the historical background. He contrasts this with King Louis XIV, who wrote, ‘The majesty of kings largely consists in not allowing themselves to be seen’. Tonga is too small for the king to hold himself apart, yet the respect due to him is just as great. Largely Fox’s observations ring true, though his statement that if it were not for British protection there would be no monarchy in Tonga must be questioned.
13
The Pacific islands: politics, economics and international relations Te‘o Fairbairn, Charles E. Morrison, Richard W. Baker, Sheree A. Groves. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: International Relations Program, East-West Center, 1991. 170pp. 23 maps. bibliog.
The authors provide a succinct account of trends, issues and recent developments affecting the Pacific islands in the fields of politics, economics and international relations. They note that the Pacific island region, traditionally regarded as a haven of calm and tranquility, entered a less settled phase in the 1980s, reflecting the emergence of a more complex world. They provide basic information on each island country and cover political structures and issues, prospects and constraints on their economic development, the state of regional cooperation, and major issues and themes in political and international relations. Appendixes provide brief profiles and maps of each country, and list major regional intergovernmental organizations. The comparative information makes it possible to relate Tonga to its neighbours at the end of the 1980s.
14
Pacific islands yearbook Suva: Fiji Times, 1994. 17th ed. 767pp.
Sections on general Pacific island topics in this standard regional reference book, first published in 1932 (and not in fact published annually), are followed by data on each country (28 pages on Tonga) in standard format on salient facts relating to the government and the economy. Government departments and major office holders and ministers are listed, and each of the islands is described. This edition was the last to be published, and is thus now of historic interest only.
15
Raising a few eyebrows in Tonga Elizabeth P. Hahn. In The humbled anthropologist: tales from the Pacific. Edited by Philip R. DeVita. Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1990, pp.69–76
In this light but telling little essay Hahn writes of her arrival in Tonga knowing no one, and nothing about the culture, of initial misunderstandings and of eventual progress in comprehending and relating to Tongans. Her motif is the Tongan gesture of the raised eyebrows, which simply means an affirmative but which she had taken to mean something quite different. She realized that she had already come to know an astonishingly large amount about everyday Tongan life and interaction.
30
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Re-imagining the claim that God and Tonga are my inheritance ‘Asinate F. Samate. In Tonga and the Tongans: heritage and identity. Edited by Elizabeth Wood-Ellem. Alphington, Victoria, Australia: Tonga Research Association, 2007, pp.47–59
‘God and Tonga are my inheritance’ is the motto of Tonga, composed by King George Tupou I. Samate considers the relationship between God and Tonga through other Tongan cultural parallels, examines its origin in relation to the history, geography and culture of Tonga, and sees a challenge for a future Tonga, aware of its real and lasting wealth in its people, its land and its traditions, its unique role in the world under God.
17
Socio-economic study of the Kingdom of Tonga Elizabeth S. Udui. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: Pacific International Center for High Technology Research, 1989. 226pp. map
This study was undertaken as part of the background preparation for a possible open-cycle ocean thermal energy conversion project in Tonga, for which no suitable sites were in fact found. However, the general survey of Tonga conveniently brought together much information on climate and geological background, the economy, power, water and waste disposal, history and government, human resources, education and health, banking and financial concerns, transport, communications and construction. To these are appended lists of government ministers and officials, and contacts in ministries. Detailed information is presented in thirty tables covering aspects of population, economic activity, government revenues, trade, education and energy. Thompson’s book The climate and weather of Tonga (item 36) is reprinted as an appendix.
18
‘Some peoples, if you marry, you marry to everybody’—a Tongan life story Barbara Burns McGrath. In Identity work: constructing Pacific lives. Edited by Patricia J. Stewart, Andrew Strathern. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000, pp.29–43 (ASAO Monograph Series)
Why, Alisi was asked, did she never marry Tongan men? Her story starts in a convent school where she wants to be a nun. She goes to live with and work for an old couple who need help. The work is hard but she tries to please. She is then raped by their married son and has a child. She would like to live with him but he deserts her to return to his wife. She then has a series of brief relationships with other men and ends her story living in the USA with a Mexican. McGrath, to whom Alisi tells her fragmentary story, considers how far this portrays the real Alisi, the relationship between public representation and private memory, between the powerful Tongan social forces of church and family, and her personal choices and struggles. She wonders how Alisi’s frequent use of the word ‘love’ relates to Tongan cultural values and economic circumstances. Alisi in fact tells two versions of her story: one for the anthropologist and one for her daughter. McGrath draws out the significance of
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what both tell about her. Alisi blames Tongan men for only wanting large families, while many also go overseas leaving wife and children at home. She wants the future for her children to be different, not Tongan. Many of the dilemmas facing Tongans today are presented in Alisi’s story.
19
Some remarks on alternative meanings for Tongan place names Tupou L. Pulu. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 82, no. 2 (1973), pp.213–17
Pulu learnt the traditions of Tonga while serving kava at gatherings in his father’s house. From his knowledge of history and language he casts doubt on the value of Gifford’s Tongan place names (item 30) as a mere listing of names with English translations, with no knowledge of the history of the occasions from which the names resulted, and with a misleading orthography. Gifford’s sources were inadequate and unreliable. Pulu provides examples of corrected meanings.
20
The tastes of Tonga: a guide to living and cooking in Tongatapu Nuku‘alofa: Vaiola Hospital Board of Visitors, 1994. 112pp.
This collection of international recipes contributed in aid of the Vaiola hospital includes sections on modern and traditional Tongan dishes, on local produce—when available and how to use it, a guide for new residents in Tongatapu and ‘handy hints’ on living and working in Tonga.
21
Tin Can Island: a story of Tonga and the swimming mail man of the South Seas Charles Stuart Ramsay, Charles P. Plumb. London: Hurst & Blackett, 1938. 320pp. 4 maps
The far northern island of Niuafo‘ou is famous for its tin-can mail. Because there was no safe anchorage for mail steamers, the mail was sealed in large tins and taken out by swimmers. The most famous of them was Charles Stuart Ramsay, an Englishman who went to Niuafo‘ou in the 1920s as a copra trader. Here he tells of his amazing exploits with the mail, but much more too. He became deeply involved with the island and writes with much affection of it and the daily lives of its people. The book is illustrated with many of his own photographs.
22
The Tin Can Mail of Tin Can Island Christopher Deakes. Marine News, vol. 55, no. 6 (2001), pp.344–45.
In 1982 the government of Tonga’s Philatelic Bureau issued stamps to commemorate the centenary of the Tin Can Mail at Niuafo‘ou. However, Charles Ramsay (item 21) seems to state quite clearly that he began the service, swimming out with the mail to passing ships, in the 1920s. Did he not know of earlier arrangements, which may have fallen into disuse, or might he have been unjustifiably promoting his own role? Deakes presents his findings about the origins and early history of the Tin Can Mail, but questions still remain to be answered.
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Tonga James Siers. Wellington: Millwood Press, 1978. 128pp. 5 maps
Siers’ book offers an attractive selection of photographs of the Tongan people, their islands and their way of life, with a brief introduction. He captures faces particularly well, and some of his aerial views are spectacular. Although not as glossy as Eckert’s book (item 28), it still presents a rounded portrait of Tonga and the Tongans at that time. Some old historic photographs are also included.
24
Tonga: a country profile Barbara Stein Naisoro. Washington: Office for Foreign Disaster Assistance, 1986. 52pp. 6 maps. bibliog.
This brief handbook provides basic data on the history, geography, economy and social and political structure at that time. It focuses particularly on vulnerability to cyclones, earthquakes and tsunamis and the structure of the government to deal with them, and provides detailed information on Hurricane Isaac in 1982.
25
Tonga in the 1990s ‘I. F. Helu. In Critical essays: cultural perspectives from the South Seas. Canberra: The Journal of Pacific History, 1999, pp.158–71
In an address to a conference in New Zealand in 1985, Helu sets out what he believes would happen in Tonga in the 1990s. On the economy he notes the growth of cash farming, reliance on foreign aid, problems of development, hopes of finding oil, and marine resources. He sees a bleak future. He reviews population trends and migration. In education he sees strengths at the level of basic literacy, but an uncertain vision of higher aims. He observes the emergence of a middle class and believes that the Free Wesleyan Church might lose its dominant position and that the esteem in which the traditional aristocracy is held will decline. He makes four specific predictions: that at the economic level Tonga will sink deeper into dependency; that social problems will lead to political confrontation; that the Mormons will become the most powerful church group, with a lowering of the social status and power of royalty and chiefs; and that Tonga, Fiji, Samoa and New Zealand will bond more closely and tend to go into orbit around Australia and/or Japan. On the whole, Tonga has not developed as he anticipated.
26
Tonga pictorial: a tapestry of pride/Kupesi ‘o Tonga: ko e makatu‘unga ‘o e Laukau Donna Gerstle, Helen Raitt. San Diego, California: Tofua Press, n.d. (c. 1974). 101pp. map. bibliog.
The authors describe their book as ‘a photographic narrative—though by no means comprehensive—of the story of Tonga: showing how the myriad, complex elements of her past evolved and became interwoven into the tapestry of life that this small but proud Polynesian Kingdom reveals today as her own’. Chapters cover life and seafaring, art and creative expression, political structure and evolution, the gods
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and religion, and Tonga today. The illustrations are a mixture of old prints and modern photographs and are captioned in both Tongan and English. This is an affectionate portrait by two people who knew Tonga well. Although some of the photographs are now a little dated, the essential portrait remains of interest.
27
Tonga sketchbook Nelson Eustis; drawings by June Egan. Adelaide, Australia: Hobby Investments, 2002. 64pp. 2 maps
Descriptions of some of the more interesting buildings in and around Nuku‘alofa, both traditional and new, and their history, are accompanied by June Egan’s drawings and sketches. The buildings range from the Royal Palace and some of the finer nineteenth-century houses to the Dateline Hotel and the Queen Sâlote Memorial Hall. The book gives a good impression of some of the more attractive and mostly traditional aspects of Tonga.
28
Tonga: the Friendly Islands Fred J. Eckert. Fredericksburg, Virginia: Burgess Books, 1993. 112pp. map
This is, writes the then Crown Prince of Tonga, ‘a delightful book that truly captures the beauty, warmth and tranquility of the Kingdom of Tonga’. Eckert was the American ambassador to Tonga. His colour photographs portray the beauty of the scenery, people in their daily lives, their homes and churches, their crafts and feasts. He covers ‘Eua, Ha‘apai and Vava‘u as well as Tongatapu. Like every picture book it shows only the best and the most picturesque. Not all of Tonga is like this all the time, but it is the Tonga that most visitors imagine or remember. A brief introduction describes the kingdom, its history and something of what he calls its truly special way of life.
29
Tongan customs His Royal Highness Prince Tuipelehake of Tonga. Transactions of the Fiji Society, vol. 5, no. 3 (1953), pp.47–50
The second son of Queen Sâlote, later to be prime minister, gives a very brief introduction to Tongan society, land, food and meals, kava, entertainment and dress. He identifies the main features of each in summary form.
30
Tongan place names Edward Winslow Gifford. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: Bernice P. Bishop Museum, 1923. 258pp. 2 maps (Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin 6)
From the records of the Tongan Lands Office, Gifford collected 4,776 place names for more than 8,200 locations. For each name he provides the place to which the name applies, the individual island and the group, the nearest village, the name of the landlord, the meaning of the name and other data. His purpose was not just to collect and explain names but to contribute to the study of the movement of peoples within the island groups of Tonga. By analysing different occurences of the
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The Country and Its People
name he suggests that Tongatapu was more closely tied to Vava‘u than to Ha‘apai. Samoan names are more prevalent in Tongatapu, reflecting Samoan marriage into the Kanokupolu line. Note the corrections suggested by Pulu (item 19).
31
‘Utulei, my Tongan home Patricia Ledyard. London: Robert Hale, 1974. 192pp. map
Sailing into Vava‘u in the early 1950s to take up a one-year appointment as a teacher, Patricia Ledyard saw a house by the waterside that immediately captivated her. It was ‘Utulei. A few months later she married the Scots doctor Farquhar Matheson who lived there and moved in. She writes simply but movingly and with great affection about the ordinary events of daily life: bringing up their birth daughter and their adopted Tongan daughter; the house and the garden; Farquhar’s work in the hospital; and the sights, history and legends of Vava‘u. But there were extraordinary events too: the first time she met Queen Sâlote; her break with the Methodist missionaries who ran the school and whom she found narrow and arrogant; a devastating hurricane; the death of Queen Sâlote; and the death of her own husband. She ends with Tongan independence in 1970, and expresses her confidence for the future despite very real problems. She lived in ‘Utulei until her death in 2000, and from this book one can understand why she never left. It is illustrated with many of her own photographs.
32
Where in the world is Tonga? Samantha J. Fisk. Carson, California: KIN Publications, 1996. 56pp. map. bibliog.
When Samantha Fisk was first taken to Tonga by her mother at the age of nine she did not even know where it was, and the culture shock of arriving in an island where almost everything was unfamiliar was obviously great. But on this and subsequent visits she came to know Tonga well and to love the country and people. Her account was written after her first visit and redrafted when she was sixteen. She describes through the eyes of a child Limu Havea’s Sunrise guesthouse that became home from home. She writes about the sights of Tongatapu, going to school, feasts and funerals, customs and crafts. Her text, with many of her mother’s photographs, is a delightful introduction to Tonga.
33
Women in Tonga ‘Atu ‘o Hakautapu Emberson-Bain. Manila: Asian Development Bank, 1998. 118pp. bibliog. (Country Briefing Paper)
In Tonga the status of women, while strongly influenced by the traditional social system, is changing rapidly, sometimes for the worse. The high rate of external male emigration and the rising number of female-headed households are placing new burdens on them. Yet they are taking on increasingly important roles as producers and workers in key sectors of the economy, both formal and informal. In this consultant’s report Emberson-Bain reviews the social and economic status of women in
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Tonga. She examines their social environment: demography, health, food, water, land, education and legal rights. She surveys their work in the civil service, agriculture, fisheries and as self-employed businesswomen. She discusses the status of women within traditional Tongan culture and outlines the policies of government and of external aid agencies in the development process, listing nongovernment organizations for women. Finally she makes recommendations to the Asian Development Bank itself on access to credit, urban development, employment standards, agriculture, handicrafts, fisheries, household security and health. Detailed statistics are presented in thirty-five tables.
34
Women of the new millennium: Tongan women determine their development direction Clare Bleakley. The Contemporary Pacific, vol. 14, no. 1 (2002), pp.134–47
Gender is an issue in the context of development in Tonga. There are basic imbalances in the division of labour and the distribution of authority. Men are disproportionately represented in the civil service, politics and business. Women have no land rights. Bleakley examines the work of two local women’s nongovernmental organizations that show the increasing awareness of gender in Tonga. Tongan women draw a distinction between their traditional and ceremonial status and the everyday reality of their situation, but many are becoming increasingly confident and progress is being made. However, they need more access to land, and the government’s policy on gender and development needs to be brought more in line with overseas aid donors’ objectives. The two organizations are preparing the ground for a more even distribution of power and resources. Both developed in the mid-1990s. The ‘Aloua Ma‘a Tonga aims to raise the profile and consciousness of rural women and urban fringe-dwellers by enhancing their skills as food producers, business entrepreneurs and resource managers. It addresses practical needs such as water supply, care of homes and gardens, traditional medicine and health, and handicrafts. The Women-in-Law Association’s objective is to make local women more aware of their legal rights. Its first focus was on criminal law, land law and matrimonial law. Women in such groups run risks: of being seen as un-Tongan and unfeminine, of disregarding tradition, and of being criticised by men. But Bleakley notes of the Tongan woman, ‘She is determined, and she will be heard’.
35
A world of islands June Knox-Mawer, photographs by Peter Carmichael. London: Collins, 1968. 78pp. 4 maps
June Knox-Mawer lived in Fiji, where her husband was a judge whose jurisdiction covered much of the southwest Pacific. This enabled her to come to know Fiji well, the Gilberts, the Ellices and Tonga. Her section on Tonga starts with the coronation of King Taufa‘âhau Tupou IV in 1967, the Western-style Christian service in the royal chapel that she contrasts with the traditional royal kava ceremony. Here, as
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elsewhere, she has a perceptive eye for the similarities and the differences, ‘a mixture which seems strange to no one except the outsider’. The monarchy is totally Tongan yet the monarch lives in a palace straight from 19th-century New Zealand. Nuku‘alofa is ‘a mixture of English Victoriana, South Seas and Wild West’. The Tongans have problems too, and it is only part of the picture to write that ‘the Tongans seem to have acquired the perfect modus vivendi a gentle confluence of sociable life and everyday work on the land and the sea’. She captures something of the spirit of Tonga beyond the obvious, and the photographs include tourist highlights and daily life.
Geography and Environment 36
The climate and weather of Tonga C. S. Thompson. Wellington: New Zealand Meteorological Service, 1986. 60pp. 6 maps. bibliog. (New Zealand Meteorological Service Miscellaneous Publications, no. 188 [5])
This report is based on data obtained from the New Zealand Meteorological Service, which began observations at Nuku‘alofa in 1881. It describes the general weather patterns in the South Pacific, the incidence of cyclones and their variability and gives a case study of Hurricane Isaac in 1982. It sets out the normal trade wind patterns and tabulates directional percentages for each of the island groups for each month, as well as rainfall and air temperatures, evaporation and soil water balance, and sea temperature.
37
A directory of wetlands in Oceania Derek A. Scott. Slimbridge, UK: International Waterfowl and Wetlands Research Bureau, and Kuala Lumpur: Asian Wetland Bureau, 1993. 444pp. 16 maps. bibliog.
The chapter on Tonga (pp. 369–85) summarizes the main types of wetland (partially enclosed tidal lagoons, totally enclosed lagoons, freshwater crater lakes and flat reef exposed at low tide), the vegetation and wildlife that they support, and the threats to them from pollution, deforestation, etc. Little attention has been given to conservation. Each of the seven sites is described in detail.
38
The environment of Tonga: a geography resource Wendy Crane. Lower Hutt: New Zealand: Wendy Crane Books, 1992. 165pp. 58 maps
This is a textbook for secondary schools in Tonga, but it is also for anyone interested in its geography and environment. Chapters cover air and weather; the sea; land formation and geology (with information on each permanently inhabited island); soil formation and structure; water; plants; animal and coast life. Each page is filled
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with information, examples, exercises and suggested activities. Many drawings, diagrams and maps illustrate the text. Tongan legends are told and linked to modern scientific knowledge. The overall theme is the vulnerability of such a small country, the interrelationship of everything in the environment, and the need to care for it and keep it in balance.
39
Geography of Tonga T. F. Kennedy. Nuku‘alofa: Government Printer, 1958. 89pp. 6 maps
This textbook for Tongan schools describes concisely and simply the main features of its geography, amplifying the even briefer introduction in Wood’s book (item 145). Kennedy covers the geological formation of the high volcanic islands of the western chain and the low coral and limestone islands of the eastern chain. He sets out the main facts, on weather and climate; soils; the different types of native and introduced vegetation; types of crops; areas under cultivation and yields; timber and fishing; population and employment; daily life in villages and towns; internal and external communications; and the pattern of imports and exports. Much has since changed. Copra and bananas are no longer the main exports and a monthly steamer has been replaced by daily air services. But the book can still serve as an introduction to the basic geographical facts if the reader is alert to the ways in which it is now out of date.
40
The geography of Tonga: a study of environment, people and change E. A. Crane. Auckland, New Zealand: Heinemann Educational Books, 1979. 76pp. 12 maps
This school textbook assists in understanding the physical, economic and social processes that mould the lives of Tongans. It sets out the relationships of climate, soil, relief, plants and animals, and examines man and his relationship to the environment. Chapters cover the natural environment; produce from soil and sea; buying and selling; people and places (with sections on migration and on Nuku‘alofa); tourism; and the current of change. There are many photographs, some not clearly reproduced.
41
Geology and offshore resources of Pacific island areas— Tonga region Edited by David W. Scholl, Tracy L. Vallier. Houston, Texas: Circum-Pacific Council for Energy and Mineral Resources, 1985. 488pp. maps, bibliog. (Circum-Pacific Council for Energy and Mineral Resources Earth Science Series, vol. 2)
This volume reports the results of an international survey done to investigate the energy and mineral resources of the southwest Pacific, particularly the potential for petroleum. The papers provide information on the regional framework, geology, tectonic evolution and resources potential of the Tonga Ridge and immediately adjacent regions. Introductory papers describe the basic geology of the Tonga Ridge,
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Geography and Environment
rising from the Tonga Trench. Twenty-seven papers then examine submarine geology and geophysics of bordering basins and ridges, framework geology and resource synthesis. All are accompanied by maps and charts.
42
Geology of ‘Eua, Tonga J. Edward Hoffmeister. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: Bernice P. Bishop Museum, 1932. 114pp. 5 maps. bibliog. (Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin, no. 96)
Rising to nearly 1,000 feet at the centre, with cliffs falling 400 feet sheer to the sea on its eastern side, with its tropical rain forest and its little river (the only one in Tonga), ‘Eua is quite different from all Tonga’s other islands and the most dramatic in the kingdom. This report of a scientific expedition reconstructs its complex geological history, with its series of six limestone terraces on a volcanic base. There are detailed analyses of the rocks and rock structure, of the corals from the elevated limestones with the species listed and tabulated for each terrace, and of the Eocene Foraminifera of the limestone. There are almost one hundred photographs of the landscape and rock structures.
43
Geology, petrography and geochemistry of the volcanic islands of Tonga W. B. Bryan, G. D. Stice, A. Ewart. Journal of Geophysical Research, vol. 77, no. 8 (1972), pp.566–85
The authors outline at least nine centres of active volcanism in Tonga, some of which are submarine and may raise temporary islands above the sea. They survey and map the geological structure of those that are or once were active: Fonualei, Late, Kao, Tofua and ‘Eua. They analyse the petrography and geochemistry of each and tabulate their findings. They do not include Niuafo‘ou, though still active, as the relationship of this volcano to the rest is uncertain.
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The Kingdom of Tonga: action strategy for managing the environment Robert Thistlethwaite, David Sheppard, Netatua Prescott. Apia, Western Samoa: South Pacific Regional Environment Programme, 1993. 112pp. map. bibliog.
An environmental action plan for Tonga was set up in 1989–90, culminating in this action strategy, intended to take a fresh look at programmes for its protection and for sustainable development. A general introduction covers land, agriculture and forest, marine, water, mineral and energy resources, population and education. There are summary statistics on the economic performance of the different sectors of the economy. The report then examines specific environmental constraints and issues and sets out eleven action strategies, each with specific goals and achievements. These include environmental education; sewage disposal; climate change; hazardous chemicals; renewable energy; biological diversity; marine and land resources; and drinking water. Action has since been taken on some of these.
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Late Eocene fossils from ‘Eua, Tonga
This series of seven reports sets out the fossils found in one facies of upper Eocene limestone in ‘Eua, uplifted to a terrace at 400 feet rich in fossils (item 42). These are the first identifiable Eocene species from the islands of the open Pacific. In each report the specimens are described in detail and illustrated in plates.
Smaller foraminifera of late Eocene age from ‘Eua, Tonga Ruth Todd. Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1970. 24pp. 2 maps. bibliog. (Geological Survey Professional Paper 640-A)
This report contains summary statements on calcerous nannoplankton, cri- noids and echinoids, decapod crustaceans, shark teeth and plant micro- fossils.
Larger foraminifera of late Eocene age from ‘Eua, Tonga W. Storrs Cole. Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1970. 18pp. 2 maps. bibliog. (Geological Survey Professional Paper 640-B)
This describes eight specimens of larger foraminifera characteristic of upper Eocene (Tertiary b).
Eocene mollusks from ‘Eua, Tonga Harry S. Ladd. Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1970. 12pp. 2 maps. bibliog. (Geological Survey Professional Paper 640-C)
Ladd describes twenty-five mollusks from offreef tufaceous limestone.
Ostracoda of late Eocene age from ‘Eua, Tonga Joseph E. Hazel, John C. Holden. Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1971. 10pp. 2 maps. bibliog. (Geological Survey Professional Paper 640-D)
Thirty-one species of late Eocene ostracodes were found and are covered.
Cheilostome bryzoa of late Eocene age from ‘Eua, Tonga Alan H. Cheetham. Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1972. 26pp. 4 maps. bibliog. (Geological Survey Professional Paper 640-E)
Among eighteen species described, seven are new. They are related to species elsewhere.
Eocene brachipods from ‘Eua, Tonga G. Arthur Cooper. Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1971. 10pp. 2 maps. bibliog. (Geological Survey Professional Paper 640-F)
In addition to the description of six genera of brachipods, this report includes a summary statement on teleost otoliths by John E. Fitch.
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Eocene corals from ‘Eua, Tonga John W. Wells. Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1976. 18pp. 2 maps. bibliog. (Geological Survey Professional Paper 640-G)
In addition to the description of twenty-three ahermatypic corals, there is a statement by John E. Fitch on Eocene fish fauna based upon additional otoliths.
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Nuku‘alofa: a study of urban life in the Pacific islands A. C. Walsh. Wellington, Sydney, London: A. H. & A. W. Reed, 1972. 48pp. 5 maps
While Nuku‘alofa has changed greatly since the early 1970s, little has been written about it as a town, and this school textbook shows parts that are recognizable today. Some of its growth is still the result of migration from outer islands, and Walsh describes the life of a migrant family from Ha‘apai, houses and the way people live in them, and employment. The government coconut processing factory has long since disappeared, and fewer residents are probably employed in agriculture while employment in shops, hotels and restaurants has grown. Walsh also describes ‘play, pageantry and prayer’, where there has been less change, and sets out some of the problems that Tonga faced then. Some still apply, along with new ones.
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Pacific island landscapes: landscape and geological development of southwest Pacific islands, especially Fiji, Samoa and Tonga Patrick D. Nunn. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, the University of the South Pacific, 1998. 318pp. 88 maps. bibliog.
After a general introduction to the geological structure of the region and the main types of Pacific islands, and an extended treatment of Fiji, Nunn devotes a chapter to ‘Origin, landscape and tectonic development of the islands of Tonga’ (pp. 195–227). He describes the underlying structure of the tectonic plates, the origins and development of the two parallel chains of islands, limestone and volcanic, and the effects of erosion and of changes in sea levels. He sets out the geological development and present structure of each of the groups, Vava‘u, Ha‘apai, Tongatapu and ‘Eua, and tabulates volcanic activity in historic times along the Tofua Ridge. In a final general chapter he discusses landscape change and the initial settlement of the Pacific islands, emphasizing that island environments are the products of change, both recent and distant; there is no one pristine unchanging state. He sets out and reviews the currently accepted dates for earliest known settlement throughout the Pacific, relating them to changes in sea level and climate. Rising sea levels may have provided the impetus for human migration. He provides some case studies of the relationship between environment and early settlement, one being Niuatoputapu.
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Pacific 2010: urbanisation in Polynesia John Connell, John P. Lea. Canberra: National Centre for Development Studies, Australian National University, 1995. 161pp. 4 maps. bibliog.
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Although small by world standards, urban development in the South Pacific presents challenges and problems as severe as any. This study focuses on three Polynesian countries, Tonga being one. It examines the difficulties in providing adequate urban infrastructure and services. In Nuku‘alofa (population about 34,000) problems of water supply, sanitation, waste disposal and the supply of low-cost housing cause concern. There are few skilled urban managers and planners. The authors describe the development of towns from the 19th century; the particular problems caused by the land tenure system; population; rural–urban and overseas migration; the general economic scene; and trends in employment. There is no shortage of technical advice, but they believe the time has come to reconsider land tenure, general responsibility for urban affairs, improvement of urban services and the integration of their management and delivery in an urban plan, with new forms of urban local government.
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Pollution sources survey of the Kingdom of Tonga Richard H. Chesher. Noumea: South Pacific Commission, 1984. 110pp. 9 maps. bibliog. (SPREP/Topic Review, no. 19)
A 1984 survey of pollution sources in Tonga identified sewerage discharge from tourist developments and destructive fishing techniques with resultant coral death as the most acute environmental problems. Other chronic hazards included the use of lead in paints used for water catchment systems, increased pesticide use, siltation of harbour environments and the construction of causeways without culverts for water circulation. The report recommends a restriction on hazardous chemical imports, an improved solid waste system, oil spill prevention and environmental impact statements. It also notes beneficial steps already taken.
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Recovering from a tropical cyclone in Tonga Jennifer Wendt. Auckland, New Zealand: Longman Paul, 1987. 20pp. 4 maps (Focus on the Pacific)
Cyclones hit Tonga regularly, but Cyclone Isaac in 1982 was one of the worst for many years. This book for children describes how it developed and shows with vivid colour photographs the damage it caused, and how reconstruction began.
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Soils of the Kingdom of Tonga G. E. Orbell. Wellington: New Zealand Soil Bureau, 1983. 47pp. bibliog.
This booklet describes the kinds of soils found in Tonga, in each island group in turn: how they have been formed, where they occur, their good and bad features, and the crops most suited to them. It has the practical aim of alerting Tongans to the value of their soils and to the need to protect and preserve them wisely. It is fully illustrated with diagrams and colour photographs.
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Some perspectives on natural disaster vulnerability in Tonga James Lewis. Pacific Viewpoint, vol. 22, no. 2 (1981), pp.145–62
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Lewis examines the history of disasters in Tonga, listing over the previous century twenty-eight hurricanes, twenty-two earthquakes of at least moderate magnitude, five periods of drought, four volcanic eruptions and three known tsunamis. There are five active volcanic islands, two of which are inhabited. Yet Tongan folklore and legend seem to make no reference to natural disasters. Lewis examines early records from the colonial period as well as more recent events to view their effects and the changes they brought about. Modern structures have often suffered more than the traditional, and there are many examples of inappropriate relief aid. Lewis believes the cycle of relief, dependency, vulnerability and relief must be broken, and that local coping mechanisms should reduce dependence on international relief aid.
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Tonga Trench Russell W. Raitt, Robert L. Fisher, Ronald G. Mason. In The crust of the earth. New York: Geological Society of America, 1955, pp.237–54 (Special Paper, no. 62)
An expedition in 1952–53 conducted probably the first survey of the Tonga Trench using modern techniques. The trench reaches depths of about 10,800 m, and is associated with a line of volcanoes and earthquakes. This paper describes and charts its topography, identifies its geological layers with an assumed structure section, and concludes that the trench is relatively young. There is a fully detailed fold-out chart of the bathymetry of the area.
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Tongan land management: putting the brakes on the global economy Christopher G. Crawford. The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 36, no. 1 (2001), pp.93–104
In the late 20th century an increasing urban population and local demands for greater access to goods and services were forcing a change in the land uses of Greater Nuku‘alofa. It may be necessary to expand urban land uses and to have a more market-oriented land management system. This could bring changes in current egalitarian land management systems and erode associated cultural values. Crawford considers the incorporation of Tonga into the periphery of the global capitalist economy, to which the current land management and tenure systems seem a barrier, exacerbated by the current shortage of land. He sees Tongan land management as in a time of crisis. Urban land must be used more intensively, but land uses are fixed by a system established by King George Tupou I in the 19th century when Tonga was a subsistence economy, each Tongan male had a right to possess a life interest estate, and there was a prohibition of land sales. He maps the current distribution of land by type of estate in Greater Nuku‘alofa, 6,000 parcels of land in twenty-nine classes, and describes the way the system operates now. He feels that the role of the nobility in land may have to change and that it may be necessary to rely more on institutional planning geared more to urban use in a capitalist economy than to subsistence agriculture. He examines the role of the Tongan government, whose
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organizational culture reflects that of traditional society. The current practice, with its informal ‘gray market,’ is unsatisfactory. However he goes no further than analysis and makes no specific suggestions for reform.
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Tongan soils: site characteristics and management practices L. M. Potter. Armidale, Australia: South Pacific Smallholder Project, University of New England, 1986. 40pp. 8 maps. bibliog. (Occasional Paper, no. 7)
In 1985 a survey was undertaken to discover if the fertility of Tongan soils was declining, as perceived by some Tongans. Thirty samples were taken from two sites in Tongatapu, nine from one site in Ha‘apai and ten from one site in Vava‘u. The paper sets out the detailed chemical composition of each, and concludes that in some areas soil nutrient status and physical condition, particularly water-holding capacity, are declining. Fallow periods to restore fertility are becoming rarer under the pressure of population growth and more intensive cash cropping.
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Village settlement in Tonga T. F. Kennedy. New Zealand Geographer, vol. 14, no. 2 (1958), pp.161–72
Kennedy briefly surveys the original pattern of dispersed houses and gardens, their consolidation into defended settlements during the civil wars in the late 18th century, and the development of modern villages. He describes house types, regretting the demise of the traditional Tongan fale, which even then was being replaced by modern houses. Photographs show stages in the transition. Few Tongans would now live in a fale.
PhD theses 57
Attitudes towards environmental conservation in the Kingdom of Tonga: observed behavior and implications of environmental education Seth Martin Schmerzler. University of California, Santa Barbara, 1991
58
Quaternary tectonic and sea-level history, Tonga and Fiji, Southwest Pacific F. W. Taylor. Cornell University, Ithaca, 1978
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Some trace elements in lavas from the Lau islands, Tofua, Tonga and Tutuila, American Samoa Charles D. Fein. University of Hawai‘i, 1971
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Three studies of the structure and dynamics of the upper mantle adjacent to a descending lithospheric slab.
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I. Lateral variations of seismic waves above the inclined earthquake zone of the Tonga Island Arc deep anomaly in the upper mantle; II. Propagation of seismic waves through and beneath the lithosphere that descends under the Tonga Arc; III. Late Cenozic evolution of the Great Basin, Western United States as an ensialic interarc basin Muawia Barazangi. Columbia University, 1971
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A cruising guide to the Vava‘u island group in the Kingdom of Tonga Clearwater, Florida: The Moorings, 1992. 20pp. 9 maps
The Vava‘u island group offers some of the finest sailing in the Pacific, and this booklet, produced by a yacht charter company in Neiafu, its main town, provides a detailed guide to the waters of Vava‘u and to forty-two specific anchorages. It is organized around a large fold-out chart and eight detailed charts. These provide depths, notes on navigation and indications of hazards. The text describes each anchorage, and gives general information on the weather, currents, Tongan customs and environmental protection.
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Pacific tourism as islanders see it Edited by Freda Rajotte, Ronald Crocombe. Suva: The Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific, 1980. 171pp. 9 maps. bibliog.
Most writing about tourism in the Pacific is from a foreign perspective. This book presents the viewpoints of twenty-four islanders, from Hawai‘i to New Zealand. It is not a research study but a collection of experiences and viewpoints from the inside looking out. Tourism is supposed to bring economic benefits to small isolated island communities with few natural resources, but the balance sheet, in both the economic and sociocultural fields, is by no means always clear. Much that tourists want must be imported, and foreign investors often take much of the profit. There are two papers on Tonga. ‘The social and cultural impact of tourism in Tonga’ discusses the benefits in terms of employment in hotels and guesthouses, in the production and sale of Tongan handicrafts and in arranging dances, feasts and ceremonies. On the other hand, problems of prostitution and begging are growing. ‘The development of a small tourist enterprise’ describes the successful tourist facility of ‘Oholei Beach, how it began and how it is run by ‘Osika Kami and his family. It might be seen as a good model for a country where tourism is on a small scale, not for the mass market, and uses only local resources. A further short note describes the work of a group of Tongans in the Fijian tourist industry.
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Samoan islands and Tonga Paul Smitz, Susannah Farfor. Footscray, Victoria; Oakland, California; London: Lonely Planet Publications, 2006. 5th ed. 320pp. 45 maps
In earlier editions of the Lonely Planet guide Tonga was treated on its own. In the latest edition Tonga and Samoa are combined in one volume. However it is no less extensive and thorough. It covers current events to the end of 2005, and provides an outline of Tongan history and culture, the environment and food and drink. Each section offers useful ‘dos and don’ts’ to help the visitor behave appropriately, and recommends a few key books. The authors then cover thoroughly each of the three main island groups—Tongatapu with ‘Eua, Ha‘apai and Vava‘u and the remote northern islands of Niuafo‘ou and Niuatoputapu—with detailed guidance on travel, sights, shopping, accommodation and places to eat. They are enthusiastic about Tonga, and they capture well the unique experience that it offers. The only way in which the book is already seriously outdated is in respect to central Nuku‘alofa, largely destroyed in the riots of November 2006.
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Tonga islands Vancouver, Canada: ITMB Publishing, 2007. 1 sheet
This new map of Tonga provides on one sheet a small-scale map of the whole group, and detailed larger-scale maps of each island (except Tafahi), at varying scales from 1:28,250 for some of the smaller islands of Ha‘apai to 1:52,500 for Vava‘u, 1:73,500 for ‘Eua and 1:100,000 for Tongatapu. There are also detailed town maps of Nuku‘alofa, Neiafu and Pangai (Lifuka). The maps show roads and paths, principal natural features, relief, buildings, tourist sites and resorts.
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Tonga-Samoa handbook David Stanley. Emeryville, California: Moon Publications, 1999. 321pp. 32 maps. bibliog.
Inevitably one has to compare the two most widely available guidebooks, the Lonely Planet guide (item 63) and this. Stanley is authoritative and knowledgeable, his coverage wide. His lists of places to stay are comprehensive rather than selective. His general introduction and descriptions of places and of the way of life are wellinformed. However it must be noted that the current edition was published in 1999. Hotels and restaurants have come and gone. Royal Tongan Airlines no longer flies. On its own it would not be totally reliable, needing to be supplemented by more up-to-date information.
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Tongatapu, island tour guide Nuku‘alofa: Government Printer, 1990. 2nd ed. 40pp. map
This handy booklet informs visitors to Tongatapu, the main island of Tonga, of the main sights and scenic spots that they should see. It describes twenty-nine principal sites, in Nuku‘alofa and around the island, from the Royal Palace to the Small Industries Centre, and sets these out in relation to the four main eras of Tongan
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history. In addition to buildings there are natural features such as the blow-holes at Houma and archaeological sites such as the royal tombs at Mu‘a. Inevitably some of the information needs updating.
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Tourism in Tonga revisited: continued troubled times? Charles F. Urbanowicz. In Hosts and guests: the anthropology of tourism. Edited by Valene L. Smith. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989, pp.105–17
Urbanowicz sees tourism in Tonga as really starting in 1966, when large numbers of cruise ships began to arrive. Continuing work begun in the early 1970s, he examines the impact of tourism on the Tongan economy and the problems associated with the advent of mass tourism. He records tourist arrivals by ship and by plane between 1958 (1,769) and 1985 (55,964), producing earnings of T$11,000,000. The government has promoted and invested in tourism. Yet the industry exacerbates Tonga’s economic problems, particularly the need for additional imported foodstuffs, and increases local prices. He foresaw a decrease in cruise ships, which did indeed happen later. The tourist’s experience is often unhappy, with the deliberate creation of a ‘phony folk culture’ often not even wholly Tongan. Tongans may survive large-scale tourism, but will they still be Tongans? He concludes that tourism must be properly controlled if it is to make a positive contribution to Tonga. In fact for many reasons mass tourism has not developed in Tonga to the extent that he feared.
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A walking tour of Neiafu, Vava‘u Pesi Fonua, Mary Fonua. Neiafu, Tonga: Vava‘u Press, 1981. 48pp. 2 maps
Neiafu, the quiet capital of the northern island group of Vava‘u, retains a traditional charm which is now less easy to find in bustling Nuku‘alofa. This booklet describes five walks, one around Neiafu itself and four around other parts of this attractive island. Sites and their traditions and history are described, with times for the sections of each walk.
Travellers’ Accounts 69
An account of the natives of the Tonga islands, in the South Pacific Ocean, with an original grammar and vocabulary of their language, compiled and arranged from the extensive communications of Mr. William Mariner, several years resident in those islands John Martin. London: John Murray, 1817. Volume I, 460pp., Volume II, 528pp.
On 29 November 1806 the ship Port-au-Prince anchored off the island of Lifuka in the Ha‘apai group. The crew was initially welcomed but later attacked. Many
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were killed and the ship burnt, but Mariner escaped and was taken under the care of the chief, Finau Ulukalala, who adopted him as his son. Mariner then spent four years in Tonga, became fluent in the language and travelled throughout the islands. On his return to England he met John Martin, a doctor and amateur anthropologist, who wrote the book from their conversations. As Martin put it in his introduction, all previous accounts of Tonga had been written from the outside; this was the first from the inside, though he ignores Vason (item 70). It offers a wealth of information on every aspect of life—political and social organization, medicine, music and much else—and is a valuable source for the history of the time. It also provides the first thorough account of the Tongan language, with a 60-page grammar and a 216-page vocabulary. The work was enormously popular and went into a second edition the next year and a third in 1827 in a smaller format with some additional material, a map and two specimens of Tongan music. Cook’s scientific account and Mariner’s personal narrative together give a basis for the study of Tonga. Local reprints are available in Tonga today.
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An authentic narrative of four years’ residence at Tongataboo, one of the Friendly Islands in the South Sea by——who went thither in the Duff, under Captain Wilson, in 1796 Anon. (George Vason). London: Longman, Hurst, Rees & Orme, 1810. 234pp. map
George Vason was one of the first group of missionaries who arrived on the Duff in 1797. However, attracted by the Tongan way of life and by the locals’ kindness, he left the missionaries to live with Mulikiha‘amea, the last of the Tui Ha‘atakalaua royal line. He slipped easily into Tongan ways: pleasure and idleness replaced the regular life of the Christian missionary. Vason’s original intention to keep contact with his fellow missionaries was quickly forgotten. He explains, ‘I began to dislike the means of grace, I never visited the brethren, found delight in the company, manners and amusements of the natives; and soon took too large a part in them.’ He began to wear Tongan dress; he was given a Tongan wife and an estate and lived completely as a Tongan. The idyll did not last. After the death of his protector he was caught up in civil war, fled to Vava‘u, and was glad to seize the opportunity of a visit by a missionary boat in 1801 to escape and return to England. His story, a spiritual apologia for his weakness, is the first account by a European to live in Tonga as a Tongan, predating Mariner’s by several years. His account of the events of the period and his descriptions of Tongan life, ceremonies, dance and music, though tinged with moralizing regret, are of interest because observed for the first time from the inside. Looking back, he compared ‘the comforts of civilized life, a well-ordered government and the holy duties and services of revealed religion’ with the ‘precarious subsistence, uncertain safety, corrupt conduct and savage violence’ of Tonga. He nevertheless writes of Tonga with obvious warmth.
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Journal of a cruise among the islands of the western Pacific, including the Feejees and others inhabited by the Polynesian negro races, in Her Majesty’s Ship Havannah John Elphinstone Erskine. London: John Murray, 1853. 488pp. map
After the pacification of New Zealand the colonial authorities turned their attention to regular inspection of the neighbouring islands; the first resultant cruise was that of Erskine in 1849. There as no missionary or colonial intent; the object was simply to observe and record. The three island groups were now united under King George Tupou I, who had converted to Christianity and whom Erskine met in Ha‘apai. In Vava‘u, Ha‘apai and Tongatapu he found churches well established, with impressive buildings, schools and many knowledgeable and devout believers. Erskine was genuinely interested in Tongan culture and tradition and records some chiefs as telling him that ‘they had never been treated so like chiefs by any strangers’. He also comments unfavourably on the intolerance of the Wesleyan missionaries towards the newly-established Catholic mission, and on their narrow-minded attitude to Tongan culture and their dictatorial approach to chiefs and people. He describes the geography and navigation of the islands, summarizes their recent history, and closely observes the Tongan way of life, their beliefs, their language and even their sense of humour.
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The journals of Captain James Cook on his voyages of discovery: the voyage of the Resolution and Adventure 1772–1775 Edited by J. C. Beaglehole. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press for the Hakluyt Society, 1961. 1,021pp. 25 maps. bibliog.
Behind the printed editions of Cook’s voyages (item 77) lie his own journals, definitively edited for the Hakluyt Society by Beaglehole. In a long and detailed introduction Beaglehole describes the plans for the second voyage, the ships, the crews and Cook’s route. He examines the surviving manuscripts, printed editions and graphic records, maps and drawings. He annotates the text of the journals with explanations, background information and variant readings, based not only on his studies but also on his own travels along Cook’s route. Many of the original artists’ illustrations, upon which the later engravings for the printed editions were based, are reproduced. It was during this second voyage that Cook first visited Tonga, staying at ‘Eua and Tongatapu in October 1773 and Nomuka in Ha‘apai in June 1774. His descriptions of the Tongan people, their language, way of life and society were based on brief observation, and he may not have understood everything fully, but he depicts a near idyllic state in which all lived easily and happily together. So impressed was he that he dubbed Tonga the Friendly Islands.
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The journals of Captain James Cook on his voyages of discovery: the voyage of the Resolution and Discovery 1776–1780 Edited by J. C. Beaglehole. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press for the Hakluyt Society, 1967. Part One, 718pp. 15 maps. Part Two, 928pp. map
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The general arrangement of Beaglehole’s edition of Cook’s third voyage follows that of the second (item 72), with a full introduction, annotated text and illustrations. The first of the two volumes prints Cook’s own journal, the second the journals of some others who sailed with him. During this voyage Cook spent over two months in Nomuka and Ha‘apai, Tongatapu and ‘Eua, and was able to write far more fully about Tonga and the Tongans than on his second voyage. He continued to be impressed and delighted, considering his visit a period ‘during which time we lived together in the most cordial friendship’. He called Tonga ‘a humane and peaceable nation’ in comparison with what he was told of Fiji. He was concerned with what he could give them, as well as with the supplies he could obtain, and was keen that trade should be fair. Little can have escaped his observant eye and these journals are a rich source of information on every aspect of Tongan life at the time. The journals of his colleagues provide some further information, including word lists, and generally reinforce Cook’s own favourable view of Tonga. ‘They are in every respect almost as perfectly civiliz’d as it is possible for mankind to be’, wrote Anderson, who accompanied Cook and died on the voyage, of the Tongans.
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The Malaspina expedition 1789–1794: Journal of the voyage by Alejandro Malaspina—Volume III: Manila to Cadiz Edited by Andrew David, Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Carlos Novi, Glyndwr Williams. Translated by Sylvia Jamieson. London: The Hakluyt Society in association with Madrid: The Museo Naval, 2004. 487pp. 6 maps. bibliog. (Hakluyt Society, Third series, no. 13)
The first European to visit Vava‘u was Francisco Antonio Mourelle in 1781, briefly. The first thorough scientific exploration was by the Spaniard Alejandro Malaspina, a great admirer of Captain Cook, who arrived in May 1793. His journal records in vivid detail the people of Vava‘u and his dealings with them, the landscape, houses, crops, religion, dances and pastimes. He got on well with the Vava‘uans, trading goods for food and water. The welcome was largely warm on both sides, and he was much impressed by them. He made astronomical observations to establish his precise position, and charted the group. Some of his artists’ depictions of people and places are here reproduced. Before he left he claimed Vava‘u for the king of Spain.
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A missionary voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean, performed in the years 1796, 1797, 1798 in the ship Duff, commanded by Captain James Wilson, compiled from the journals of the officers and the missionaries James Wilson. London: T. Chapman, 1799. 420pp. 7 maps
Where Cook showed the way and described the islands of the Pacific and their peoples, missionaries followed. In 1796 the London Missionary Society equipped the ship Duff to take a first group of missionaries to settle and work in Tahiti and Tonga. It arrived in Tonga in April 1797, to leave seven missionaries, returning in August
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after visiting the Marquesas and Tahiti. The missionaries’ journals from April to August, printed in the book, are of interest as the first account by Europeans who attempted to live in Tonga, setting up home, growing crops, preaching and generally trying to learn about the country and its people. They are supplemented by Wilson’s own description of Tongatapu. When the time came for them to leave they felt vulnerable: ‘Our work is great, our strength is small, very weakness itself.’ The mission was not to succeed and in 1800 they had to abandon Tonga. But the account of their arrival and their first few months is an important first chapter in the history of Christian missions in Tonga.
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Narrative of the United States exploring expedition, during the years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841 and 1842. Volume III Charles Wilkes. Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard, 1845. 438pp. map
Captain Wilkes arrived in Tongatapu in 1840 to find civil war between what the missionaries called the Christian and Devil’s parties. King George, the Christian king backed by the missionaries, had arrived from Vava‘u with eight hundred warriors to attempt to destroy the heathen opposition and assert his authority over all Tonga. Wilkes found Tongatapu far from the ‘perfect garden’ described by earlier explorers. Because of the civil war it was now ‘entirely neglected’. Wilkes attempted to mediate, but without success, and came to the view that the arrogance and insensitivity of the missionaries, in their attempts at conversion, were in part to blame, though at the same time he admired their educational and agricultural work. He also admired the physique and character of the Tongans, comparing them favourably with the Maoris of New Zealand and the Fijians. He comments bitterly on how troublesome the mosquitoes were, making sleep very difficult. They can still be a problem today.
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A new, authentic and complete collection of voyages round the world, undertaken and performed by royal authority. Containing an authentic, entertaining, full and complete history of Captain Cook’s first, second, third and last voyages, undertaken by order of his present majesty for making discoveries in geography, navigation, astronomy &c. in the southern and northern hemispheres George William Anderson. London: Alex. Hogg, 1784. 656pp. 28 maps
The serious study of Tonga began with Cook, and his work remains the starting point for any student of Tonga. Though earlier explorers touched upon parts of Tonga and wrote brief accounts, Cook was the first to present an extensive, detailed and scientifically based account, which had an enormous impact in its time and remains an unsurpassed source today. On his second voyage Cook spent only a few days each in Tongatapu, ‘Eua and Nomuka, but on his third voyage he spent over two months in 1777 in Nomuka and Lifuka (Ha‘apai) and in Tongatapu. He was interested in and mostly impressed by what he saw, and recorded his observations in meticulous detail. The maps and charts that he drew as navigator and cartographer
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are still useful today. Many editions of his voyages were published in his lifetime and after his death, listed in the bibliography by Beddie (item 718). The advantage of the particular edition cited here is that the accounts of the three voyages, as well as those of others before him, are printed in one volume.
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Voyage in search of La Pérouse performed by order of the Constituent Assembly, during the years 1791, 1792, 1793 and 1794 J. J. Labillardière. London: John Stockdale, 1800. Volume I 487pp., map. Volume II 449pp.
In 1787, on a voyage to Australia, the French explorer La Pérouse visited Niuatoputapu, passed Vava‘u and briefly stood off ‘Eua. After his disappearance an expedition was mounted to try to find him, and the published account by the ship’s naturalist, Labillardière, represents the next extended description of Tongatapu after Cook’s. The crew arrived in March 1793, made their base at Pangaimotu island, and stayed about two weeks. As a naturalist the author had a particular interest in flora and fauna but he also observes the social system, relations between chiefs and people, crafts and ceremonies. Memories of Cook, though not all fond, were strong. For example, Labillardière describes how two hatchets given by Cook to Fatafehi were brought to be sharpened. The charms of the women and frequent thefts by the men were particularly noted. Three detailed plates show a wide range of Tongan artefacts, but a general view of Tongatapu is ludicrously inaccurate in showing ranges of rolling hills. An appendix gives a vocabulary of about three hundred Tongan words.
79
The voyages of Abel Janszoon Tasman Andrew Sharp. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968. 375pp. 27 maps
Schouten and Le Maire were the first Europeans to visit any part of the Tongan islands, Niuatoputapu and Tafahi in 1616, but Tasman was the first European to visit the main islands of Tonga, in 1643. He called at ‘Eua, Tongatapu, Nomuka, Tofua, Kao and Late. His journals, here reprinted in this modern edition with explanatory notes, describe the islands and the people, with views of how the islands appear from the sea, and drawings. Tasman’s visit was brief, but the work is of interest as the first description of these islands. Charts and maps are also reproduced.
Flora and Fauna 80
An annotated checklist and keys to the mosquitoes of Samoa and Tonga Shivaji Ramalingam. Mosquito Systematics, vol. 8, no. 3 (1976), pp.298–318
This paper provides the first systematic account of mosquitoes in Tonga. It identifies eight species belonging to the genera Culex and Aedes. All the species are described
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in detail and their locations in each island group surveyed are tabulated. There are descriptive keys to the adults, pupae and larvae. The author admits that current knowledge of the mosquito fauna of Tonga is extremely fragmentary as only a few of the islands have been surveyed.
81
Birds of Fiji, Tonga and Samoa Dick Watling, illustrated by Chloe Talbot-Kelly. Wellington: Millwood Press, 1982. 176pp. 68 maps. bibliog.
The first ornithological observations in the region were made in Tonga on Cook’s second voyage, but serious study only began in the early 19th century. The author first outlines the history of the birds of the region and describes the composition of the avifauna in its ecological setting; the appearance of the species in breeding and moult stages; and the geographical features of the region. Each species of land and sea bird is then described in terms of English, Latin and indigenous name; size; identification; flight; voice; food; breeding; habitat and range, together with general remarks, a distribution map and illustrations in colour. The book was reissued in a revised and reformatted new edition under the title A guide to the birds of Fiji and Western Polynesia, including American Samoa, Niue, Samoa, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Wallis and Futuna (Fiji: Environmental Consultants, 2001).
82
The butterflies of the Tonga islands and Niue, Cook Islands, with the descriptions of two new subspecies Jacqueline Y. Miller, Lee D. Miller. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: Bishop Museum Press, 1993. 24pp. map. bibliog. (Bishop Museum Occasional Papers, no. 34)
The authors first list collectors and students of the butterflies of Tonga, from Banks and Solander, who sailed with Cook, to the present. For Tonga they list thirteen taxa, each of which is then described in detail, with monochrome photographs. They find that much of the current butterfly fauna of Tonga is closely related to that of Fiji and Samoa, and that most Tongan butterflies owe their presence in Tonga to dispersal or accidental introduction. Because of the paucity of research, they expect that the list is far from complete.
83
The cicadas of the Fiji, Samoa and Tonga islands, their taxonomy and biogeography (Homoptera and Cicadoidea) J. P. Duffels. New York; Copenhagen; Cologne: E. J. Brill, 1988. 108pp. 8 maps. bibliog. (Entomonograph, vol. 10)
Duffels describes twenty-four cicada subspecies for Fiji, Tonga and Samoa and illustrates them in the larval stage and in the exuviae. However, only two of these species occur in Tonga. Duffels goes on to provide a general introduction to the biogeography of the cicadas of the southwest Pacific. A brief geological history of the region, and its relationship to the early geography of the islands and the development of life on them, is added by A. Ewart. This contains a summary of the geological evolution of the Tonga islands.
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The edible bananas in Tonga M. Hotta. Acta Phytotaxonomica et Geobotanica, vol. 21, no. 1–2 (1964), pp.1–8
About thirty-five cultivated varieties of banana are identified by Tongans. Hotta examined most of these on a visit to Tonga in 1960, and provides a detailed description of each.
85
The ethnobotany of Tonga: the plants, their Tongan names, and their uses W. A. Whistler. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: Bishop Museum Press, 1991. 155pp. map. bibliog.
Whistler carried out ethnobotanical surveys of Tonga between 1987 and 1990. From his visits, interviews with Tongans and surveys of existing literature he produced an alphabetical checklist of the Tongan names of about 620 plants, with information on their uses, particularly in the medicinal field. Appendixes list the Tongan plant names given by Yuncker (item 96) and by Churchward in his dictionary (item 259) that Whistler was unable to substantiate. There is an index of scientific names.
86
A field guide to the birds of Tonga Douglas Cook. Nuku‘alofa: Government Printer, 1984. 56pp.
This booklet describes the sea, shore and land birds of all the islands of Tonga. For each species the author provides details of English, Latin and Tongan name; size; field marks; voice; location and habitat. He also includes a black-and-white drawing adapted from the colour plate in Watling’s Birds of Fiji, Tonga and Samoa (item 81).
87
Field guide to the landbirds of Tonga Claudia Matavalea. Nuku‘alofa: Friendly Islands Bookshop, n.d. (c. 1998), 30pp.
This booklet describes twenty-six landbirds found in Tonga, and also lists briefly some seabirds. It provides much the same data as Cook’s guide (item 86), although some remarks on habitat are a little fuller, and it adds notes on current status. As with Cook, the drawings of each bird seem to be adapted from Watling (item 81). One bird, ngutu‘enga, Cook identifies as the European starling (following Watling) and Matavalea as the jungle myna. In most respects the two lists are broadly similar.
88
Fish names of Western Polynesia: Futuna, Niue, Samoa, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Uvea, outliers Karl H. Rensch. Canberra: Archipelago Press, 1994. 311pp. map. bibliog.
Rensch has used his own field notes, manuscript sources and dictionaries to compile this list, and includes obsolete names not in current usage. He has not attempted to equate local names with established scientific taxonomy. The alphabetical listing gives the local name; the name of the relevant language; a translation or description; the scientific name where known, and the source of information. For Tonga
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this is usually Churchward’s dictionary (item 259) or the paper by Vaea and Straatmans (item 592). The work ends with a Latin finder list.
89
The flora of the Tonga or Friendly Islands, with descriptions of and notes on some new or remarkable plants, partly from the Solomon Islands W. Botting Hemsley. The Journal of the Linnean Society—Botany, vol. 30, no. 207 (1894), pp.158–217
Hemsley provides the first scientific enumeration of about 330 vascular plants of Tonga, drawn largely from the herbarium at Kew Gardens and from the reports of early collectors from Cook onward. With the formal data on family, botanical name and collector, there is a note on distribution. A table shows where species occur in neighbouring regions. There are general notes on the geology and vegetation of Tonga.
90
The flora of Vavau, one of the Tonga islands I. H. Burkill. The Journal of the Linnean Society—Botany, vol. 35, no. 242 (1901), pp.20–65
A collection of specimens from Vava‘u was received at Kew Gardens after the publication of Hemsley’s paper on the flora of Tonga (item 89). The 336 species listed include 83 not in Hemsley’s list. There is a note on the vegetation of Vava‘u, and a table on distribution in neighbouring regions.
91
Flowers of the Pacific island seashore—a guide to the littoral plants of Hawai‘i, Tahiti, Samoa, Tonga, Cook Islands, Fiji and Micronesia W. Arthur Whistler. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1992. 154pp. bibliog.
From his own field trips Whistler records the 120 species of plants found on the shores of Polynesia, 87 of which are found in Tonga. He groups the plants into trees, shrubs, herbs, vines and grasses and sedges, and in a table shows which is found in which country, and whether native or introduced. Within each group he arranges the plants in alphabetical order of Latin name. For each species he gives the name in English and in the indigenous language, precise botanical description, geographical range, habitat, and medicinal and commercial use. Each plant is illustrated with a colour photograph.
92
Koe malau: life and future of the malau Dieter R. Rinke, Lata H. Soakai, Alison Usback. Bonn and Nuku‘alofa: Brehm Fund for International Bird Conservation, 1993. 20pp. maps
The Tongan megapode, the malau, one of the world’s rarest birds, lives only on the island of Niuafo‘ou, where the hen lays and buries her eggs in warm volcanic soil. Its numbers are declining and its future is under threat from both humans and
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animals. This booklet describes its habitat and life, with colour photographs, and makes a plea for its conservation.
93
New and noteworthy plants from Tonga I M. Hotta. Acta Phytotaxonimica et Geobotanica, vol. 19, no. 4–6 (1963), pp.153–57
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New and noteworthy plants from Tonga II M. Hotta. Acta Phytotaxonomica et Geobotanica, vol. 21, no. 3–4 (1965), pp.65–8
These two brief papers list about thirty new and newly-found plant species identified in 1960.
95
On the diet of pigs foraging on the mud flats of Tongatapu: an investigation in taphonomy Dirk H. R. Spennemann. Archaeology in New Zealand, vol. 37, no. 2 (1994), pp.104–10
One of the most remarkable sights in Tongatapu is pigs burrowing for food on the mud flats and reef flats off the coast. The author establishes what they eat from the sea to supplement the household scraps and vegetation that make up their normal diet. From an analysis of their excreta he established that, while they ate a few molluscs, they ate large numbers of small mud crabs but that, given the fragility of the remains of the crabs, they would be unlikely to survive in the archaeological record.
96
Plants of Tonga T. G. Yuncker. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: Bernice P. Bishop Museum, 1959. 283pp. (Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin, no. 220)
Botanists before Yuncker visited Tonga and published reports, e.g., Hemsley (item 89) and Burkill (item 90), but this book gives the first comprehensive listing. Over 750 species and varieties are classified by family and genus. Yuncker provides the Latin name, description and location of each, with remarks where appropriate, and the Tongan name where known. It should be noted that Whistler (item 91) says that some of these are wrong. There are indexes of Latin and Tongan names and some photographs.
97
Psocoptera of the Tongan archipelago I. W. B. Thornton. In Pacific Insects Monograph 37. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: Department of Entomology, Bishop Museum, 1981, pp.106–35
Thornton collected and recorded thirty-five species of Psocoptera in the Tongan islands, eight for the first time. For each he gives a description based on his specimens, location, details of references in the literature, and a line drawing. He shows that the Tongan fauna can be regarded largely as an extension of that of Fiji.
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98
A revision of the Aedes scutellaris group of Tonga (Diptera: Culicidae) Yiau-min Huang, James C. Hitchcock. Contributions of the American Entomological Institute, vol. 17, no. 3 (1980), pp.1–107. 9 maps. bibliog. (Medical Entomology Studies XII)
This paper describes the three new species and one new subspecies of mosquito in Tonga, and presents information on their type-data, distribution, bionomics, medical importance and taxonomy. The male, female, pupa and larva of the four species are illustrated in twenty-nine detailed figures. Their role in the transmission of filariasis and dengue fever is discussed.
99
The status of wildlife in Tonga Dieter Rinke. Oryx, vol. 20, no. 3 (1984), pp.146–51
There are only three species of native mammals in Tonga and about eleven species of reptiles. Rinke lists four birds and two reptiles that are rare and threatened. The birds are the Niuafo‘ou megapode, the blue-crowned lory, the red shining parrot and the Tonga whistler. The reptiles are the banded iguana and the Tonga ground skink (probably now extinct). For each he describes their habitat and the threats to survival from a growing population and intensive agriculture.
100 Toloa rainforest reserve: a guidebook for visitors Olivia Ball. Nuku‘alofa: Tupou College, 2001. 70pp. bibliog. Toloa has the largest remaining area of lowland tropical forest on Tongatapu, now in the care of Tupou College. Ball outlines the development of the forest and the threats to it from agriculture and from introduced species. Over two hundred species of plants have been identified there. Ball describes a selection of high- and sub-canopy trees, shrubs, herbs, vines, grasses and fungi, with Tongan, English and Latin names, and notes on their distinctive features and on cultural and medicinal significance. She also lists some birds, mammals, reptiles and insects.
101
The vegetation of Late, Tonga W. R. Sykes. Lawai, Kauai, Hawai‘i: Pacific Tropical Botanical Gardens, 1981. 30pp. map. bibliog. (Allertonia: a series of occasional papers, vol. 2, no. 6, pp.323–53.)
Late is one of a chain of volcanic islands on the west side of Tonga, now uninhabited. Sykes gives a general description of Late, its geology and vegetation, with photographs, and a checklist of about two hundred plants.
PhD thesis 102 The mosquito fauna of Samoa and Tonga and its relation to subperiodic Bancroftian filariasis Shivaji Ramalingam. University of California, Los Angeles, 1965
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Prehistory and Archaeology 103 Archaeological discoveries on Niuatoputapu island, Tonga Garth Rogers. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 83, no. 3 (1974), pp.304–48 Rogers discusses the importance of Niuatoputapu as a highly attractive settlement for the bearers of Lapita-type pottery. He documents a large collection of potsherds and a few stone tools found there. Analysis shows that the pottery was made locally. He describes a field survey of some seventy archaeological structures divided into eight types, and relates them to geological features and to oral history. Technical appendixes give an analysis of the sand tempers used in a sample of the sherds (William R. Dickinson) and an account of the sources of obsidian (Graeme Ward), probably Tafahi.
104 Archaeology of Tonga W. C. McKern. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: Bernice P. Bishop Museum, 1929. 124pp. 48 maps and plans (Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin 60) Early European explorers and travellers noted the most obvious of the spectacular and impressive archaeological remains in Tonga: the langi (royal tombs), the Ha‘amonga trilithon (an arch of three huge stones), mounds and fortifications. Basil Thomson wrote a short paper on the most important of these (‘Notes upon the antiquities of Tonga’, Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vol. XXII [1902], pp.81–8), but McKern’s was the first systematic description, based on his own fieldwork carried out in 1920–21. He also conducted limited excavations of tombs and kitchen middens and found pottery, the dating and significance of which were only realized by Poulsen and others forty years later (item 108).
105
Availability of shellfish resources on prehistoric Tongatapu, Tonga. Effects of human predation and changing environment Dirk H. R. Spennemann. Archaeology in Oceania, vol. 22, no. 2 (1987), pp. 81–96
Spennemann examines shellfish remains excavated along the shoreline of the Tongatapu lagoon. He describes the species, their habitat and present shell-gathering practices, and relates the location of remains to Lapita settlements. He tabulates the frequency of remains of the two principal species from early to late Lapita, noting how the size of shell steadily decreases. Discounting natural factors, he sees this as a result of human predation in the early Lapita period.
106 Changing gender roles in Tongan society: some comments based on archaeological observations Dirk H. R. Spennemann. In Tongan culture and history. Edited by Phyllis
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Herda, Jennifer Terrell, Niel Gunson. Canberra: The Journal of Pacific History, 1990, pp.101–09
Spennemann considers what the archaeological record can reveal about the respective roles of men and women in Tonga in prehistoric and historic times. Whereas most studies on gender roles have been concerned with rank and power, Spennemann concentrates on the life and work of ordinary people. He examines skeletal remains of men and women in order to deduce, from wear on bones and joints, the tasks that each undertook. Women were mostly involved, he deduces, in gardening work, tapa (barkcloth) production and shellfishing. Men built houses and canoes, made weapons and ornaments, and fished. He also summarizes what early Europeans observed of the roles of men and women, and suggests how Christian values affected the role of women, which is still changing.
107
Early Lapita sites, the colonisation of Tonga and recent data from northern Ha‘apai Richard Shutler Jr., David V. Burley, William R. Dickinson, Erle Nelson, Arne K. Carlson. Archaeology in Oceania, vol. 29, no. 2 (1994), pp.53–68
This paper describes excavations at Lapita sites on three islands in the Ha‘apai group, radiocarbon dated between 3,000 and 2,500 years ago. All the sites were coastal but are above present sea levels, which have since declined. The Lapita ceramics excavated share design elements with those from other sites in Tonga and Fiji, and suggest that these sites were settled simultaneously with other sites in Tonga, including Tongatapu and Niuatoputapu. Colonization seems to have been a rapid process.
108
Early Tongan prehistory: the Lapita period on Tongatapu and its relationships Jens Poulsen. Canberra: Department of Prehistory, Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University, 1987. Volume I, 307pp. map. bibliog. Volume II, 205pp. 4 maps (Terra Australia, no. 12)
After McKern’s work in 1920–21 (item 104) there was some limited excavation in Tonga in the 1950s, but Poulsen’s fieldwork in 1963–64 led to the next significant major advance with establishment of a chronology for what had come to be known as Lapita pottery. Named after a site in New Caledonia, this type of pottery spread through the southwest Pacific between 1200 BC and 200 AD. This pushed back the date of the earliest settlement of Tonga much further than had been thought, implying Polynesian communities springing from a common ancestral culture that entered from the west in the first millennium BC. Poulsen dates the earliest Tongan find to 1050–820 BC, suggesting that Tonga and Samoa were settled roughly contemporaneously from Fiji. Volume I contains the text, Volume II the supporting maps, tables and illustrations.
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Ethno-archaeology and the development of Polynesian fishing strategies P. V. Kirch, T. S. Dye. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 88, no. 1 (1979), pp.53–76
Drawing on Dye’s work on current fishing practices in Niuatoputapu (item 586), the authors examine what can be learnt of fishing practices in prehistoric times, using both archaeological and linguistic evidence to reconstruct and interpret Lapita fishing strategies. Excavated remains of fish suggest a concentration on inshore resources, with fishermen probably mostly using nets and spears rather than hooks.
110
Lapita on the periphery. New data on old problems in the Kingdom of Tonga David V. Burley, William R. Dickinson, Andrew Barton, Richard Shutler Jr. Archaeology in Oceania, vol. 36, no. 2 (2001), pp.89–104
Despite much work since Lapita pottery was first recognized in Tonga in 1961, many basic issues of chronology, adaptation and impact remain to be resolved. The authors of this paper review and reassess their own earlier work in Ha‘apai and Tongatapu (items 107, 118, 120, 121). Samples excavated by Poulsen in 1963–64 (item 108) were reexamined and two sites on Fanga ‘Uta lagoon in Tongatapu were revisited in 1999. This led the authors to propose a new sequence for the development of the shoreline over the past 5,000 years, given that the sea level when the Lapita peoples arrived was up to two metres higher than it is now. Their map relating the present and former shorelines shows that the present site of Nuku‘alofa was then an island. Plotting the Lapita sites on the shoreline suggests a rapid and extensive occupation of the central leeward coast of Tongatapu. The authors doubt some earlier radiocarbon dates, and claims by Kirch (item 116) for Lapita origins in Tonga as early as 3300–3400 BP (before present). New radiocarbon dates for Tongatapu suggest that the first probable appearance of Lapita in Tongatapu was about 2900 BP, with one of the revisited sites, Nukuleka, as a founding community, with settlers moving to Ha‘apai not long after. The authors also relate the style of Lapita sherds from Nukuleka to those from other islands and conclude that the distinguishing decorative motifs of the Eastern Lapita ceramics were imported into Tonga, not developed in situ. However other excavated artefacts, most made from shells, were manufactured there. Faunal remains removed from middens suggest that at least twenty-five species of land and sea birds became extinct in the first hundred years of human presence. Settlements spread rapidly to fourteen villages or hamlets along the shore of the lagoon. The massive density of shellfish remains suggests that Tongatapu must have provided abundant natural food, whereas Ha‘apai sites were smaller and more isolated.
111 The Lapita peoples: ancestors of the Oceanic world Patrick Vinton Kirch. Cambridge, Massachusetts; Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1997. 353pp. 9 maps. bibliog.
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In this general synthesis Kirch brings together and reviews the many publications on the Lapita peoples, who first settled the Pacific about 3,000 years ago and who left their distinctive pottery as evidence of their existence and diffusion, from their first appearance in the Bismarck archipelago as far as Tonga and Samoa in the east. Kirch himself has undertaken much of the work in this field since 1966, particularly in Tonga (items 109, 112 and 116). He draws upon archaeological, linguistic and genetic evidence in reconstructing their progress. He uses three sites, one being Niuatoputapu (Tonga), to describe in detail the societies that made Lapita pottery, their patterns of settlement, economy, ecology and diet. An appendix lists all major Lapita sites, among them two on Tongatapu, two in the Ha‘apai group and one on Niuatoputapu. A bibliography of about four hundred items lists all published references to the Lapita peoples and related topics to date.
112 Monumental architecture and power in Polynesian chiefdoms: a comparison of Tonga and Hawai‘i P. V. Kirch. World Archaeology, vol. 22, no. 2 (1990), pp.206–22 Kirch contrasts the role of monumental architecture in the late prehistoric and early historical politics of Tonga and Hawai‘i. He compares their style of chiefdoms; examines the various forms of mounds that are the most prominent field monuments in the Tongan archaeological landscape; and charts and classifies those with and without stone facings. He takes Niuatoputapu as a particular example, where mounds have been well investigated and can be related to the land segments of known local chiefs. The Hawaiian archaeological landscape is very different, with temples rather than burial mounds. Kirch finds that the two cases illustrate variations in the role of monuments within highly stratified chiefdom societies.
113
Myths and history: some aspects of history in the Tu‘i Tonga myths ‘Okusitino Mâhina. In Tongan culture and history. Edited by Phyllis Herda, Jennifer Terrell, Niel Gunson. Canberra: The Journal of Pacific History, 1990, pp.30–45
The author discusses the content of the Tu‘i Tonga myths—specifically, what they actually mean within the Tongan social context or within the wider West Polynesian culture complex in which Tongan society was a specific sociocultural development. There are accounts of actual situations and events that took place in Tongan prehistory, though many scholars believe they are of no use in attempting to reconstruct prehistoric Tongan society. The study is based on both oral and written sources and considers social change and the place of social liberalism in relation to the dominance of the ruling order. The origin myth, ‘Aho‘eitu, yields insights into some social, economic, mental, political and ethical aspects of the prehistory of Tonga, and suggests a move from mythologism to theism. Four main periods in Tongan prehistory are identified. The myths reveal the major chiefly lineages struggling for supremacy throughout Tonga; some of the developments are set out in chart form.
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The author claims that these observations confirm that in some respects the myths can be used as historical sources.
114
Myths, legends and volcanic activity: an example from northern Tonga Paul W. Taylor. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 104, no. 3 (1995), pp.323–46
Believing that many myths and legends may be based on real events, Taylor examines a legend common to several of the outlying northern islands of Tonga. This concerns the exploits of the last of the apparently native devils of Tonga, who were said to have removed the centre of the island of Niuafo‘ou and, on being chased, dropped it to form the separate island of Tafahi, with a period of darkness ended by an impromptu sunrise. Taylor suggests that volcanic activity, wind patterns and a volcanic eruption, possibly less than 3,000 years ago, are the basis for the legend.
115
Narratives of gender and pre-eminence: the Hikule‘o myths of Tonga Phyllis Herda. In Vision and reality in Pacific religion: essays in honour of Niel Gunson. Edited by Phyllis Herda, Michael Reilly, David Hilliard. Canterbury, New Zealand: Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, and Canberra: Pandanus Books, 2005, pp.19–41
Havea Hikule‘o, one of the origin deities of Tongan myth, the patron of the Tu‘i Tonga, is in some traditions male, in some female. Herda examines Tongan creation myths and the way in which Hikule‘o’s role relates to gender roles within Tongan society, to relationships with the Tu‘i Tonga and to Pulotu, the afterworld of gods and chiefs. Herda believes that Hikule‘o sits structurally in the myth as the higher-ranking elder sister of named half-brothers, not as an implied combined brother/sister figure in one deity.
116
Niuatoputapu: the prehistory of a Polynesian chiefdom Patrick Vinton Kirch. Seattle, Washington: Burke Museum, 1988. 298pp. 34 maps. bibliog. (Thomas Burke Memorial Washington State Museum Monograph, no. 5)
Kirch conducted archaeological excavations in Niuatoputapu in 1976, and some of his findings were incorporated in his 1984 monograph, The evolution of the Polynesian chiefdoms (item 132). This is the definitive archaeological report, providing much of the detailed evidence for his more general conclusions about the nature of Tongan political and social systems. Kirch describes the material culture (Lapita pottery, adzes, fishing gear, tools and ornaments) and the fauna (mammals, birds and fish) revealed by excavations, and from them reconstructs changes in technology and in subsistence patterns, bringing the evidence together to produce a sequence of prehistoric periods and of the development of the Tongan maritime chiefdom. He sees in Niuatoputapu a microcosm of much that is characteristic of
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the whole of Polynesia. The work is fully illustrated with photographs, diagrams and drawings.
117
On the road of the winds: an archaeological history of the Pacific islands before European contact Patrick Vinton Kirch. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2000. 424pp. 15 maps. bibliog.
In Kirch’s own words, ‘This book is my attempt to distill a lifetime of study—and the insights gained through much tedious sifting of often minute strands of evidence by myself and innumerable colleagues—into a coherent whole, a synthesis for those whose curiosity would take them on an intellectual voyage into the Oceanic past.’ Kirch has been at the heart of the work of understanding the origins of the peoples of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, with early important excavations in Niuatoputapu (item 116), general studies of the development of the social structure of Polynesia, and work on Lapita pottery and the Lapita peoples (item 111). Here he sets out the whole broad sweep of the origins of the peoples of the Pacific and the extraordinary story of their migrations from maritime Southeast Asia to the furthest ends of the ocean, in light of the most recent findings and theories. He provides much detail on specific peoples and their archaeological and linguistic development. He also gives the broad overview. He considers not only the physical record itself but also what we can learn of the nature of Polynesian society from it. In all of this Tonga takes its central place. He summarizes its archaeological record and demonstrates the relationship between Tonga and its neighbours in Polynesia and Melanesia.
118 A radiocarbon chronology for the Eastern Lapita frontier in Tonga David V. Burley, D. Erle Nelson, Richard Shutler Jr. Archaeology in Oceania, vol. 34, no. 2 (1999), pp.59–70 A series of thirty-one radiocarbon dates for material from six sites in Ha‘apai provides a terminal date for the Lapita migration at the far eastern edge of its frontier. Previous excavations there suggested rapid colonization with single hamlet-sized settlements on the leeward coasts of the principal islands. The new sites give an initial settlement date of no earlier than 2850 BP, with a rapid transition from decorated to plain ware by 2650 BP. Plain ware ended suddenly at about 2450 BP, suggesting that sites were abandoned because of a drop in sea levels. The authors believe that this differs from previous interpretations of Tongan prehistory, with the need to question and revise some earlier estimated dates. They conclude that Lapita settlement began no later than 3300 BP in the Bismarck archipelago and terminated in Ha‘apai about 2850 BP. This suggests a progression of exploration and colonization over a minimum of 450 years. It was assumed that an early Lapita phase in Tonga might have spanned the period 3000–2500 BP. These excavations suggest that this should be reduced to a century or two, with a sudden and punctuated series of changes rather than a gradual transition.
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Samoa and Tonga Janet M. Davidson. In The prehistory of Polynesia. Edited by Jesse D. Jennings. Cambridge, Massachusetts; London: Harvard University Press, 1979, pp.82–109
Davidson, who has excavated in both countries, surveys the closely related archaeology of Samoa and Tonga in the light of new evidence, obtained from the dating and analysis of Lapita pottery, of the first settlements in the region, established a little over 3,000 years ago. She records the main types of remains and reviews the literature relating to earlier excavations, drawing new conclusions from the data where appropriate. She points out that, in contrast to the earlier period, there is still little known of the post-Lapita period, which extended from probably about 300 AD until the beginning of the period of oral record about 1,000 years ago.
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Sand tempers in indigenous Lapita and Lapitoid Polynesian plainware and imported prehistoric Fijian pottery of Ha‘apai (Tonga) and the question of Lapita tradeware William R. Dickinson, Richard Shutler Jr., Rob Shortland, David V. Burley, Thomas S. Dye. Archaeology in Oceania, vol. 31, no. 2 (1996), pp.87–98
Some scholars have suggested that Lapita pottery from sites in Polynesia and Melanesia may have been used as tradeware, and may not have been manufactured where it was found. From the detailed examination of the sands used in its composition, the writers conclude that large deposits of Lapita pottery found at two sites in the Ha‘apai group were made where they were found. This is significant for the study of early settlement patterns and skills in Tonga.
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Settlement patterns and Tongan prehistory: reconsiderations from Ha‘apai David V. Burley. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 103, no. 4 (1994), pp.379–411
Burley addresses the problem of settlement patterns, settlement forms and their transformation, covering a period from the colonization of Tonga about 3,200 years ago up to the late 19th century. His discussions and conclusions focus on archaeological data from the Ha‘apai group. He sees a continuity of settlement patterns for the first 1,000 years, a dispersed pattern then emerging, with a return to more nuclear settlement in more recent years as a consequence not so much of the civil wars, as generally believed, as of the later constitutional policies of land reform implemented by King George Tupou I. These, however, led to a village structure considerably different from the earlier aggregations of a chief and his followers. Burley relates his findings to what is generally agreed about the sequence of archaeological periods in Tonga.
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The temple of Faleme‘e: archaeological and anthropological considerations of a pre-Christian god-house on the island of Ha‘ano, Kingdom of Tonga David V. Burley. New Zealand Journal of Archaeology, vol. 16 (1994), pp.55–67
Pre-Christian religious beliefs and practices in Tonga are incompletely documented and poorly understood. Burley excavated a stone enclosure and corner posts of a pre-Christian god-house on an island in Ha‘apai. He identifies this as a temple to Hikule‘o, one of the three principal deities within the Tongan pantheon and deity of the Tu‘i Tonga lineage.
123 Tonga, Lapita pottery, and Polynesian origins L. M. Groube. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 80, no. 3 (1971), pp.278–316 In this contribution to the debate about the significance of Lapita pottery in the study of Polynesian origins, Groube proposes a crucial role for Tonga. He examines both the archaeological and linguistic evidence for the relationship between Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, partly drawing on his own excavations in Tongatapu. On the strength of a long technical discussion of radiocarbon dating and of the stratigraphy of excavation sites he suggests revising the generally accepted sequence of dating of Lapita pottery in Tonga. He concludes that Polynesians became Polynesians sometime towards the middle of the first millennium BC after over five hundred years of isolation in the remote archipelago of Tonga. ‘The Polynesians, therefore, did not strictly come from anywhere: they became Polynesians, and the location of their becoming was Tonga’.
124 Tonga malohi: Tongan fortifications in Western Polynesia Kimi Papa. Archaeology in New Zealand, vol. 37, no. 1 (1994), pp.44–57 Papa lists the recorded fortifications of Tonga and examines the excavation records, setting them in their historical context and discussing how far their styles, some rectangular and some circular, were indigenous or influenced by Fijian styles. He also examines fortifications elsewhere in Western Polynesia supposedly built by Tongans, and concludes that the Tongan history of fort building is long and probably has its own independent origins.
125
Tonga’s Lapita beginning and its role in Polynesian origins David V. Burley. In Tonga and the Tongans: heritage and identity. Edited by Elizabeth Wood-Ellem. Alphington, Victoria, Australia: Tonga Research Association, 2007, pp.5–23
Burley brings together research over many years on the early prehistory of Tonga. From Lapita pottery, similar to that from the Lau group in eastern Fiji, he dates first settlement, around the Fanga‘uta lagoon in Tongatapu, at around 900 BC.
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Most settlements were on the shoreline where fish and shellfish were abundant. He sees Tongatapu as the first Polynesian island to be settled by the Lapita peoples, who quickly moved up to the northern islands and Samoa. The early assertions of Groube (item 123) on the origins of the Polynesians in Tonga, remain valid nearly forty years later.
PhD theses 126 “Ata ‘a Tonga mo ‘ata ‘o Tonga:” early and later prehistory of the Tongan islands D. H. Spennemann. Australian National University, 1989 127 A contribution to the prehistory of the Tongan islands Jens Poulsen. Australian National University, 1967 128
The physical anthropology of early Tongan populations: a study of the bones and teeth and an assessment of their biological affinities based on cranial comparisons with eight other Pacific populations Michael Pietrusewsky. University of Toronto, 1969
129 Social and cultural change in the prehistory of the ancestral Polynesian homeland T. S. Dye. Yale University, 1988
History General Pacific 130
The Cambridge history of the Pacific islanders Edited by Donald Denoon with Stewart Firth, Jocelyn Linnekin, Malama Meleisea, Karen Nero. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1997. 518pp. 24 maps. bibliog.
For one hundred years the Cambridge histories have set standards of international collaborative scholarship, with chapters written by leading specialists in their fields. The editors of the history of the Pacific state that it is ‘for readers who seek an introduction to the experiences of the people of this vast and ill-defined region. We seek to provide clear and readable first words, not to lay down the last word.’ A first chapter on ways to approach the history of the Pacific is followed by twelve more, covering a period from prehistory and the first human settlement to the Pacific of today. Each chapter is thematic and covers the whole of the region. Thus, although some information on Tonga is included in most, it would not be easy to follow the history
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of Tonga, or of any other country, alone and, for Tonga, there is little on significant political and economic developments since independence. The book is more useful in breaking down the insularity and identifying common themes throughout the Pacific than in providing a cohesive history of each constituent part.
131 European vision and the South Pacific Bernard Smith. New Haven, Connecticut; London: Yale University Press, 1985. 2nd ed. 370pp. bibliog. The voyages of Cook and those who followed him opened the eyes of Europeans to new landscapes and civilizations, portrayed by the artists who accompanied them. Smith examines the ways in which the artists, mindful of the social conventions and intellectual attitudes of their time, depicted what they saw. Pacific islanders were first seen as noble savages but later, under missionary influence, came to be portrayed as unredeemed and ugly. Landscapes were both familiar and exotic. In the illustration of Cook’s landing at ‘Eua, Tongans were depicted in classical dress and poses, to show that the event was worthy of portrayal in a suitably serious style. Some suggested even that the clue to the origin of art and civilization was to be found not in classical Greece and Rome but in the Pacific islands. Smith shows how the artists’ first sketches were often altered for the final painting to fit such concepts. His book reproduces many of the illustrations of explorers and missionaries to demonstrate the attitudes of those who first explored Tonga and the other islands.
132 The evolution of the Polynesian chiefdoms Patrick Vinton Kirch. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1984. 326pp. 19 maps. bibliog. Though derived from a common ancestral Polynesian society, the thirty-eight major Polynesian archipelagos and islands evolved different types of social and political systems. Kirch first reconstructs the broad outlines of ancestral Polynesian society and proceeds to analyse the major processes—technological, environmental, demographic, social and political—that led to change. He then reviews three case studies, of which Tonga is one. Tonga, Kirch argues, demonstrates a high degree of hierarchical stratification and differentiation in social status and rank, which was present in all Polynesian societies from the beginning but that survives to this day in Tonga more than in most others. Despite the lack of permanent watercourses, the unusually fertile soils of the islands of Tonga made possible an intensive level of agriculture that could support a considerable population. His examination of the genealogies of the sacred Tu‘i Tonga and related secular lines, alongside oral tradition, archaeological evidence and records of interisland trade and tribute, provides a comprehensive picture of the Tongan social and political order up to the time of European contact.
133 A history of the Pacific from the Stone Age to the present day Glen Barclay. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1978. 264pp. 6 maps. bibliog.
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This history of the Pacific for the general reader provides a summary running briskly from earliest human occupation (though with no mention of Lapita pottery and the consequent revisions to settlement dates) to the mid-1970s. It is written from a New Zealand perspective. Tonga is covered at appropriate points, but it would not be possible to construct a satisfactory outline of the history of Tonga from these references alone. The chronological table omits many key events, and an illustration from Tasman’s voyage of 1643, captioned as of Fiji, is of Tonga.
134 A history of the Pacific islands I. C. Campbell. Christchurch, New Zealand: University of Canterbury Press, 1989. 239pp. 8 maps. bibliog. Campbell presents a synoptic history of the region, intending his book to be an introduction, making accessible to a non-specialist readership the richness of the many specialist works on the subject. His concern is with broad themes and with general outlines: the original peoples and their migrations, the coming of the Europeans as explorers, traders, missionaries and colonizers, and the attainment of political independence by some of the island countries, though still not by all. However, the islands are now increasingly locked into a world economic system of dependency, with a loss of control and traditional social processes. Campbell puts the islanders in the centre of his picture, not merely as passive victims of what is called ‘the fatal impact’.
135 Imperial benevolence: making British authority in the Pacific islands Jane Samson. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1998. 240pp. 8 maps. bibliog. The nature of British authority in the Pacific and the role of the Royal Navy in attempting to create it are the themes of this study. Samson traces the development and dilemmas of British involvement in the Pacific islands through the naval record, showing how the British government was drawn into a greater involvement in the Pacific through a humanitarian mission to protect islanders from exploitation by traders. She examines the navy’s sense of mission in the Pacific, which drew upon evangelicalism, antislavery sentiment and contemporary debates about the nature of race. She sees a continuity between the moral empire that British representatives sought to make in the Pacific in the early years of the 19th century and the formal territorial expansion of the later decades, concluding her story with the British annexation of Fiji in 1874. Drawing on naval, diplomatic and missionary records, she examines the navy’s role across the Pacific, through Melanesia and Polynesia. She considers British attitudes towards King George Tupou I’s consolidation of his authority throughout the Tongan group. Naval support for the missionaries and for him led to the death of Captain Croker of HMS Favourite, who rashly intervened in the civil war between the Christian king and his opponents in 1840. Later naval visitors joined the missionaries in creating the trappings of European monarchy about
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King George, and recognized his government and its independence some years before the British government signed a treaty with Tonga in 1879. She quotes Captain Home, as early as 1851, praising King George as ‘the Alfred the Great of the Friendly Islands’.
136
The people from the horizon: an illustrated history of the Europeans among the South Sea islanders Philip Snow, Stefanie Waine. Oxford: Phaidon, 1979. 296pp. map. bibliog.
Philip Snow and Stefanie Waine (his daughter, born in Fiji) have a broad canvas: the relationship over 450 years between Europeans and the peoples of Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia, set in an ocean occupying one third of the world’s surface. They describe for the general reader the impact of discoverers; explorers; early residents; traders and whalers; missionaries; settlers and planters; colonial administrators; artists and writers; the two world wars that the Western powers brought to the Pacific; nuclear testing and political independence. This is more of an account of the Europeans in the Pacific than of the islanders themselves. The unique situation of Tonga is well outlined. The text is inevitably brief and general: there is no space to go into issues in depth. It is the wealth of illustrations, many from rare and unfamiliar sources, that makes the book an attractive introduction to this subject.
137 Tides of history: the Pacific islands in the twentieth century Edited by K. R. Howe, Robert C. Kiste, Brij V. Lal. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1994. 475pp. 4 maps The authors of this collective volume present an analysis, from a variety of perspectives, of the nature of the social, political, economic and cultural experiences of the Pacific island peoples in late colonial and contemporary times. The three sections cover colonization (in Polynesia by Britain, Germany, Australia, New Zealand and France); moves towards decolonization during and after the Second World War; and what the authors call ‘uncertain times’, in which they examine themes since independence, with the consolidation of some themes originating in the 19th century and the advent of new forces. In a concluding essay Lal rejects the earlier versions of the fatal impact theory and emphasizes the positive role of the islanders in responding to European contact. Yet this is in danger of being overstated. Island economies are still much in the hands of foreigners, and political independence is limited, though perhaps less so in Tonga than elsewhere. Self-reliance is now impossible, and the islands cannot return to the past with its customs and traditions. The book does not set out the history of each Pacific country in any detail, and Tonga is covered less than some others, but the conclusion is as valid for Tonga as for any: that bridging the gap between past and present without losing the essence of their nation’s being is the agonizing question for any Pacific island leader or thinker.
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General Tonga 138
Battle of wits: ancient rivalries between Tongans, Samoans and Fijians ‘I. F. Helu. In Critical essays: cultural perspectives from the South Seas. Canberra: The Journal of Pacific History, 1999, pp.233–50
Helu considers the thesis put forward by Kaeppler on the relationship between Tongans, Samoans and Fijians (item 141) and the comment on it by Claessen (item 159). He emphasizes the general distrust these communities had for each other, and demonstrates this through the analysis of two ancient Tongan poems. In one, Tongans win a contest of wits with Samoans, gaining goods, protection and the art of whaling. The other shows the intellectual superiority of the Tongan gods over those of Fiji. The full Tongan text of each is printed, with English translation.
139 Britain and the Tongan harbours, 1898–1914 P. M. Kennedy. Historical Studies, vol. 15, no. 58 (1972), pp.251–67 In 1899 Britain abandoned her claims to the Samoan islands to Germany and the USA in return for control of the Tongan group. Some saw this as a weakening of Britain’s imperial position, but in the official view this was a good deal, giving Britain the strategic advantage of the use of the fine harbours of Vava‘u and Tongatapu as coaling stations. Annexation of Tonga had not seemed necessary, but Britain disliked the idea of any other nation taking control because of the importance of Fiji as a power-base for British influence, given Tonga’s proximity and the close relations between them. Kennedy examines the documents in detail and traces the development of British policy, involving the rights and interests of the USA as well as Germany, and subsequent discussions with Tonga over establishing a protectorate. Basil Thomson was entrusted with the negotiations, in view of his previous experience in Tonga (item 192). King George Tupou II agreed to most of the British stipulations but refused to concede complete control, and a protectorate was proclaimed that excluded his right to deal with foreign powers. No attempt was ever made by Britain to exercise its right to establish coaling stations in the harbours. Interest shifted back to Europe and Tonga returned to a state of relative obscurity in the eyes of the British government.
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Conspiracies and rumours of conspiracies in Tonga Elizabeth Wood-Ellem. In Tonga and the Tongans: heritage and identity. Edited by Elizabeth Wood-Ellem. Alphington, Victoria, Australia: Tonga Research Association, 2007, pp.123–42
From her thorough knowledge of Tongan history Wood-Ellem records some of its conspiracies. At least three of the early sacred Tu‘i Tonga rulers were assassinated. Struggles for preeminence between the Tu‘i Tonga and the other royal lines culminated in King George Tupou I having himself installed as Tu‘i Tonga in 1865, though not recognized by some of the chiefs of Tongatapu, who also disliked the
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Constitution of 1875 that reduced their powers. He feared that Tonga would be broken up and annexed after his death. Troubles beset King George Tupou II, too, with disputes over his choice of wife and pressure from Britain to strengthen its role. Queen Sâlote Tupou III succeeded in holding the kingdom together despite initial opposition. Wood-Ellem sees King Taufa‘âhau Tupou IV as a target of external conspiracies from outsiders wishing to enrich themselves, and in his later years of quiet criticism, with petitions for political and economic reform. King George Tupou V looks to a more democratic Tonga, but Wood-Ellem does not see the damaging riots in Nuku‘alofa on 16 November 2006 as an attempted coup d’état, though some did.
141 Exchange patterns in goods and spouses: Fiji, Tonga and Samoa Adrienne L. Kaeppler. Mankind, vol. 11, no. 3 (1978), pp.246–52 Kaeppler believes that the motivation for exchanges between Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, usually of canoes and pottery for which there is ethnographic evidence, has not been understood, and she examines other objects, and social relationships involved in their movement. Her viewpoint is Tonga-centric. She sees both Fiji and Samoa as ‘spouse givers’ to Tonga, and suggests that the exchange of goods was directly related to patterns of exchange of spouses. She examines Tonga’s relationship with Fiji and Samoa as an extension of its social principles of kinship and rank, and relates this to the dynastic concerns of the Tu‘i Tonga line. She describes the ceremonial goods obtained from Samoa and Fiji, normally in the specialized context of weddings and funerals, and suggests that they may be in part responsible for the distinctive quality of the Tongan cultural and social system. It should be noted that her conclusions have been challenged by Claessen (item 159).
142 An experiment in Tongan history E. E. V. Collocott. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 33, no. 131 (1924), pp.166–84 The lists of the Tu‘i Tonga, prepared by Moulton and others, provide Collocott with a basis for an early attempt to reconstruct Tongan history, beginning with Ahoeitu c. 950 and ending with the consolidation of the kingdom under King George Tupou I. He fills out the bare record where he can, compares variants, corrects where necessary, and examines such archaeological evidence as was available. This early experiment in the history of Tonga is now superseded in many respects, but remains a useful starting point.
143 Friendly Islands: a history of Tonga Edited by Noel Rutherford. Melbourne; Oxford; Wellington; New York: Oxford University Press, 1977. 297pp. map. bibliog. The need for a full, scholarly history of Tonga was first met by this book, in which fourteen scholars, four of them Tongan, each wrote on their specialized field, from the creation myth, prehistory and oral traditions to the Tonga of the mid-1970s,
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though the long and crucial reign of Queen Sâlote Tupou III was perhaps too close for dispassionate analysis at the time of writing. Society and culture are described alongside political history. A select bibliography covers primary (both manuscript and printed) and secondary sources.
144
Historiography: the myth of indigenous authenticity F. O. Kolo. In Tongan culture and history. Edited by Phyllis Herda, Jennifer Terrell, Niel Gunson. Canberra: The Journal of Pacific History, 1990, pp.1–11
Kolo discusses the view that there can never be a genuine European history of Tonga without a genuine cultural understanding of Tongan society, and compares aspects of Tongan and Western institutional tradition. Before the coming of schools the process of learning was one of socialization and the critical faculty was undeveloped, and to some extent this continues today. Kolo believes that European historians of Tonga have a responsibility to understand the language thoroughly and to ‘feel’ the culture and values of the people, and he criticises Wood’s history of Tonga (item 145) for failing to do this. If a real indigenous history is to emerge he looks to the development of a European intellectual tradition in Tonga, but doubts that this is realistic. The best that can be hoped for, Kolo believes, is a compromise history sensitive to indigenous values and culture. Oral tradition and myth should not go by the name of history. He concludes, ‘Historical perspectives of Pacific islanders should therefore be regarded as complementary to Western academic history. All for the better.’
145 History and geography of Tonga A. H. Wood. Nuku‘alofa: Government Printer, 1932. 109pp. 7 maps This brief introduction was originally prepared for use in Tongan schools in 1932. It remained of such value that it was reprinted in 1972 and is still available in Tonga today. Wood presents an outline of the history of Tonga from the origins of the people through the rise and fall of the three royal lines, the beginning of European contact from 1616, the period of civil war to 1826, and the development of modern Tonga to the present, i.e., the early 1930s. He describes the geography of Tonga; the position and geological foundation of each island group; climate; animal and plant life; imports and exports; population; and the system of government and law. All statistics are now of historic interest only, and the section on prehistory is particularly out of date. The serious reader must look at more recent books. Another drawback is the book’s use of the older form of spelling, e.g., Togatabu for Tongatapu. Yet, within its considerable limitations, it can be useful for newcomers to Tongan studies.
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‘How valuable a horse would be here.’ The introduction of the horse to Tonga Martin Daly. The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 38, no. 2 (2003), pp.269–74
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Horses were first brought to Tonga by Cook on his third voyage, but did not survive. They first appear in missionary journals in 1847, though it seems that they were not brought in by the missionaries but by a French trader who came to settle in Tonga. However they quickly became essential to the missionaries in their coverage of the chapels on their circuits before being widely adopted by Tongans as well as Europeans for personal and agricultural transport, and even for food. An examination of the original missionary letters and journals suggests that some of the later statements about the introduction of horses need to be qualified.
147 Island kingdom: Tonga ancient and modern I. C. Campbell. Christchurch, New Zealand: Canterbury University Press, 1992. 257pp. 3 maps. bibliog. Campbell’s theme is the continuity of Tongan history. Tongan culture, he maintains, adapted what it found to its advantage from Fiji, from Samoa and then from Europeans, but always retained its independence and integrity, at least until recent times when it became increasingly dependent on aid donors for development funds. Now it faces pressures from overpopulation and from changing social, political and economic aspirations. These forces, Campbell believes, are as powerful as any of the internal or external pressures of the past. This is the most accessible and up-to-date introduction to Tonga’s history, a concise yet comprehensive survey from Tonga’s origins to the 1990s.
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The making of the first Tongan-born professional historian Sione Lâtûkefu. In Pacific islands history: journeys and transformations. Edited by Brij V. Lal. Canberra: The Journal of Pacific History, 1992, pp.14–31
In precontact Tonga each village had its specialist who passed on the society’s history, but the professional historian has a different role in imparting objective and critical analysis. Lâtûkefu tells how he became the first Tongan-born professional historian. As a child he loved to hear stories told. He came from a poor family where education was highly valued. From Tupou College he went to theological college and then to the University of Queensland where he became fascinated by a more critical and analytical approach to history, and later returned to the Australian National University for postgraduate study, with a thesis on the influence of the Methodist missionaries on the political development of Tonga, 1826–1875, directed by Niel Gunson. He tells how he had to change his unashamedly biased attitudes in favour of the early Wesleyan missionaries, regarded as saints incapable of human feelings, and how shocked he was to find they were only human and could make mistakes. He became convinced of the importance of oral traditions as part of historical research (item 150) and was encouraged by Queen Sâlote to work for the Tonga Traditions Committee. He identifies obstacles to objective history: extreme nationalism, the misuse of oral traditions, ideological commitment that selects evidence to support theoretical preconceptions, and traditional loyalties where they
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conflict with historical truth. An article that he wrote on Tonga after Queen Sâlote’s reign provoked much resentment in Tonga, where for several years he was persona non grata. Pacific historians need much courage and fortitude, he concludes.
149
Myth and history ‘Okusitino Mâhina. In Voyages and beaches: Pacific encounters, 1769–1840. Edited by Alex Calder, Jonathan Lamb, Bridget Orr. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1999, pp. 61–88
Continuing the approach developed in two earlier papers (items 113 and 152), Mâhina examines the relationship between myth and history, how it mediates between the genealogical and historical or personal claims. He examines two Tongan myths, the turtle Sangone and Nailasikau, featured in lakalaka poems by Queen Sâlote, printing both the full Tongan text and English translation. Both represent national political events surrounding the historical Tu‘i Tonga, but both are linked to the present, reaffirming the specific connections between the three Tu‘i lines. He relates Sangone to the situation in which Queen Sâlote was prevented from remarrying after her husband’s death because of her high office, and her struggle to reconcile constraints between her Tu‘i Tonga descent and herself being a Tu‘i Kanokupolu. Nailasikau also reflects her position in history, reminding her audience of the status of the Tu‘i Tonga line, which she thinks to have successfully united in her person.
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Oral traditions: an appraisal of their value in historical research in Tonga Sione Lâtûkefu. The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 3, no. 2 (1966), pp.135–43
Historians have differed in their perception of the value of oral traditions. However, in a society such as Tonga where they are of great importance, they cannot be ignored, though their use requires a good knowledge of the language and culture, and often tact and patience with those who tell them. Lâtûkefu tells of his early years as a Tongan historian and his problems in obtaining and evaluating oral traditions as well as in reconciling conflicting versions. He relates different oral traditions concerning the birthplace of King George Tupou I, the civil wars of 1825–26, and the destruction of the houses of the pagan gods to illustrate his theme. He concludes that oral traditions, carefully examined, can make a valuable contribution to the understanding of the history of Tonga. This is significant given that until the last two hundred years or so there are no written records.
151 Pathways to the Tongan present/‘Uuni hala ki Tonga he kuonga ni Kurt Düring. Nuku‘alofa: Kurt Düring, 1990. 204pp. 4 maps This book (in Tongan and English) prints a selection of over four hundred historic photographs taken between 1867 and 1970 by two German traders settled in Tonga, Eduard Becker and August Hettig, with brief text for each in both Tongan and
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English. They offer a vivid picture of traditional Tongan life, of the activities of European missionaries, traders and settlers, and the impact of these on one another. Many are rather fuzzy, but all are evocative of a Tonga that, despite many changes, remains remarkably and immediately recognizable.
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The practice of Tongan traditional history: tala-e-fonua, an ecology-centered concept of culture and history ‘Okusitino Mâhina. The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 28, no. 1 (1993), pp.109–21
Mâhina examines the ecology-centered concept of cultural and historical thinking in Tonga. He does this through an analysis of a lakalaka (traditional dance) in which Queen Sâlote sets her eldest son, later King Taufa‘âhau Tupou IV, within the context of the three main kingly titles. He formulates a conservative theory of Tongan society by weaving it into an artistic harmony of theme and form based on the operation of celestial objects that are important in navigation. Groups within a society, like the gravitational force holding celestial objects in place, are held by boundaries that, if destroyed, signal the destruction of the surreal and the actual, the literal and the symbolic, in such verse, and this is illustrated from the Tongan origin myth and other episodes in Tongan history.
153
Remembering freedom and the freedom to remember: Tongan memories of independence Helen Morton. In Cultural memory: reconfiguring history and identity in the postcolonial Pacific. Edited by Jeannette Marie Mageo. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2001, pp.37–57
For Tongans, tradition and the memory of it are the foundation of their society. Tonga’s freedom from colonization and the people’s freedom from serfdom in the 19th century are still remembered as pivotal to the creation of modern Tonga. King George Tupou I emerges in both national memory and written history as wise and heroic, as does Queen Sâlote Tupou III, who placed great emphasis on preserving Tongan culture and tradition. Morton examines memories of the ways in which Christianity transformed Tonga, but notes that to some extent the freedoms given by King George I actually upheld aspects of inequality in Tongan society. Yet the king and nobles today are seen as continuing the work of King George I in upholding and protecting Tongans’ freedom. Many are the continuing reminders of that, in public holidays, poetry and music. Tonga is promoted to tourists as ancient and unique. Tongans are proud of their freedom and independence. Yet Morton observes ‘countermemories,’ with new perspectives on Tonga’s history and contemporary situation, at a time of rapid social change, the pro-democracy movement and political scandals. She quotes from Internet discussion groups where mostly diasporic Tongans question the value of received traditions. Cultural identity is being rethought and many official memories are fading as some Tongans begin to question just what their freedoms are today.
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Rivals and wives: affinal politics and the Tongan ramage Aletta Biersack. In Origins, ancestry and alliance: explorations in Austronesian ethnography. Edited by James L. Fox, Clifford Sather. Canberra: Department of Anthropology, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, the Australian National University, 1996, pp.237–79
Biersack’s essay is an extended examination of the structure of Tongan origins that has as its ‘root’ the Tu‘i Tonga, covering succession within the title system over more than 150 years. The ‘branches’ of the origin structure are graded according to relative proximity to the original root, and Biersack considers the way in which relationships are ranked. She sees Tongan history as driven by the rivalry between the matrilineal and patrilineal half-brothers. Political status acquired through father and personal status through mother can produce complex and contradictory positions within a social and political field. She traces in detail the way in which this works through to the then king, who is emblematic of the fact that in Tonga centralization is achieved historically and horizontally, through marriage, rather than structurally and vertically, through descent. The analysis, developing her own earlier work (item 295) and that of Bott (item 340), Wood-Ellem (item 223) and others, presupposes considerable knowledge of the subject.
155 Samoa’s pre-contact connections in West Polynesia and beyond Shawn S. Barnes, Terry L. Hunt. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 114, no. 3 (2005), pp.227–66 The authors analyse Samoan oral traditions and archaeological evidence to investigate connections with Tonga, Fiji and other Pacific islands, made through warfare, marriage and trade. They conclude that Samoa had a long and close relationship with Tonga. In an appendix they print twenty-five Samoan legends that relate to Fiji and eleven to Tonga.
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Tongan historiography: shamanic views of time and history Niel Gunson. In Tongan culture and history. Edited by Phyllis Herda, Jennifer Terrell, Niel Gunson. Canberra: The Journal of Pacific History, 1990, pp.12–20
Gunson, like Kolo in this volume (item 144), considers how far the writing of Pacific islands’ history should be left to islanders. The island historian may have better insights into language and tradition but may be influenced by social, religious or educational constraints. Any Tongan historiography must begin with the ‘living tradition’, usually Methodist and Tupou-dynasty oriented. But Tongan history must be freed from modern associations. Most of it has clear associations with art and religion, in what Gunson calls a shamanic context. He believes that the oldest layer of religious belief and practice in Polynesia is shamanism, that it was the most pervasive religious influence in Tonga until the introduction of Christianity, and that Tongan concepts of time and history are shamanic in origin. He sets out what he sees as traces of shamanistic belief and practice to be found in Tongan myth and
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history, in Tongan concepts of the universe and also of time; this latter puts into question the historical value of linear genealogies. Gunson’s thesis is suggestive, but neither he nor others seem to have developed it subsequently.
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The Tongan maritime expansion: a case in the evolutionary ecology of social complexity Shankar Aswani, Michael W. Graves, Asian Perspectives, vol. 37, no. 2 (1998), pp.135–64
The authors attempt a comprehensive explanation for the nature of Tongan social complexity, maritime expansion in west Polynesia and the relationship of these to environmental structure. They use the Tongan case to show how the competitive and cooperative behavioural strategies of individuals in the environmentally unpredictable and increasingly circumscribed agricultural landscape of Tongatapu resulted in social stratification, political integration, far-flung exchange relationships and expansionist colonization and warfare. The feasibility of dry land cultivation in a fertile but limited area led to a relatively intensified form of permanent field agriculture, a growing population and the development of inter- and intragroup competition. The first resulted in early formalized political integration and the second in expanding interaction with other islands. The authors show how Tongan elites were able to consolidate their power and redirect potential rivals by establishing new aristocratic titles, by encouraging younger siblings and junior lines to engage in expansionist warfare, and by controlling voyaging technology for the transport of wealth and the exchange of high-ranking spouses.
158 The Tongan past Patricia Ledyard. Vava‘u, Tonga: Matheson, 1982. 83pp. Ledyard lived in Tonga for many years, and her personal knowledge and enthusiasm are evident in this brief introduction. She observes that, in writing about Tongan life before the Europeans came, one slips easily and constantly between the past and present. She sketches the main facts and the broad themes of Tongan history, more fully for earlier periods than for the last seventy years.
159 Tongan traditions—on model-building and historical evidence Henri J. M. Claessen. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, vol. 144, no. 4 (1988), pp.433–44 Claessen’s purpose is to discuss whether the models that have been applied to explain the relations between Tonga, Samoa and Fiji are tenable in light of both earlier and recent data. Some scholars have identified a regular exchange of spouses and prestige goods between the three countries, with Tonga as the hub. Claessen, however, believes that the exchange of prestige goods was restricted in Samoa. He notes the records of trading links and examines marriages, particularly between the Tu‘i Tonga line and Samoa, and concludes that there was never any ‘circulating connubium’ or structural relationship between the noble families of these islands.
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The Treaty of Friendship and Tongan sovereignty Sione Lâtûkefu. In Sovereignty and indigenous rights: the Treaty of Waitangi in international context. Edited by William Renwick. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1991, pp.83–88
Lâtûkefu tells briefly the story of Tonga’s treaty relationship with Britain. Britain refused King George Tupou I’s request for a treaty recognizing Tonga’s independent sovereignty because it could not consider elevating Tonga to a position of equality by officially recognizing it. Lâtûkefu tells how the king and Shirley Baker negotiated a treaty with Germany in 1876 to force Britain to follow suit in 1879, though the treaty was not ratified by Tonga until 1881. Following Germany’s renunciation of her treaty rights in Tonga by the Samoa Convention of 1899, Basil Thomson came to Tonga in 1900 for King George Tupou II to sign the 1900 Treaty of Friendship and Protection with Britain, which in fact curtailed full Tongan independence. Under duress the king agreed to a supplement to the treaty in 1905 that further increased British control. In retrospect, however, he sees the treaties as saving Tonga from potentially worse dangers, and relations improved steadily from the accession of Queen Sâlote, leading to full independence in 1970.
161
The Western Pacific High Commission archives: a source for research Christine Liava‘a. In Tonga and the Tongans: heritage and identity. Edited by Elizabeth Wood-Ellem. Alphington, Victoria, Australia: Tonga Research Association, 2007, pp.103–18
The archives of the Western Pacific High Commission are now held in the library of the University of Auckland, and cover the period 1877 to 1978. Liava‘a provides a detailed list of those that relate particularly to Tonga and provide a rich resource for research.
PhD theses 162 The Tongan traditional history Tala-e-Fonua: a vernacular ecology centered historico-cultural concept ‘Okusitino Mâhina. Australian National University, 1992 163 The transformation of the traditional Tongan polity: a genealogical consideration of Tonga’s past Phyllis Herda. Australian National University, 1988 164
The transformation of traditional Tonga: the significance of local identity with particular reference to the period 1799–1875, and its influence on modern Tonga R. Cowell. University of Adelaide, 1977
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Mission and Church 165 Christian confrontations in paradise: Catholic proselytizing of a Protestant mission in Oceania Paul van der Grijp. Anthropos, vol. 88, nos. 1–3 (1993), pp.135–53 While many in Europe in the 19th century saw Oceania as a sort of paradise on earth, the churches saw it as a field ripe for mission. Catholics and Methodists in Tonga shared the same aims but not the same ideology. Van der Grijp traces French concern at the success of Protestants in Tonga and the beginning of the French mission; the opposition of the Methodists led by John Thomas; the French missionaries’ initial success, particularly in gaining the confidence of the Tu‘i Tonga; and their disastrous involvement in the civil war that led to France forcing a treaty of friendship on Tonga in 1855 guaranteeing the same freedoms for Catholics as for Protestants. This did not prevent continued hostility and mutual accusations. Catholics were more tolerant than Methodists of many social customs, and believed that they were closer to the people. However, many Tongans did not understand or respect their poverty and made no distinction between Catholic and Methodist, while many Catholics showed little understanding of Tongan society and culture. However the tensions lessened over time, and by the end of his reign King George Tupou I was showing benevolence to them and was even assigning high titles to Tongan Catholics.
166
Daniel Wheeler: a Quaker in Tonga, 1836 Maureen Powles. In Tonga and the Tongans: heritage and identity. Edited by Elizabeth Wood-Ellem. Alphington, Victoria, Australia, 2007, pp.75–86
Daniel Wheeler, a British Quaker, spent three months in Tonga in 1836. Drawing on his biography, Memoirs of the life and gospel labours of the late Daniel Wheeler, a minister of the Society of Friends (London: Harvey and Darton, 1842), Powles summarizes his visit, in which, surprisingly, he was welcomed warmly by the Wesleyan missionaries. The Quaker style of worship, though very different, seems to have appealed to some Tongans, with whom he got on well.
167
The diaries and correspondence of David Cargill, 1832–1843 Edited, with an introduction and annotations, by Albert J. Schütz. Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1977. 255pp. bibliog. (Pacific History Series, no. 10)
David Cargill, one of the outstanding early Methodist missionaries to Tonga, was the first to have a university education. Unlike his colleagues he was a scholar and trained linguist, who translated the Bible. His journals include the story of his greatest success, the mass conversion of many Tongans in the 1830s. After a time in Fiji and back in England, he returned to Tonga in 1842 but was disappointed to find that many of his converts had reverted to their old ways. He died in Vava‘u under
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mysterious circumstances. Schütz convincingly suggests that it was suicide through an overdose of laudanum, probably brought about by depression following a bout of dengue fever. Because of this, later generations of Methodists played down his achievements, but Schütz’s edition reinstates his memory and reestablishes his reputation. The journals, with Schütz’s annotations, provide a vividly authentic account of both the triumphs and tribulations of Cargill’s life and work.
168
The Fakaongo exiles from Tonga to Fiji 1887–90 Gareth Grainger. In Tonga and the Tongans: heritage and identity. Edited by Elizabeth Wood-Ellem. Alphington, Victoria, Australia: Tonga Research Association, 2007, pp.161–77
Grainger tells the story of those who defied King George Tupou I and his prime minister, Shirley Baker, in their establishment of the new Free Church of Tonga, and were persecuted for their loyalty to the Wesleyan church. He describes the fate of those exiled to Fiji and the findings of the reports by Sir Charles Mitchell and Sir John Thurston that led to their return and the exile of Shirley Baker. (For some personal accounts of those who suffered see item 171.)
169
‘He can but die . . . ’: missionary medicine in pre-Christian Tonga Dorothy Shineberg. In The changing Pacific; essays in honour of H. E. Maude. Edited by Niel Gunson. Melbourne; Oxford; Wellington; New York: Oxford University Press, 1978, pp.285–96
The early missionaries to Tonga brought some limited medical knowledge. They were hesitant to use this for fear that failure would weaken their position and because evangelization was their first priority. However, Shineberg shows that they did have some successes, not least because Tongans came to them as a last resort after the failure of their own medicines, when their condition could hardly get worse. She further argues that the practice of medicine advanced the Wesleyan cause in Tonga.
170
In some sense the work of an individual: Alfred Willis and the Tongan Anglican mission 1902–1920 Stephen L. Donald. Hibiscus Coast, New Zealand: ColCom Press, 1994. 128pp. map. bibliog.
In 1902 Alfred Willis, who had recently resigned as the Anglican Bishop of Honolulu, responded to the request of former followers of the disgraced prime minister, Shirley Baker, and established the Anglican Church in Tonga. Although he believed that the Anglican Church should become the national church of Tonga, this was never achieved and Anglicans remain a small minority among Methodists and Roman Catholics. This book, though poorly proofread, offers a lively description of church life in Tonga at the time, based on the author’s original research in Tonga and illustrated with archive photographs.
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Ko e kau fakaongo Siupeli Taliai. In Tonga and the Tongans: heritage and identity. Edited by Elizabeth Wood-Ellem. Alphington, Victoria, Australia: Tonga Research Association, 2007, pp.147–60
In 1885, with the formation of the new Free Church of Tonga, many who remained loyal to the Wesleyan church were persecuted and exiled. Taliai reprints from official reports accounts by some who suffered and were called by the derogatory term fakaongo, slaves to the foreigners and not to the king. (For a more general account of the whole affair see item 168.)
172 A man with a mission: Bishop John Rodgers S.M., Tonga 1941–1972 David W. Mullins. Auckland, New Zealand: Catholic Publications Centre, 1998. 204pp. map. John Rogers was appointed to Tonga in 1941, immediately after his ordination, as principal of ‘Api Fo‘ou College and director of Catholic schools. Then, and from 1953 as bishop, he developed his vision of an educated self-supporting local church. That his successor as bishop was a Tongan, Patelisio Finau, bears witness to his success. This biography, written by a Catholic priest who worked with him, describes with affection and admiration his traditional Catholic upbringing with the Marists in New Zealand, his educational work in Tonga, raising the status of the church (the vicariate became a diocese in 1966), building up parishes, schools and colleges, and his deep pastoral care for his people. Mullins also recounts some of the earlier history of the Catholic church in Tonga and discusses the relationship between Tongan culture and Catholic Christianity.
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Memoirs of Mrs. Margaret Cargill, wife of the Rev. David Cargill, A.M., Wesleyan missionary. Including notes on the progress of Christianity in Tonga and Feejee David Cargill. London: John Mason, 1855. 2nd ed. 348pp.
David Cargill (see item 167) was deeply devoted to his wife, Margaret, who worked with him in his first period of ministry in Tonga in the 1830s, moved with him to Fiji, and died there in 1840. ‘Biography is always instructive and profitable’, Cargill begins this memoir, a firsthand account of the triumphant progress of the Christian faith in Tonga in the 1830s. ‘All who knew her, loved her; and Heathen as well as Christian, manifested the esteem in which they held her by the respect which they showed to her memory.’ The memoir is in no way dispassionate or objective. It chronicles the mission and ministry the Cargills shared, and reveals much of the way in which they viewed it, and the Tongans for whom they worked.
174
Messengers of grace: evangelical missionaries in the South Seas 1797–1860 Niel Gunson. Melbourne; Oxford; Wellington; New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. 437pp. 8 maps, bibliog.
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Tonga today is a remarkable mixture of 19th-century Christianity and traditional Polynesian kingship and society. This state of affairs was the achievement of Protestant missionaries. Working from original records of the missionary societies and journals of the missionaries themselves, Gunson describes their largely humble social origins in the ‘mechanic class’, for whom personal piety and practical skills were more important than formal education; the theological background of their calling; their selection and training; and their work in the islands of the Pacific, seen both as a paradise and a challenge. Gunson also gives a comprehensive biographical listing of all missionaries, both European and Polynesian. He vividly brings to life the missionaries whose legacy is so visible in Tonga today.
175 Mormons in the Pacific: a bibliography Compiled by Russell T. Clement. Lâ‘ie, Hawai‘i: The Institute of Polynesian Studies, 1981. 239pp. This bibliography is based on holdings at the Hawai‘i and Utah campuses of Brigham Young University and at the Church Historical Department. It lists 2,877 items in alphabetical order, with author, title (translated if not in English), bibliographical information and location. It provides a geographic/subject index and a name index. Over one hundred items on Tonga are recorded, reflecting the scale of Mormon activity there.
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Motives and methods: missionaries in Tonga in the early 19th century Charles F. Urbanowicz. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 86, no. 2 (1977), pp.345–63
Tongan society is based on kinship and Tongan politics is ‘kinship writ large’. From this starting point, Urbanowicz outlines the early history of Tonga, where rank was based on kinship ties and on status attained through achievement. With the introduction of Western material goods some chiefs sought to consolidate their authority. With the 1875 Constitution much of the inherent consensus and flexibility of aboriginal Tongan society was, Urbanowicz claims, ‘ossified in a pseudo-Western framework’. He examines the other great influence in Tonga, Christianity, and how the early Wesleyan missionaries sought to convert the Tongans. They realized early that material goods diffused more rapidly than philosophical or theological systems, and that the success of their mission depended on such goods. Urbanowicz believes that it was by the systematic introduction of Western material goods along with Wesleyan theology that the Tongan body politic was restructured, moving from consensus to the rise of the individual chief, and particularly King George Tupou I. The Wesleyans were able to exploit the differences between chiefs, with a policy of divide-and-conquer and active involvement in politics, while some Tongans manipulated the system to their own advantage. His conclusion is that the missionaries ‘did not aid the Tongans in becoming first-class Tongans but rather encouraged the Tongans to become second-class Victorians’. This might be thought to give
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inadequate credit to Tongans’ sincerity in their faith and to their skill in remaining independent.
177 The opposition to the influence of Wesleyan Methodist missionaries in Tonga Sione Lâtûkefu. Historical Studies, Vol. 12, no. 46 (1966), pp.248–64 Although the impact of the early Wesleyan missionaries was ultimately enormous, there was considerable initial opposition. Working from the missionaries’ own journals, Lâtûkefu examines the major obstacles, the first being the conservative reaction of Tongans against anything new. Old values, customs and traditions had served their ancestors and were good enough for them. This was seen in the missionaries’ strict prohibition against smoking, dancing, games and such customs as the presentation of gifts and food at chiefs’ funerals. Many, after the emotion and excitement of conversion, retained some form of heathenism. Hence the missionaries’ intolerance of what they saw as heathen practices. Tobacco was seen as ‘a silly, nasty, dirty custom productive of much evil.’ Dancing whetted sexual appetite. Games kept people from useful occupations. Some Tongans joined the Roman Catholic mission, whose priests approved of games. The missionaries’ view of premarital chastity and fidelity after marriage clashed with the traditional Polynesian attitude towards sex. Industrious habits were not welcome where the land was fertile and hard and persistent manual work not necessary. There was opposition from traditional and venerated priests and priestesses who saw their position threatened, and from the chiefs whose social, economic and political status was undermined. But the missionaries could not discriminate between those customs incompatible with Christian standards and those contrary to their own British middle-class moral standards. They did not understand that the gifts of commoners to chiefs at funerals expressed stability and order in the community. Many chiefs resented the missionaries’ support for King George Tupou I as the first real ruler of all Tonga. Nevertheless, despite all this, the influence of the missionaries finally triumphed, not least because of the great qualities of King George Tupou I, his legislation to limit the power of chiefs and to make illegal some heathen practices, and the peace and order that he brought. The missionaries, although of meagre education and narrow-minded attitudes, were sincere, brave and devoted, while later, younger ones helped relax the strict prohibitions of their predecessors. Ultimately, Lâtûkefu believes, the impact of the missionaries between 1826 and 1875 ‘is a historical phenomenon seldom paralleled elsewhere in the Pacific, in regard either to the short time in which initial conversion was achieved or to its extensive influence upon the Tongan way of life’.
178
Overseas missions of the Australian Methodist Church. Volume I, Tonga, Samoa A. Harold Wood. Melbourne, Australia: Aldersgate Press, 1975. 337pp. 2 maps. bibliog.
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The Methodist church in Australia sent its first missionary to the Pacific islands in 1822. Tonga merits particular attention as the first mission field and Wood, himself a Methodist minister who served in Tonga from 1924 to 1937, gives Tonga prominence because of the importance of the work there. He offers a general evaluation of the work of the missionaries. If they were narrow, rigid and naive, they represented their home churches, and their paternalism can now be seen as unfortunate. Yet their achievements were enormous. Wood gives a detailed account of 150 years of work by the Methodists in Tonga, based largely on original sources, from the first and unsuccessful missions to the 1970s, and a complete list of ministerial missionaries beginning with Walter Lawry in 1822.
179 Semisi Nau: the story of my life Edited by Allan K. Davidson. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, The University of the South Pacific, 1996. 153pp. map. bibliog. One of the outstanding features of the Methodist church in Tonga is the way in which, from the earliest days, Tongans themselves shared in the evangelization not only of Tonga but also of other islands in the region. While working in the Solomons, Davidson found a notebook containing Nau’s account of his life and work there as a missionary in Ontong Java from 1905 to 1919. After finishing his work there, Nau returned to Tonga, where he died in 1927. Although Nau shared at times a sense of moral superiority over those he was seeking to convert, as was usual at that time, he does show a real interest in their customs and a commitment to living and working among them. The book allows Nau to speak for himself, while Davidson outlines in an introduction the broader context of his missionary work, information on the Tongan background of his early years and details of the troubled history of the Methodist church there towards the end of the 19th century.
180 Thomas of Tonga, 1797–1881: the unlikely pioneer Janet Louisa Luckcock. Peterborough, England: Methodist Publishing House, 1990. 196pp. map. bibliog. In this published version of a PhD thesis (item 186) Luckcock seeks to rehabilitate John Thomas from the attacks, by contemporary and modern writers, on his reputation after his early successful years as the ‘father-founder’ of the Methodist church in Tonga. She seeks to reveal the whole man, using papers, particularly his private and official journals, neglected by others who have written about him. She chronicles his life from his humble beginnings in England, his conversion, his call to and preparation for the mission, and his work in Tonga with its triumphs and setbacks. In 1826 there were no Christians in Tonga; by 1840 there were about 8,000. His strong convictions did not make him an easy colleague but explain views that today might seem unduly narrow. She examines in particular the charge made by Dillon that he actively instigated and encouraged a holy war against heathens by King George I in 1837, in which men, women and children were brutally killed. She
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concludes that Thomas was in fact the mildest of men, who hated violence of any sort, and absolves him of Dillon’s accusations.
181
To live among the stars: Christian origins in Oceania John Garrett. Geneva; Suva: World Council of Churches in association with the Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific, 1982. 412pp. 37 maps. bibliog.
Garrett provides a comprehensive account for the general reader of Christian origins—Roman Catholic and Protestant—in the Pacific islands. He shows how readily Christianity was accepted by some islanders as a religion more powerful than their own. It was a faith not only adopted but also adapted; once established in centres like Tonga, it was spread more widely by Pacific islanders themselves than by European missionaries. He describes the progress of Christianity for each country in detail up to about 1900. Later developments are summarized. His conclusions about the strength of Christianity and its successful synthesis of the gospel and local tradition may, however, be somewhat overly optimistic.
182 Tonga and the Friendly Islands: with a sketch of their mission history, written for young people Sarah S. Farmer. London: Hamilton, Adams, 1855. 427pp. 2 maps Sarah Farmer wrote to encourage support among young people for the Methodist mission in Tonga. Her story is of its progress and successes as well as of much still to be done. She concludes, ‘Much is admitted to be yet imperfect in this Christian State; but what has been done already fills our minds with wonder and adoring thankfulness.’ She lists some of the triumphs of the previous thirty years: idols abolished, the Sabbath strictly observed, abandonment of polygamy, education for all, a written language, many able to read the Bible, Christian laws enforced, and land divided among the people. She had not been to Tonga herself, but had clearly read widely and had spoken to people who had been there. The history of exploration and discovery she takes from Cook, Mariner and other published sources. For more recent events she relies on information from John Thomas and other missionaries. Her work brings together what was known of Tonga, and in particular the progress of Christian mission there, by the mid-19th century.
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Tongan Wesleyan missionaries abroad 1835–1985 ‘Aioema ‘Atiola. In Tonga and the Tongans: heritage and identity. Edited by Elizabeth Wood-Ellem. Alphington, Victoria, Australia: Tonga Research Association, 2007, pp.87–102
Between 1835 and 1965 Tongan Wesleyan missionaries took the Christian gospel first to Samoa and Fiji, then to ‘Uvea, New Britain, Papua and the Solomon Islands (see the life of Semisi Nau, item 179), and finally to the Aborigines of Northern Australia. ‘Atiola tells their story, with brief accounts of the life and work of some of them.
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Women of the lotu: the foundations of Tongan Wesleyanism reconsidered Bonnie Maywald. In Tongan culture and history. Edited by Phyllis Herda, Jennifer Terrell, Niel Gunson. Canberra: The Journal of Pacific History, 1990, pp.118–33
Maywald believes that an examination of women’s participation in the cultural and religious exchanges of the early 19th century between Polynesians and Europeans is long overdue, though the male bias of much of the historical record makes this difficult. By setting women’s writings, mostly personal and unofficial, alongside the mainstream historical traditions it is made clear that a different emphasis, and sometimes a complete reconstruction of events, is necessary. Maywald examines the conventional accounts of the foundation of Wesleyanism in Tonga in the 1820s, and suggests that the role of women has been understated. She examines the active role they played in connections between missionary families in Australia and the South Pacific, and suggests that they were central to efforts that led to a permanent Wesleyan presence in Tonga. She considers in particular the role of Sarah Thomas, wife of John Thomas, and that of chiefly Tongan women in assisting the work of the missionaries. Lotu is the Tongan word for worship, prayer, religion and especially Christianity.
PhD theses 185 Missionary chieftain. James Egan Moulton and Tongan society, 1865–1909 H. G. Cummins. Australian National University, 1980 186 Thomas of Tonga, 1797–1881: the unlikely pioneer Janet Louise Luckcock. Open University, England, 1990 Pre–1900 187 The alleged imperialism of George Tupou I I. C. Campbell. The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 25, no. 2 (1990), pp.159–75 It has been said that for nearly fifty years, from the early 1820s to 1869, King George Tupou I worked towards an extension of his territory, first within Tonga and then beyond. Campbell suggests the king was far too burdened with worries about internal disunity and staving off imperial designs from outside, that even his planned invasion of Fiji in 1862 was not what it appeared, and that there is little foundation for the allegations of imperialism. Campbell suggests that much of the evidence is dubious, coming from unreliable European sources. He examines the king’s dealings with Uvea and with Samoa before turning to Fiji, where he believes that his record is one of restraint.
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188 As a prescription to rule: the royal tomb of Mala‘e Lahi and 19th century Tongan kingship David V. Burley. Antiquity, vol. 68, no. 260 (1994), pp.504–17 In the royal tomb of Mala‘e Lahi in Ha‘apai are buried the father, son and other members of the lineage of Taufa‘âhau, who became King George Tupou I. In its scale, style and markings it incorporates a symbolic claim for preeminent status and power. Burley examines the historical and archaeological contexts of the tomb within the realm of 19th-century Tongan culture and political machinations. The tomb illustrates the role of monumental architecture in establishing political legitimacy in chiefdom local societies. Burley provides a brief summary of the development of Tongan kingship from the arrival of the Lapita peoples about 3,300 years ago to the final consolidation of the three Tu‘i lines by King George I in 1875. He records the history of the site from its construction in 1820, describes and illustrates its present state, relates it to similar structures, and describes its role in the consolidation of power in the 19th century.
189 Burial structures and societal ranking in Vava‘u, Tonga P. V. Kirch. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 89, no. 3 (1980), pp.291–308 Kirch tests the hypothesis that the size and complexity of a burial structure reflect the societal rank or status of the person buried by examining some protohistoric funerary monuments in Vava‘u for which evidence about the interred chief exists. He documents six burial sites from the late 18th century, representing the three hierarchical groups of Tongan society. He shows how the sites were related to the sociopolitical system within which they were constructed, and examines some implications. He finds that the degree of elaboration of the tombs seems not to correlate closely with the status of the interred chief. Relative sociopolitical status may not necessarily reflect societal rank.
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Church and state in Tonga: the Wesleyan Methodist missionaries and political development, 1822–1875 Sione Lâtûkefu. Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1974. 302pp. 3 maps. bibliog.
King George Tupou I and the Wesleyan missionaries between them transformed Tonga during the 19th century, and it was in the missionaries’ interests to claim credit for political developments as well as for spiritual progress. Lâtûkefu’s purpose is to critically and objectively assess the part played by the missionaries in the political development of Tonga, culminating in the Constitution of 1875. He concludes that they played a significant part in advising and assisting King George, but that they did not initiate political change and that in the final analysis the greatest credit for the transition to constitutional monarchy was due to the king. He may have sought advice and relied heavily on it but he alone made the final decisions. Lâtûkefu outlines the history of Tonga before the reestablishment of the mission
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in 1826, and examines in more detail the crucial fifty years following and the respective roles of king, missionaries, traders and external influences. Appendixes provide the full texts of the key documents, from the 1839 Code of Vava‘u to the 1875 Constitution.
191 The demise of the Tu‘i Kanokupolu Tonga 1799–1827 I. C. Campbell. The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 24, no. 2 (1989), pp.150–63 Campbell offers a detailed and technical analysis of the complexities of Tongan politics in the period, and the relationship of the three principal titles of royal authority, sacred and secular, through the period of civil war. With the advent of Christianity the office of Tu‘i Tonga had been degraded and the old ideology had failed. Campbell concludes that King George Tupou I based his authority not on the title of Tu‘i Kanokupolu but on an ideology of kingship, of submission to authority and of the peace brought by the missionary John Thomas and his colleagues.
192 The diversions of a prime minister Basil Thomson. Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood, 1894. 407pp. map After the fall and exile of Shirley Baker in 1890 the British high commissioner for the Western Pacific sent a staff member, Basil Thomson, to sort out the chaos in Tonga. Though only twenty-nine, he felt little daunted at working with a king now over ninety. Thomson found the finances in a disastrous state, with £15,000 in liabilities and arrears of pay, taxes uncollected, few reliable records and only £2,000 in the Treasury. He found the administration and courts to be in disorder, and a general distrust of government. He had himself appointed assistant premier, a member of the Privy Council and a magistrate, and set about reform. Within a year, he had brought order to the finances, established some harmony between the warring churches and rewritten Baker’s unintelligible code of laws. In this book he writes of his year in Tonga in a tone part affectionate and part sardonic. He had little time for Shirley Baker or for most missionaries, too concerned with money, ‘burning with a zeal that drove out all considerations of policy and caution’. He felt the Constitution of 1875 to be quite inappropriate for Tonga, and believed it to be inevitable that Tonga would fall under some sort of British control, as happened after his departure and the death of King George. His view of what he called ‘the brief turmoil of Tonga and its turgid politics’ is hardly dispassionate, but the book is a key document for the period.
193 An early public war of words in Pacific politics: Tonga, 1860–1890 Ralph D. Barney. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 83, no. 3 (1974), pp.349–60 The first newspaper in Tonga was established in the late 19th century, and Barney describes a verbal war that involved several of them, and their quite sophisticated
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use in influencing public opinion regarding relations between Europeans, who argued for relief from what they felt were excessive local restrictions, and the government. The laws of King George Tupou I, advised by Shirley Baker, formalized government to the extent that taxes became necessary. Barney traces the thirty-year dispute over this matter. The government established its first newspaper, Fetu‘u ‘o Tonga (Star of Tonga), in 1862, but it may only have survived for one issue. Barney describes the other newspapers that followed, their role in the disputes about the authority of Shirley Baker and attempts by the government to control press freedom through a newspaper regulation act, a sedition act and libel laws. With the expulsion of Shirley Baker, the usefulness of the newspapers waned, and they died as quickly as they had been born. It was not until 1963 that the government established The Tonga Chronicle (item 691), but this was not, though so stated, Tonga’s first newspaper.
194 Early Tonga as the explorers saw it, 1616–1810 Edwin N. Ferdon. Tucson, Arizona: The University of Arizona Press, 1987. 339pp. map. bibliog. Ferdon provides a thematic digest of what early European visitors recorded of Tongan culture, drawing on the writings of explorers and residents, principally Schouten and Le Maire, Tasman, Wilson, Labillardière, Vason, and, above all, Cook and Mariner. His themes are: Tongans and their dwellings; social organization and government; kava; religion; daily life from birth to death; recreation; the quest for food; trade and transportation; and war and peace. He reproduces illustrations from some of the early books and adds a glossary of Tongan terms.
195 Elizabeth Morey: castaway in Tonga, 1802–1804 Shirley Hughes. The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 34, no. 1 (1999), pp.45–58 Elizabeth Morey is believed to be the first woman castaway in the Pacific islands. She was probably an American, travelling on an American ship, the Portland, which was attacked and seized at Tongatapu in 1802, and she was the only Westerner left on shore. Intelligent and strong-minded, she was treated gently, and clearly resolved to make the best of her situation. She was given a Tongan name and became the wife of a chief, Teukava of Kolovai. When seen by Europeans from the ship Union, on which she escaped in 1804, she was easily mistaken for a Tongan. Her union with Teukava produced two children, from whom a number of Tongans today trace their descent. Hughes speculates on why she left, and examines her subsequent life. Mariner, who arrived in Tonga in 1806 (item 69), knew nothing of her there, but recorded after his return to England that she went back to Tonga, where tradition is that she had a third child. She probably died soon after. Her residence in Tonga fell between those of Mariner and Vason (item 70), but she left no account, save a brief and rather uninformative report in a Sydney newspaper. Her legacy lives in the Tongan memory of her presence, and in her Tongan descendants.
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Gender relations in Tonga at the time of contact Caroline Ralston. In Tongan culture and history. Edited by Phyllis Herda, Jennifer Terrell, Niel Gunson. Canberra: The Journal of Pacific History, 1990, pp.110–17
As part of a wider study of gender relations in Polynesia as a whole, Ralston sets out what can be discerned about the position of women in relation to men in early contact Tonga, c. 1770–1810. Most early visitors commented on the respect and high regard afforded to Tongan women, who could do many things denied to women elsewhere in Polynesia. She analyses not only the social niceties, as the Europeans understood them, enjoyed by Tongan women, but also the legitimate secular and spiritual influence and power they wielded, their social, domestic, economic, political and spiritual roles. She believes that notions of hierarchy and kinship relation were more central to Tongans’ systems of belief and action than consideration of maleness and femaleness.
197 Hiki mo e faliki: why Ma‘afu brought his floor mats to Fiji in 1847 John Spurway. The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 37, no. 1 (2002), pp.5–23 Ma‘afu, a cousin of Taufa‘âhau, later King George Tupou I, left Tonga in 1847 to live in the Lau group of islands in eastern Fiji, which long had close links with Tonga. In 1869 the title of Tui Lau was created for him to recognize the power he had gained in Fiji, and completed his transformation from a Tongan chief into a chief of Fiji. Spurway examines the reasons for his leaving Tonga, particularly the social discipline imposed on him by the new regime and the hostility of the missionary John Thomas, who thought him a ‘fast ignorant vain young man’. Spurway doubts that he was exiled as a dangerous rival to the throne of Tonga, as has been suggested.
198 Holy war: Peter Dillon and the 1837 massacres in Tonga H. G. Cummins. The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 12, no. 1 (1977), pp.25–39 Peter Dillon alleged that the Wesleyan missionaries were deeply implicated in the 1837 civil war in Tonga, a charge the Wesleyans categorically denied. He claimed that the Wesleyans, especially John Thomas, converted the natives by setting one part to murder the other, that they introduced the civil war and interfered in political appointments, and that King George was an instrument in their hands for torture, death and destruction, assuring him that he fought in the cause of God. An official enquiry by the Wesleyan Missionary Society cleared the missionaries of the charge and vindicated Thomas. Cummins believes the evidence makes it possible to form a judgement on Dillon’s charges. He notes that, at a time of political instability and rivalry in Tonga, the missionaries brought new attitudes of love and forgiveness and did nothing to encourage a warlike spirit. But religious revival in Ha‘apai and Vava‘u left the heathen majority in Tongatapu unaffected and brought the northern groups into a solid unity behind King George and the missionaries. In an
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atmosphere of political and religious tension the missionaries introduced Old Testament teachings that Jehovah condemns heathens, idol worshippers and law breakers, and that he gives strength to the king and people to make war, and that rebellious subjects will be humbled to submit to the king’s rule. The missionaries published booklets and preached on these themes. Cummins believes that the missionaries had not created civil war. They had however, in establishing a new Christian order, provided a model that allowed Tongans to fight out their differences, albeit with additional and somewhat changed motives. And Dillon was right to observe the missionaries’ use of Old Testament texts justifying war, in which King George closely followed the example of Old Testament warriors. Letters of John Thomas at the time do indicate that he saw war as an effective instrument of evangelism. Cummins concludes that, while many of Dillon’s allegations had no basis, he was close to the truth in accusing Thomas of personal implication in the war, encouraging Christian warriors by telling them that God fought with them in their ranks. Luckcock (item 180) contests this view.
199
Imperialism, dynasticism and conversion: Tongan designs on ‘Uvea (Wallis Island), 1835–42 I. C. Campbell. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 92, no. 2 (1988), pp.155–67
The religious transformation of Wallis Island in the 1840s witnessed the French navy supporting Catholics and Tongan canoes and warriors supporting Protestants. It seems likely that the Tongans were using religious conversion for a political purpose, the inclusion of Wallis Island in the revival of the ancient Tongan maritime empire. Campbell describes events from the arrival of Tongan teachers from Niuatoputapu in 1835 and their conflicts with the French. In the end Catholicism triumphed, but Campbell traces the subtle interplay of factors, many connected with Tongan politics, which meant that, whichever version of Christianity prevailed, Wallis would lose its independence.
200 Indigenous island empires: Yap and Tonga considered Glenn Peterson. The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 35, no. 1 (2000), pp.5–27 How far did Tongan influence over its neighbours, particularly Fiji and Samoa, constitute an empire, with its implications of direct control? Some scholars have written of an ‘imperial Tonga’ and ‘the Tongan empire’ establishing sovereignty. Peterson reviews the literature on the subject and concludes that the Tongan polity was much like others in the area, continually driven by tensions between pulls towards the strengths of centralised government and the countervailing freedoms of local rule, all within the context of a well-developed exchange network identified by Kaeppler (item 141). Peterson relates this to classical European concepts of empire, and suggests that the framework of relationships spreading out from Tonga (and from Yap) were species of empires. They resemble modern European
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empires only in the most marginal way, yet bear some salient similarities to other world historical empires.
201
An indigenous perspective? Inside the mind of Ma‘afu John Spurway. In Pacific lives, Pacific places: bursting boundaries in Pacific history. Edited by Brij V. Lal, Peter Hempenstall. Canberra: Journal of Pacific History, 2001, pp.54–69
Complementing his paper on why the Tongan chief Eneli Ma‘afu left Tonga for Fiji in 1847 (item 197), Spurway here gives a general account and assessment of Ma‘afu and his remarkable achievements in becoming master of the eastern islands of Fiji and a major player in its history. He outlines his early life in Tonga, the poor view that the missionaries took of him, and then his subsequent life in Fiji. He considers how far he was able to act independently and how far under the direction of King George Tupou I. He uses consular records to give a new perspective on Ma‘afu, and the way in which his claims to land throw light on the nature of his sovereignty. The story of the enigmatic Ma‘afu exemplifies the close relations between Tonga and Fiji.
202 King George Tupou I of Tonga Sione Lâtûkefu. In Pacific islands portraits. Edited by J. W. Davidson, Deryck Scarr. Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1970, pp.55–75 Of all the men and women who lived in the islands of the Pacific between the early 19th and the early 20th centuries, King George Tupou I of Tonga, the first Christian monarch of the united kingdom, is particularly significant. Lâtûkefu succinctly sketches the main points of his long and eventful life and reign, which ensured that Tonga, alone of all the Pacific islands, never lost its independence and its monarchy.
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Linguistic evidence for the Tongan empire Paul Geraghty. In Language contact and change in the Austronesian world. Edited by Tom Dutton, Darrell T. Tryon. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1994, pp.233–49. (Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 77)
Geraghty presents linguistic evidence to suggest that early Tongan influence was much more extensive than the Tongan empire as generally understood. There was no evidence of tribute, but one might talk of a ‘cultural empire’ that included parts of Melanesia and Micronesia as well as Polynesia. He examines a list of ninety-five island names collected on Cook’s visit to Tonga in 1777, and concludes that Tongans had long been familiar with all of Samoa and parts of eastern Fiji, and more recently with Rotuma and Kiribati. He then identifies Polynesian loanwords in New Caledonia and the Loyalties, in Vanuatu and on two small Polynesian outliers in Micronesia. He sees no evidence for two-way voyaging between these islands and Tonga, but suggests that Tongans may have visited them to trade.
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Marriage, rank and political process in ancient Tonga Phyllis S. Herda. In A polymath anthropologist: essays in honour of Ann Chowning. Edited by Claudia Gross, Harriet D. Lyons, Dorothy A. Counts. Auckland, New Zealand: Department of Anthropology, University of Auckland, 2005, pp.71–77. (Research in Anthropology and Linguistics Monograph no. 6)
Strategic marriage in ancient Tonga was a fundamental aspect of the chiefly political process, and Herda examines its role in raising rank and forging alliances. Marriage, in the strict sense of a formal, ritual marking of a union, was only for chiefs, who practiced polygamy, while chiefly women practiced serial polyandry. Herda describes the marriage ceremony, the marriages and other relationships of the Tu‘i Tonga, and how this was all changed by the advent of Christianity and the Code of Laws of 1850. The new form of marriage fundamentally changed Tongan society. (A revised version of this paper is printed in Tonga and the Tongans: heritage and identity, edited by Elizabeth Wood-Ellem. Alphington, Victoria, Australia, 2007, pp.179–93.)
205 Mata‘uvave and 15th century Ha‘apai David V. Burley. The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 30, no. 2 (1995), pp.154–72 Mata‘uvave is a minor chiefly title from the Ha‘apai group, but its holder held a pivotal role in the assertion of political authority by the Tu‘i Tonga in the mid15th century. Burley uses narratives, genealogies, oral accounts and place names to interpret the history of this period. They reveal much about the events and sociopolitical processes of precontact chiefly policy in Tonga. Burley also examines the archaeological record for the title, a burial mound first noted by Cook in 1777 and a pigeon-snaring mound, the largest currently recorded in Tonga. He describes their present condition and considers the potential of the historical landscape as a supplementary order of data for traditional Tongan history, validating the presence and role of Mata‘uvave in the history of Ha‘apai.
206
Memoirs of the Reverend Dr. Shirley Waldemar Baker D.M., LL.D., missionary and prime minister Lilian and Beatrice Shirley Baker. London: Mayflower Publishing, 1951. 48pp.
Shirley Baker was dismissed as prime minister and exiled in 1890, following the establishment of the Free Church of Tonga, the bitter persecution of those who remained Wesleyans, and the outcome of the official British enquiry. He returned to Tonga in 1900 and lived in Ha‘apai with his daughters until his death in 1903. This curious document, by his daughters, attempts to exonerate him from the charges against him and to justify all that he did. Partial and one-sided as it may be, it sets out one view of his undoubtedly important role in forming Tonga into a nation.
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207 New brushstrokes on the Tupou I portrait ‘I. F. Helu. In Critical essays: cultural perspectives from the South Seas. Canberra: The Journal of Pacific History, 1999, pp.135–45 Helu suggests some adjustments to the portrait of King George Tupou I that has become generally accepted, under both Tongan and Wesleyan influence. He reviews the history of the dynasty, the rivalries of the three Tu‘i houses, and concludes that it was not as inevitable as is usually stated that he emerged as the king of a united Tonga, with Wesleyan backing. Helu also notes that, in the eyes of his contemporaries, he was not an ‘eiki (chief), and suggests that he may have been born not in Ha‘apai but in Tongatapu. Only in his marriage to Lupepau‘u, probably the highest ‘eiki in Tonga at the time, did he acquire high social status and come to see that he might unite Tonga.
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Rethinking western Polynesia: ‘Uvea in the early Tongan empire Nancy J. Pollock. In Oceanic culture history: essays in honour of Roger Green. Edited by Janet Davidson, Geoffrey Irwin, Foss Leach, Andrew Pawley, Dorothy Brown. Dunedin, New Zealand: New Zealand Journal of Archaeology, 1996, pp.433–44
Links between ‘Uvea (Wallis) and Tonga in the four hundred years before European contact are the focus of Pollock’s paper. She first discusses research on linguistics, which places ‘Uvea in the Samoic subgroup. Yet it shares much vocabulary with Tongan, perhaps because of close links with Tonga. She considers such records as survive of the place of ‘Uvea within the Tongan empire, conquered by Tonga probably about 1450 and with a ruler established by the Tu‘i Tonga until about 1600. Aspects of the Tongan social system were transposed to ‘Uvea, and family links are still remembered today. Archaeologists have found a rich array of large and complex monuments, fortifications, roads and burial sites from this period, similar to Tongan styles. The legends of the Lomipeau canoe that voyaged between ‘Uvea and Tonga suggest much about relationships between the two.
209 Shirley Baker and the king of Tonga Noel Rutherford. Melbourne; London; Wellington; New York: Oxford University Press, 1971. 202pp. map. bibliog. King George Tupou I and his prime minister for part of his reign, the Methodist missionary Shirley Baker, between them gave Tonga its Constitution of 1875, ensured its legitimacy in the eyes of the colonial powers and maintained its independence. Rutherford tells the remarkable story of the relationship between the two men, of Baker’s uncertain background, his role first as a missionary and then as a political adviser to the king, his increasing unpopularity, the attempt on his life and his final fall and deportation by the British government. Whatever the respective strengths of the two men, their achievements laid the foundation for Tonga’s constitutional and international position today. Baker’s motives may sometimes have been dubious and directed by his own self-interest, but the king came to rely on
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him, and Rutherford’s verdict is that the alliance between the two was ‘perhaps moved by humbug and an eye for the main chance but nevertheless productive of lasting benefit to Tonga’.
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State and economy in Polynesia Henri J. M. Claessen. In Early state economics. Edited by Henri J. M. Claessen, Pieter van de Velde. New Brunswick, New Jersey; London: Transaction Publishers, 1991, pp.291–325 (Political and Legal Anthropology Series, vol. 8)
Claessen describes and compares the economic systems of two early states in 18thcentury Polynesia, Tahiti and Tonga, setting out each in some detail and drawing on the accounts of early European observers. For Tonga he sets out the sociopolitical superstructure based on an agrarian economy, the exchange of goods and services and the provision of food and goods by commoners to chiefs on ceremonial occasions. There was also long-distance trade and exchange with Fiji and Samoa. Claessen finds that the greater part of the state’s income consisted of food, goods and services, which were normally sufficient to enable the rulers to fulfil their obligations. Initially the arrival of Europeans did not change the economic pattern very much. Only after the introduction of firearms and Christianity did Tongan society begin to change fundamentally.
211 Strategic murders: social drama in Tonga’s chiefly system Paul van der Grijp. Anthropos, vol. 99, no. 2 (1994), pp.535–50 The murder of Tuku‘aho, the Tu‘i Kanokupolu, in 1799, at a time of lawlessness when at least one quarter of the population died in battle or from famine, is the starting point for van der Grijp’s examination of the nature of chieftainship at that time. He describes a period of decline in chieftainship that was a continuation of an already existing competition between the Tongan chiefs. The first murder provoked another. War reignited. The author sets this out in great detail, and concludes that the generally accepted view that Tongan politics before the 19th century was a stable system interrupted only by an unusual civil war does not accord with the evidence. Violent competition between chiefs was cyclical.
212 The Tonga–Samoa connection 1777–1845 Niel Gunson. The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 25, no. 2 (1990), pp.176–87 The links between Tonga and Samoa are ancient. Though the two island groups are distinct in customs and languages, intermarriage brought their two royal families close to each other, and contacts were frequent. Gunson examines the relationship until the coming of Christianity. He argues that, after the expulsion from Samoa of the fifteenth Tu‘i Tonga, parts of Samoa remained within the Tongan sphere of influence, with Samoans paying tribute. Tonga became involved in internal Samoan wars and dominated affairs in part of Samoa. Tongan chiefs would have been
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involved in Samoan politics only when Samoan chiefs related to them by marriage or traditional alliances called on them for support. This, Gunson believes, was not imperialism as the Europeans understood it.
213 The Tu‘i Ha‘atakalaua and the ancient constitution of Tonga I. C. Campbell. The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 17, no. 4 (1982), pp.178–94 It has been generally held that Tonga’s political development before the 19th century was a comparatively smooth and continuous process of evolution. The political order depended on the three major titles of the Tu‘i Tonga, Tu‘i Ha‘atakalaua and Tu‘i Kanokupolu. After conversion to Christianity the Tu‘i Kanokupolu emerged as king, and the other two titles were absorbed by strategic marriages. In a specialized and detailed paper Campbell suggests that the system was not working and that the political history of Tonga at that time was not as has been represented, but was a game of power politics in which pragmatism and opportunism were seldom absent.
PhD theses 214 Church and state in Tonga: the influence of Wesleyan Methodist missionaries in the political development of Tonga, 1826–1875 Sione Lâtûkefu. Australian National University, 1967 215 Ma‘afu: the making of the Tu‘i Lau John Spurway. Australian National University, 2001 216 Shirley Baker and the Kingdom of Tonga Noel Rutherford. Australian National University, 1966 Post–1900
217 Behind the battle lines: Tonga in World War II Elizabeth Wood-Ellem. In Echoes of Pacific war. Edited by Deryck Scarr, Niel Gunson, Jennifer Terrell. Canberra: Target Oceania, 1998, pp.1–25 Wood-Ellem covers much of the same ground as Weeks (item 232) in her account of the presence of large numbers of American troops, and some from New Zealand, stationed in Tonga between 1942 and 1945, but her focus is more on the role of Queen Sâlote, and on effects on Tonga. She describes more fully the role of the queen in actively supporting the war effort and suggests that it was because of her example and efforts that Tonga resisted the most deleterious effects of occupation. She sees the war as effecting some major changes. It stimulated a greater demand by Tongans for education to equip them for greater employment opportunities.
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The high price for copra at the time produced abundant cash for all and made possible the beginning of Tongan capitalism. The American presence marked another stage in the emancipation of the commoner from the bondage of chiefs. A short-lived Democratic Party in the 1950s may have owed its origins to discussions with American troops. The war also marked a change in Tonga’s relationship with Britain, which lost much of its reputation in the region after the fall of Singapore and did not have the resources to reestablish its presence afterwards. British consuls had much less influence after the war than before. In general the modernization that came later fulfilled the lessons learned and the aspirations formed during the war.
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Changing values and changed psychology of Tongans during and since World War II ‘I. F. Helu. In Echoes of Pacific war. Edited by Deryck Scarr, Niel Gunson, Jennifer Terrell. Canberra: Target Oceania, 1998, pp.26–37
Helu believes the experience of World War II articulated and intensified some mental traits that have always been identifiable in the psychology of Tongans, and transformed others. A case can be made that Tongans are more materialistic and egotistical than any other people in the Pacific, and Helu sees what he calls a new materialism emerging from the war, displaying rampant individualism and capitalist interests. American troops brought an abundance of goods, and gave Tongans opportunities to do business. For the first time Tongans realized that business could be an alternative to subsistence farming, a break with traditional moral values. The image of inexhaustible American wealth also stimulated migration, and new employment opportunities were the background to radical changes in the education syllabus after the war, with the government increasingly encouraging economic development. This has produced a Tongan middle class and calls for more democracy.
219 Chief Justices of Tonga 1905–40 Elizabeth Wood-Ellem. The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 24, no. 1 (1989), pp.21–37 Wood-Ellem describes the chief justices appointed to Tonga during the period, their institutional roles and personal relationships with the monarch and with the representatives of the British government. Theirs was often a lonely role, without the political or social status that their title suggested. Some were capable and conscientious and filled the role well, but others found their post difficult and their rulings an unwelcome challenge to the monarch. In such cases, all confidence in the chief justice was sometimes lost. Furthermore, some Tongans resented the presence of a European in such a high position. After 1940 a new appointee, secretary to government, became the government’s legal adviser, while a chief justice from Fiji would visit Tonga when required. Since full independence in 1970 the position of chief justice has been allowed to remain unclear. An expatriate serves as judge of the supreme court. Queen Sâlote decided that her eldest son, the next king, should
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study law in Australia, and under him the Privy Council, Wood-Ellem suggests, acts very much as the traditional council of an all-powerful chief, as Queen Sâlote always felt it should.
220
The fire has jumped: eyewitness accounts of the eruption and evacuation of Niuafo‘ou, Tonga Edited by Garth Rogers. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific, 1986. 127pp. 4 maps
The far northern island of Niuafo‘ou was devastated by a massive volcanic eruption in 1946. Though no one was killed, the capital village of Angahâ was obliterated and the government decided to evacuate the whole population, first to Tongatapu and then to ‘Eua. Not all the islanders complied with this decision, and in 1958 nearly half of them returned. The story ends with the distribution of 426 tax allotments in 1981. In this book, eyewitnesses, both Tongans and foreign residents, tell their stories of the eruption; their accounts are accompanied by some vivid photographs of the eruption and the damage caused.
221 The king of Tonga: King Taufa‘âhau Tupou IV Nelson Eustis. Adelaide, Australia: Hobby Investments, 1997. 294pp. 3 maps. bibliog. Eustis begins his book with a sketch of the history of Tonga up to the accession of King Taufa‘âhau Tupou IV in 1966. The chapters on his reign to the time of writing essentially consist of a chronicle of events: a succession of newspaper reports, with little description of their context or analysis of their significance. Eustis’ theme is the complete commitment and enormous energy of the king in working for the benefit of the people of Tonga, and the book is a record of much that he did.
222 Mâlò Tupou: an oral history Tupou Posesi Fanua, as told to Lois Wimberg Webster. Auckland, New Zealand: Pasifika Press, 1996. 175pp. 18 maps. bibliog. Between 1992 and 1994 Lois Webster tape recorded Tupou Posesi Fanua telling of her eventful life in Tonga from her birth in 1913 until her wedding in 1934. She was a self-willed child, whose mother died in the great influenza epidemic of 1918, her description of which is one of the most vivid sections of the book. She tells of her childhood, education and young life in a Tonga that is now in many ways very different and yet is still strongly based on family and traditions as she describes them. The book is significant inasmuch as few other Tongans have written of their own early lives. Mâlò means thank you: the title was Lois Webster’s in thanks for a personal account of life in Tonga that brings the period described to life.
223 Queen Sâlote of Tonga: the story of an era, 1900–1965 Elizabeth Wood-Ellem. Auckland, New Zealand: Auckland University Press, 1999. 376pp. 3 maps. bibliog.
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Dorothy Crozier provided an immediate evaluation of Queen Sâlote in her obituary in The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 75, no. 4 (1966), pp.401–03. Other evaluations can be found in general histories of Tonga, written since her death, including the chapter written by Dr. Wood-Ellem and her father A. H. Wood in Friendly Islands: a history of Tonga (item 143). Now Wood-Ellem has produced what must become the definitive account of her life and a considered evaluation of her reign, based on twenty years’ research and her own knowledge of Tonga and Tongan society. The richness of detail will ensure that the book will be, to use her own words, ‘a springboard for later work’ both by Tongans and by others who seek to understand the significant achievements of the queen’s reign. Wood-Ellem draws out in particular Queen Sâlote’s singular ability to develop what was distinctive in Tongan culture while establishing the respect with which Tonga was held in the world. This reflects Crozier’s conclusion that her wisdom as a ruler lay in her critical but generous appreciation of both Tongan and Western cultures and what each had to contribute to the welfare of her people.
224 Queen Sâlote Tupou of Tonga as Tu‘i Fefine Elizabeth Wood-Ellem. The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 22, nos. 3–4 (1987), pp.209–27 Queen Sâlote’s blood rank derived from a chief’s descent from the Tu‘i Tonga Fefine, sister of the male sacred ruler, the Tu‘i Tonga. But in terms of political power, blood rank is only one qualification for leadership. As Queen Sâlote herself said, age, rank, supporters and ability were the essential qualifications for rulers in Tonga. Her own relatively low blood rank did not overrule everything, nor did the young age of eighteen at which she succeeded to her titles. She had ability and supporters and gained recognition of both chiefs and people that she had the highest moral authority and presence (mana) of any chief and was, in the view of both the people and the chiefs, the greatest political leader in Tonga’s history. Wood-Ellem traces her descent and that of her husband Tungî Mailefihi. Their marriage needed to be strong to hold the kingdom together and preserve its independence. The only model to follow was that of the traditional dual leadership of a male chief and his ‘eldest sister’. It was thus appropriate that she should assume the authority that belonged to a sister while he looked after the land and assumed the lesser political powers of the male chief: though of senior blood rank, descended from a senior title, he never aspired to her position or to be her equal. Wood-Ellem describes the complexities of her relationship with her half-brothers and half-sisters in order to minimize any dissent or claim to authority, arranging marriages favourable to the royal house. By the end of her reign, having united all Tonga in one kâinga (extended family), she was in effect the ‘eldest sister’ of all the chiefs, the new Tu‘i Fefine upon whose authority the welfare of the entire kingdom depended.
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225 Sâlote of Tonga and the problem of national unity Elizabeth Wood-Ellem. The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 18, no. 3 (1983), pp.163–82 Wood-Ellem suggests that the attempt by Queen Sâlote Tupou III and her consort Tungî to reunite the factions of the Wesleyan church (item 285) was concerned with temporal power rather than church unity, and that the dispute was about whether she and her consort could rule Tonga or might be deposed. In the face of opposition from some prominent chiefs in Parliament in 1919 and 1920, they needed to prove that they could unite Tonga under their rule. Although the attempt at reunification of the church factions did not succeed, Queen Sâlote emerged from the affair with much credit, and with her position enhanced in the eyes both of the Tongans and the British. Any threat of annexation was now removed and Tonga became increasingly self-governing. Her devoted activity on behalf of the Free Wesleyan Church brought her into close contact with every village in Tonga through its church. By the end of her life it could be said that, unlike any other Tongan, she had ruled over a united and peaceful Tonga.
226 Sâlote, queen of paradise Margaret Hixon. Dunedin, New Zealand: University of Otago Press, 2000. 239pp. 4 maps. bibliog. Only a year after Wood-Ellem’s biography of Queen Sâlote (item 223) this further biography appeared. Hixon’s interest developed from a visit to Tonga in 1987, where she heard much from older women of their vivid memories of Queen Sâlote, whose legacy and spirit remained vitally present more than twenty years after her death. From written sources and, particularly, from oral records, she produced a biography that is perhaps less formal and less detailed than that of Wood-Ellem. She provides a very personal, intimate picture. To some extent the two biographies must tell the same story, but they complement each other from their different perspectives.
227 Savage Island: an account of a sojourn in Niue and Tonga Basil Thomson. London: John Murray, 1902. 234pp. map Ten years after his time in Tonga recorded in his The diversions of a Prime Minister (item 192) Basil Thomson returned in 1900 to negotiate its change in status to a British protectorate and to obtain the agreement of King George Tupou II. The deal was perhaps one-sided, and Thomson’s attitude to the ‘little people’ of Tonga, though typical of its time, was somewhat condescending; but he was fond of Tonga and wished what he saw as the best for it. His account of the negotiations, and of Tonga at the time, gives a personal insight into an important episode in Tongan history. An appendix on Tongan music is fully used by Moyle (item 680).
228 ‘South Seas reminiscences’: Mrs. Emma Schober in the Kingdom of Tonga 1902–1921 Emma Schober. Nuku‘alofa: Lupelahi Foundation, 1997. 69pp.
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There are few firsthand accounts of the early days of the sizable German community in Tonga, mainly traders who arrived in the latter part of the 19th century, many of whose descendants live in Tonga today. There are also few accounts of early Tonga by women. Emma Blase sailed from Germany in 1902 to marry Ludwig Schober. They first lived in Vava‘u, where they were married in 1903, and moved to Nuku‘alofa in 1905. In both places she describes the domestic and social life of the German community and, even though she came to love Tonga, she seems to observe Tongans, and even other Europeans, from a distance. During the First World War all German businesses were closed, and the couple were deprived of all news from Germany. In 1921 they returned to Germany, regretfully but for the sake of their children’s education. She died in 1959 and her youngest son passed the manuscript journal to a German now living in Tonga, Kurt Düring, to translate and publish. Born and raised in imperial Germany, Schober absorbed its values and prejudices, but her journal illuminates the everyday life of the Germans in Tonga and also notes major events in Tonga at that time, such as the marriage and then the death of King George Tupou II and the accession of Queen Sâlote. It is illustrated with many evocative period photographs.
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Tonga at independence and now Sione Lâtûkefu. In Lines across the sea: colonial inheritance in the post colonial Pacific. Edited by Brij V. Lal, Hank Nelson. Brisbane, Australia: Pacific History Association, 1995, p.57–68.
In the twenty-five years between full independence in 1970 and the writing of this paper, Lâtûkefu observes major changes, political and social. King George Tupou I saw that the tidal wave of European impact was inevitable and chose to ride it rather than go against it. Treaties were signed with the major powers giving official recognition to his rule and assuring the security of Tonga’s independent sovereignty. Lâtûkefu describes how, in the reign of King George Tupou II, Britain negotiated and partly forced a treaty of friendship, establishing a British protectorate. But what has happened since 1970 has seen a culmination of the vision of King George Tupou I. The socioeconomic, political and religious reforms he implemented were amazingly radical in their time. Queen Sâlote continued the work, uniting and modernizing Tonga, improving health and education, so that Tongans could increasingly hold ministerial office. This work was continued by her eldest son, as prime minister from 1943 and as king after her death. However improvements in health and a sharp decline in infant mortality brought a rapid growth in population, while the very success of modernization promoted the emergence of a strong, educated middle class increasingly critical of the traditional order, and the development of the Pro-Democracy Movement, whose progress is described. He concludes that, because it was not colonized, Tonga was able to maintain improvements in education, health services and the economy that were initiated from within rather than imposed from outside. Further, because land was never alienated, Tongans never became plantation labourers or developed
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the subservience that so often later turned to hatred and racism. British control came to be seen as benevolent and friendly. Tonga continues to be the most peaceful country in the Pacific, its government the most stable, its people enjoying a relatively comfortable standard of living. However continued stability, peace and prosperity would depend on how the then king responded to legitimate demands for necessary reforms.
230 Tonga ma‘a Tonga kautaha: a proto-co-operative in Tonga Noel Rutherford. The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 16, no. 1 (1981), pp.20–41 The ‘Tonga for the Tongans Trading Association’ was founded in 1909 by a Scots trader in Tonga to prevent the commercial exploitation of Tongan copra growers by European middlemen who controlled the market, though his motives were as much to make his fortune as to increase income for Tongans. Its rapid growth incurred the opposition of the traders who took him to court over alleged irregularities in its finances. On appeal the instigator of the scheme was cleared, but in the process the incident became more important for its political than its economic significance. The declaration of the British protectorate in 1900, and the supplementary agreement of 1905, gave the British consul important rights over the king and his government, which was resented by many Tongans. The insensitive and arrogant consul at this time attempted to force his will upon King George Tupou II, but the king stood firm, and the British high commissioner in Fiji had to finally admit that the consul had the right only to advise, not to coerce, and that the Tongan Constitution took precedence over the British treaty. ‘In one stroke a decade of British encroachment on Tongan independence was cancelled’, concludes Rutherford. It was a small but significant moment in Tongan history.
231 The Tonga ma‘a Tonga kautaha: a watershed in British-Tongan relations Penny Lavaka. Pacific Studies, vol. 4, no. 2 (1981), pp.142–63 Lavaka tells much the same story of this crucial event in Tongan history as does Rutherford in his paper published in the same year (item 230). She draws the same conclusion: that the king was judged to have the right to rule in his own kingdom, and that the British agent should be consulted on important issues, but his advice need not be followed. His authority was hereafter carefully circumscribed.
232
The United States occupation of Tonga, 1942–1945: the social and economic impact Charles J. Weeks. Pacific Historical Review, vol. LVI, no. 3 (1987), pp.399–426
When US forces entered Tonga in 1942 many residents were worried about their social and cultural impact. By the time they left in 1945 Tonga’s social heritage remained relatively intact, but the Tongans had been suddenly exposed to the
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goods and values of an industrialized society, and the episode proved a turning point in the history of Tonga as a nation. Seventy-eight hundred soldiers and 862 sailors formed the first contingent, and during the first phase, to March 1943, when there was a real threat of Japanese invasion, the discipline and morale of the American troops remained high. Weeks describes the initial relationship of mutual respect with Queen Sâlote: the troops built and improved roads, instituted public health measures and built a large field hospital, all to the benefit of Tongans. Subsequently, when Tonga became, militarily, an isolated backwater, relations became quite strained. But the influx of large sums of money increased prices and wages, and memories of plenty remained afterwards. For the first time large quantities of beer and cigarettes became available, but prostitution and venereal disease were also introduced, and there seemed to be a general decline in honesty. Tongan laws were flagrantly ignored by Americans trying to recover stolen goods. The occupation, Weeks concludes, did not have a fatal impact on Tongan society, but it did plant the seeds for political and economic change. Tongans abruptly became aware of the world outside, and could no longer remain isolated.
PhD theses 233 The limits of advice: Britain and the Kingdom of Tonga, 1900–1970 Penny Lavaka. Australian National University, 1981 234 Queen Sâlote Tupou III and Tungi Mailefihi: a study in leadership in twentieth-century Tonga (1918–1941) Elizabeth Wood-Ellem. University of Melbourne, 1981
Language 235 Bibliography of Oceanic linguistics H. R. Kleineberger. London; New York; Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1957. 143pp. (London Oriental Bibliographies, vol. 1) The earliest list of Tongan words was compiled by Le Maire on his visit to Niuatoputapu and Tafahi in 1616 (item 263). A briefer list was published in the account of Cook’s third voyage (1776–80) (item 73). Neither of these is listed by Kleineberger. The earliest of the twenty items on Tongan cited in his bibliography dates from 1802 (written by Labillardière, not La Billardière as he cites it, and the date for the first edition should be 1800). Kleineberger includes language descriptions in the accounts of explorers and early settlers, and language materials produced by missionaries. Apart from the earliest omissions noted above, the listing is comprehensive up to the date of writing in 1955.
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Discourse and Tongan mai, atu, ange; scratching the surface Claude Tchekhoff. In Pacific island languages: essays in honour of G. B. Milner. Edited by J. H. C. S. Davidson. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1990, pp.105–10
In Tonga, personal relationships are immediately manifest in the language, more so perhaps than in other systems, and certainly differently. Tchekhoff examines these relationships, which can be perplexing, pinpointing the problems in three discourse-particles whose uses are manifold, often mysterious to the outsider while intuitive to a native speaker, and provides examples. She concludes that in the Tongan community, manners expect speaker and listener to establish rapport beyond the mere meaning of the utterance. The finer points of language communication are specific to culture as well as to language.
237
Intensive course in Tongan: with numerous supplementary materials, grammatical notes and glossary Eric B. Shumway. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1971. 723pp. (PALI Language Texts: Polynesia)
Based on materials prepared for Peace Corps volunteers in Tonga, this comprehensive course consists of 130 lessons, conversational materials, Tongan proverbs and songs, specialized word lists and a glossary. These provide a systematic oral–aural approach to the study of the grammar and phonology of the language, to enable the student to speak and understand Tongan as it is currently spoken. Each lesson provides brief and realistic dialogues, explanatory grammatical notes and intensive drills.
238 An introduction to the Tongan language Edgar Tu‘inukuafe. Auckland, New Zealand: Pacific Islanders’ Educational Resource Centre, 1979. 68pp. map This brief introductory course is arranged by theme and function, presenting those aspects of the language that a learner will find of practical value and later be able to develop. The sixteen chapters begin with greetings and also cover home activities; seasons and time; the weather; prices; travel; and interviewing. They also provide an introduction to grammar.
239
Language and space in Tonga: ‘the front of the house is where the chief sits!’ Giovanni Bennardo. Anthropological Linguistics, vol. 42, no. 4 (2000), pp.499–544
Bennardo describes how Tongans conceptualize and express spatial relationships, including the concept ‘front.’ In Vava‘u he observes that the front of a building may not indicate the side nearest the road, but the side where the chief sits. He examines the different Tongan words that express spatial relationships, and how Tongans use them to give specific directions or describe the location of objects. He finds a
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significant difference between small-scale and large-scale places, and shows how ‘front’ relates to houses, churches and villages.
240 The linguistic position of Niuafo‘ou T. S. Dye. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 89, no. 3 (1980), pp.349–57 Earlier scholars disagreed about how much the language of Niuafo‘ou was Tongan. Through a detailed analysis of the phonology and morphology Dye concludes that it is related to languages of the Samoan outlier group, overlaid with extensive recent Tongan borrowings, and that Tongan will soon replace it.
241 Making a case for Tongan as an endangered language Yuko Otsuka. The Contemporary Pacific, vol. 19, no. 2 (2007), pp.446–73 Tongan might not seem an endangered language, with a sizable base in a predominantly monolingual society. Otsuka reviews its present state, the respective uses of Tongan and English in education, writing and publishing, and sees a gradual process of language shift, a decline in the use of the honorific speech register and increasing borrowing from English, which is inevitably the international language. She suggests how the use of Tongan could be encouraged, particularly among the Tongan diaspora where, for instance, in New Zealand in 2001 only 54 percent of Tongans could hold an everyday conversation in Tongan.
242 The nitty-gritty of teaching English to Tongan students ‘I. F. Helu. In Critical essays: cultural perspectives from the South Seas. Canberra: The Journal of Pacific History, 1999, pp.187–91 Helu outlines briefly some of the most important differences in syntax and grammar between Tongan and English. He contrasts particularly the significance for Tongans of the fact of existence or being, with the main verb before the subject, while in Indo-European languages possession or ownership is more significant, with the subject before the main verb. He considers the best strategies for teaching English to Tongans.
243 On the origin of the Tongan definitive accent Ross Clark. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 83, no. 1 (1974), pp.103–08 In a short note Clark examines the stress shift in the definitive accent in Tongan and suggests an explanation of its historical origin, from a proto-Polynesian demonstrative system, through assimilation that led to a consequent shifting of stress.
244 Pacific languages: an introduction John Lynch. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1998. 359pp. 16 maps. bibliog.
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The author says that he wrote this book in response to many people who asked him to recommend ‘a good general book on the languages of the Pacific’ aimed at those who have not studied linguistics in depth. He tries to steer a course between being too simplistic and too technical, in covering the interrelationship and connections between over 1,400 languages, their history and current status, and the relationship between language, culture and social organization. He describes their geographical distribution and history, their phonological and grammatical structure and their social and cultural context. The book is a useful and up-to-date introduction to the groups of languages, including Tongan, and relates some features to those of neighbours.
245 Passives and statives in Tongan John Lynch. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 81, no. 1 (1972), pp.5–18 Lynch explores the relation between accusative and ergative structures in Tongan by examining those procedures that assign case markers and certain verbal suffixes. In so doing, he attempts to characterize Tongan in terms of the accusative-to-ergative drift in Polynesian languages. He works from a theoretical basis outlined by Chomsky, and builds on the work of earlier writers on Tongan, particularly Churchward (item 260), who he believes has neglected the relevance of case and voice. He shows that Tongan possesses accusative and ergative structures, and neuter or stative verbs, and provides many examples of their use.
246 The phonetics and phonology of “definitive accent” in Tongan Victoria Anderson and Yuko Otsuka. Oceanic Linguistics, vol. 41, no. 1 (2006), pp.21–42 This technical study considers the ways in which the so-called ‘definitive accent’ has been analyzed, and substantiates an account of Tongan in which stress is unexceptionally penultimate in a foot and in which long vowels and diphthongs are to be considered sequences of two syllables.
247 Phonological patterning of English loan words in Tongan Albert J. Schütz. In Pacific linguistic studies in honour of Arthur Capell. Edited by S. A. Wurm, D. C. Laycock. Canberra: Department of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University, 1970, p.409–28. (Pacific Linguistics, series C, no. 13) From the time of initial impact with English-speaking people Tongans have needed to borrow English words for new objects and experiences. Schütz examines how these have been adapted to fit the Tongan phonological system, and attempts to devise a set of rules to account for the forms of as many of the borrowings as possible. His data is approximately 1,275 words from Churchward’s dictionary (item 259). He postulates equivalence rules for vowels and consonants, describes the system of inserted vowels, and gives sample results,
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including many words that differ from the rules. He finds some inconsistencies in Churchward.
248
Religious, political and educational factors in the development of biliteracy in the Kingdom of Tonga Bernard Spolsky, Guillermina Engelbrecht, Leroy Ortiz. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, vol. 4, no. 6 (1983), pp.459–69
In Tonga there is near universal literacy in Tongan, with about half the population also literate in English, according to the 1976 census. Tongan remains largely the language for oral use in the family, primary schools, churches and Parliament. However there is a serious shortage of reading material in Tongan. In secondary schools both English and Tongan are used, and weight is placed on literacy in English, used largely in administration and commerce. The authors describe the work of the early missionaries in education, strongly committed to the maintenance of the Tongan language and to publication in it. Tongans were eager for literacy. They respected knowledge generally and European knowledge in particular. They also saw its practical value, particularly the monarchy in centralizing power and formulating laws and constitutions. Now, at the time of writing, the authors see Tongan as under threat, with increasing emphasis on English. More material in Tongan should be published to help maintain the balance of the two languages. On the current state of Tongan, twenty-five years later, and the difficulties of publishing in Tongan, see the paper by Otsuka (item 241).
249
Simple sentences in Tongan Claude Tchekhoff. Canberra: Department of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University, 1981. 95pp. bibliog. (Pacific Linguistics, series B, no. 81)
Tchekhoff is concerned with basic and near-basic sentence structure in the language of the ordinary people of Tonga, as opposed to royalty or nobility. She classifies two types of morphemes and examines the way in which lexical units are made up, and how they depend on function markers for the part they play in the sentence. Her description is set out in the terminology of academic linguistics; this is not a language-teaching manual but a technical analysis.
250 A simplified dictionary of modern Tongan Edgar Tu‘inukuafe. Auckland, New Zealand: Polynesian Press, 1992. 278pp. Tu‘inukuafe’s dictionary is far shorter than Churchward’s (item 259), comprising about 10,000 entries in each language and giving single-word equivalents, but it is an accessible introductory listing and the first to be compiled by a Tongan. It includes guides to pronunciation and grammar. Tu‘inukuafe points out how much the language has changed since Churchward wrote his grammar (item 260) and
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how its analysis needs to be liberated from European grammatical constructions. It is up to date on modern technical vocabulary, even though Tongans often simply use the English word in its Tongan form: ‘komipiuta’ for computer, ‘ovani maikoloueivi’ for microwave oven.
251 Some notes on Tongan phonology Henry Feldman. Oceanic Linguistics, vol. 17, no. 2 (1976), pp.133–39 Feldman points out some phonetic features in Tongan neglected in previous accounts, and draws attention to the two potentially interesting phenomena: the distribution of stress and voiceless allophones of vowels. He identifies seventeen segmented phonemes, and gives examples of stress and of voiceless allophones to demonstrate his thesis.
252 Some verbal patterns in Tongan Claude Tchekhoff. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 82, no. 3 (1973), pp.281–92 Tchekhoff defines active–passive transforms and examines how far they may be found in Tongan. She analyses ergative and accusative verbal systems generally, and finds and illustrates both structures in Tongan. She concludes that intransitive in Tongan does not have to mean intransitive in English.
253 South Pacific phrasebook Hadrien Dhont et al. Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia: Lonely Planet Publications, 1999. 316pp. 12 maps. bibliog. The Tongan section of this book (by Michael Simpson, pp.232–52) provides within its brief limits a basic introduction to pronunciation, and then phrases and vocabulary for meeting people, food, touring the islands, dress, festivals, time and numbers, with advice on social etiquette and behaviour. It would not take one very far, but should suffice for a quick visit.
254 The speech of Niua Fo‘ou E. E. V. Collocott. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 31, no. 124 (1922), pp.185–89 Collocott notes that the speech of Niua Fo‘ou preserves words and forms that seem to be older than those of common speech, and less influenced from Fiji, although the differences are fast disappearing. He sets out the most interesting differences between it and common Tongan in grammar and accent.
255 The student’s English-Tongan and Tongan-English dictionary Richard and ‘Ofa Thompson. Nuku‘alofa: Friendly Islands Bookshop, 1992. 190pp. This dictionary, the authors state, is for use by Tongan students who wish to improve their English, but they also hope that it may be of use to English speakers working in
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Tonga or to visitors. The first section lists 3,000 of the most commonly used English words with their equivalent in current Tongan. The second section lists 5,000 words commonly used in everyday Tongan speech, with their English meaning.
256 Supplementary Tongan vocabulary E. E. V. Collocott. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 34 (1925), no. 134, pp.146–69; no. 135, pp.193–213 Collocott prints a list of some nine hundred Tongan words to supplement Baker’s dictionary of 1897, based on that of Rabone in 1845. These were words Collocott encountered in conversation and in reading Tongan poems and tales. Much of the material was originally collected by Dr. Moulton, his predecessor as teacher and missionary. The general list is followed by words for measuring and counting tapa cloth, fish and yams, some proverbial expressions (to supplement item 626) and words for the phases of the moon (to supplement item 605). What Collocott calls ‘the highly desirable task of compiling a satisfactory and adequate dictionary of the Tongan language’ had to wait a further thirty-five years, for the publication of Churchward’s dictionary (item 259).
257 Tongan accent Albert J. Schütz. Oceanic Linguistics, vol. 40, no. 2 (2001), pp.307–23 In his Tongan grammar (item 260), Churchward stated that it was fundamental that the penultimate vowel or a final long vowel is accented in a regular and predictable system, though with some exceptions and irregularities. Schütz reviews his findings and those of other scholars on Pacific languages and suggests that accent in Tongan is neither phonemic in the traditional sense nor predictable. He proposes a larger set of accent systems based on the concept of measure, a phonological unit defined by accent. He concludes that Tongan accent is not defined in terms of syllable count, or of word or morpheme boundaries. ‘Instead, it is part of a system whose function is to divide the flow of speech into phonological units that bear a close relationship to grammatical units, and, at a different level, to serve as road signs that help the hearer follow the path of discourse’.
258 Tongan definitive accent Iovanna D. Condax. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 98, no. 4 (1989), pp. 425–50 Definitive accent in Tonga is a stress pattern found in nouns with definite references, that is nouns preceded by a definitive article or other such marker. Syllables affected by the definitive accent are unusual and phonetically unlike other syllables. Condax takes further the work by Clark (item 243) and other writers on Tongan, though she is more concerned with describing present-day phenomena than with seeking historical origins. She provides detailed phonetic measurements of vowel duration that add detail to and support for earlier writers’ findings, through a technical analysis of recordings of native speakers. An appendix provides the
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Tongan text recorded, with English translation. Nine figures illustrate the phonetic analysis.
259 Tongan dictionary (Tongan–English and English–Tongan) C. Maxwell Churchward. London: Oxford University Press, 1959. 836pp. Churchward was appointed by the government of Tonga in 1946 to prepare a grammar and dictionary of the Tongan language. Although he used earlier vocabularies established by Shirley Baker and others, his was an entirely new dictionary. The meaning and usage of many of the over 20,000 words in the Tongan–English section are illustrated with examples. The English–Tongan section serves as an index to it. Like his Tongan grammar (item 260) this remains the definitive work, though it has to be supplemented for modern technical vocabulary.
260 Tongan grammar C. Maxwell Churchward. London; New York; Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1953. 305pp. This grammar sets out to describe the structure of the Tongan language for the English reader: parts of speech; articles, tenses and verbs; nouns and pronouns; adjectives and adverbs; and the language appropriate for the social level of the person addressed. The first comprehensive grammar of Tongan using formal Western terminology, it remains unsurpassed, even if now qualified.
261
Tongan speech levels: practice and talk about practice in the cultural construction of social hierarchy Susan U. Philips. In Currents in Pacific linguistics: papers on Austronesian languages and ethnolinguistics in honour of George W. Grace. Edited by Robert Blust. Canberra: Department of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University, 1991, pp.369–82. (Pacific Linguistics, series C, no. 117)
Tongans use three different terms to refer to the same actions of commoners, nobles and the king, though in practice words for both kingly and noble actions are extended to other high-status social categories. Philips sets out examples from other writers on Tongan and notes that Tongans learn these different terms from government textbooks in high school. She sets out the standard view of the three levels, and their evolution as Tonga developed into a Western-style nation-state in the 19th century. However, she finds from transcripts of spoken Tongan that in actual practice the use of the three levels suggests a far less clear-cut and more complex construction of social hierarchy. She provides examples from newspapers, prayers in church, village meetings and the law courts and suggests that the use of noble terms is very fluid, though royal terms are restricted.
262 Verbal aspects in an ergative construction: an example in Tongan Claude Tchekhoff. Oceanic Linguistics, vol. 11, no. 2 (1972), pp.607–20
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Tchekhoff sets out evidence of features of verbal aspect in Tongan. She considers the role of the verbal suffix ‘i, suggesting that it does not make the verb passive or transitive but indicates verbal aspect, as in some other Pacific languages. She defines the difference between tense and aspect and provides examples of the use of aspect in Tongan.
263 The vocabularies of Jacob le Maire R. A. Kern. Acta Orientalia, vol. XX, parts 3–4 (1948), pp.216–37 The crew of the Dutch ship Eendracht, in the course of a voyage to attempt to find Terra Australis, discovered Niuatoputapu and Tafahi and stayed there for three days, 11–13 May 1616. The ship’s commander, le Maire, compiled a vocabulary of 118 words, which Kern reproduces in full with original Dutch and modern English translation. Kern relates the language to Samoan rather than to Tongan. Be that as it may, this is the earliest vocabulary of any language spoken in the present Kingdom of Tonga.
PhD theses 264 A computational approach to spatial cognition: representing spatial relationships in Tongan language and culture Giovanni Bennardo. University of Illinois at Urbana, 1996 265 A descriptive grammar of Tongan (Polynesian) E. J. Morton. Indiana University, 1962 266 Ergativity in Tongan Yuko Otsuka. University of Oxford, 2000 267 The language of Niuafo‘ou island Tsukamoto Akihisa. Australian National University, 1988 268 On the nonexistence of anaphors and pronomials in Tongan M. P. Dukes. University of California, Los Angeles, 1996
Religion 269 Additional wooden images from Tonga Te Rangi Hiroa. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 46, no. 182 (1937), pp.74–82 As a supplement to his earlier paper (item 277), Hiroa describes and illustrates three wooden images and one ivory from a private collection, three standing and
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one sitting. He relates them to similar figures in other collections. Two of them, according to their labels, seem to have been god images cut down by Taufa‘âhau (later King George Tupou I) on embracing Christianity in 1830.
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After the missionaries came: denominational diversity in the Tonga islands Shulamit R. Decktor Korn. In Mission, church and sect in Oceania. Edited by James A. Boutilier, Daniel T. Hughes, Sharon W. Tiffany. Ann Arbor, Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 1978, pp.395–422. (Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania Monograph no. 6)
Korn examines the place of religion in contemporary Tongan society, the multiplicity of denominations, and the implications for the country. Nineteen denominations were recorded in the 1966 census, although only seven were significant, and only the Free Wesleyan Church has members throughout all the island groups. She sets out the affiliation figures for her survey village in Tongatapu, where the Free Wesleyans dominate (45.7 percent), followed by the Mormons (18.6 percent). Everyone nominally belongs to some denomination and most attend church at least once a week. Status in a community depends on standing in a congregation. Free Wesleyans may become lay preachers and act as hosts at congregational feasts—both activities enhance status. Members of different denominations largely accept but do not interact with each other; doctrinal differences are seldom discussed and are considered unimportant. Members of one family or kin group may belong to different denominations and thus attend each other’s activities without compromising their affiliation. People change denominations quite readily and marry across denominational lines. Korn concludes that there are so many denominations because there are few prescriptions and prohibitions in Tongan society. In most matters Tongans have a range of alternatives and can make free choices. Tongans are attracted to new denominations because they make new stratagems possible. ‘Missionization’ is a dynamic process in which local people are agents and manipulators.
271 The churches in Tonga since World War II John Garrett. In Echoes of Pacific war. Edited by Deryck Scarr, Niel Gunson, Jennifer Terrell. Canberra: Target Oceania, 1998, pp.87–98 After the war the churches of Tonga found their style altered by urbanization, the growth of education, the rise of a middle class and the appearance of an involved and informed laity. Garrett briefly surveys the prewar state of the churches, and then examines the diversification after the war, noting that further splits developed against a background of wider social transformation and new options from overseas. ‘Tongans have been able to savour a smorgasbord of religious snack foods.’ He considers the forces of ecumenism, of conservative evangelicalism and of pentecostal and charismatic movements that were all at work within existing churches and in producing new ones. He notes also the spectacular growth of the Mormons, appealing to the Polynesian taste for genealogies. Yet, he believes, the spirit of the
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older churches runs deep and is as yet only moderately threatened by secularity or Christian splits and controversies.
272
The emergence of the Maamafo‘ou movement from the Free Wesleyan Church of Tonga Makisi Finau. In Island churches: challenge and change. Edited by Charles W. Forman. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies of the University of the South Pacific, 1992, pp.141–205
The most recent of the separations from the original Wesleyan church of Tonga led to the formation of the body that came to be known as the Tokaikolo (Christ shall be honoured in our midst) Christian Fellowship, and it was the first, Finau suggests, that took place for devotional and spiritual rather than political reasons. The founder, the Rev. Senituli Koloi, was a Free Wesleyan minister who in the 1970s came to believe that personal holiness was more important than the institutional church, and that undue honour was given to ministers, to Tongan tradition and to the king. In 1978 he led a breakaway from the Free Wesleyan Church that soon gathered 3,000 members, including over 100 lay preachers, in Tongatapu alone. Originally known as the Maamafo‘ou Fellowship, they adopted the name Tokaikolo Fellowship in 1979. In 1980 he died, but the fellowship continues. By 1985 the Free Wesleyan Church was admitting that the reason people were leaving was spiritual hunger. Finau tells the story largely from personal interviews with many of the people involved. He concludes that the Free Wesleyan Church should reread the history of John Wesley and encourage class meetings and personal devotion. His story reveals something of both the strengths and weaknesses of the churches of Tonga.
273 Fakakakato: symbols in a Pacific context Winston Halapua. The Pacific Journal of Theology, series II, no. 20 (1998), pp.21–32 Halapua asks to what extent the dominant presentation of theology from a Western context shows a lack of appreciation of the values that define people in the Pacific islands. Does the study of theology in the islands entail dehumanization of the islands’ people? He surveys earlier work on the contextualization of theology in the way of life of people in the Pacific, and examines the Tongan word fakakakato, a completion of an obligation, as a holistic way of understanding symbols in the Pacific. It cements and completes all activities, as expressed in the Pacific communal life, for instance in the kava ceremony, which he relates in its totality to the Eucharist. He also considers the Tongan concept of ifonga, reconciliation. He sees this as unveiling a major weakness in the dualist approach dominating Western theology, and sees even the sharing of remittances as an expression of the Pacific system of reciprocity.
274 Introducing women’s theology in a theological education curriculum: a Tongan and Methodist context
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Lynette Mo‘unga Fuka. The Pacific Journal of Theology, series II, no. 20 (1998), pp.55–62
The author, a probationary minister in the Free Wesleyan Church in Tonga, examines the inclusion of women’s perspectives in theology, with reference to political, economic, sociocultural, educational and theological issues. She outlines the position of women in Tonga, equal with men in law but not always in practice, though with authority over their own kin. She describes the way in which the experience of Tongan women is being incorporated into the curriculum of the Sia‘atoutai Theological College, the first establishment in the Pacific to do this.
275
Inventing the Mormon Tongan family Tamar Gordon. In Christianity in Oceania: ethnographic perspectives. Edited by John Barker. Lanham, Maryland; New York; London: University Press of America, 1990, pp.197–219 (ASAO Monograph, no. 12)
Gordon sees Tongan Mormonism not as a wholesale adaptation of an imposed model but as a religious idiom through which Westernization takes place, but using Tongan logic on Tongan terms. It embodies Tongans’ negotiation of their own religious identity. Opportunities for enhanced social status and economic advancement in Mormon circles depend on embracing certain idealized family structures and practices. The Mormon model of family life, with husband and wife forming an exclusive couple and decision-making unit for the nuclear family, stands in opposition to the mainstream Tongan Christian model that emphasizes bonds of obligation and resource-sharing among extended kindred and respect for hierarchical authority. Gordon examines how Tongan Mormons reconcile their differences within ‘the Tongan way’. She outlines the history of the Mormons in Tonga, their organization, their role as one of the largest employers in Tonga, and the opportunities offered in employment overseas and in creating a self-sufficient class system in Tonga. She sets out the very different Mormon model of the family, particularly in the brother–sister relationship and in their concept of ‘freedom to choose’, and gives examples from her own surveys of how compromise and acculturation work in practice. She finds that Tongan Mormons are able to maintain the two systems as separate frames of reference, and to view one system as the ideal expression of the other, and that Tongan culture continues to be selectively permeable to the adoption of Western ideas. They see their church as hastening the inevitable advancement of Tonga as a whole, with themselves in the vanguard.
276
The island churches of the South Pacific: emergence in the twentieth century Charles W. Forman. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1982. 285pp. bibliog. (American Society of Missiology Series, no. 5)
This is a broad general survey of the history and present state of the churches of the South Pacific. The story of their origins was seen as one of the great missionary successes of the time. Forman takes their early history country by country, from
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initial dependence to subsequent independence, in which Tonga was the pioneer. For more recent times he follows themes: the role of the churches in education and medicine; the impact of emigration and tourism; urbanization; work with young people and women; and the churches’ role in national and economic development. In all of these, Tonga features prominently. At the time of writing, Forman believed that the Pacific islands were in all probability the most solidly Christian part of the world. Since then, the pluralism and secularization he observed have become stronger and the influence and centrality of the mainstream churches are probably not what they were.
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Material representations of Tongan and Samoan gods Te Rangi Hiroa. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 44, no. 173 (1935), pp.48–53; vol. 44, no. 174 (1935), pp.85–96; vol. 44, no. 175 (1935), pp.153–62
The author sets out in a three-part paper the fundamentals of Tongan and Samoan religion, in which the gods were localized and intangible; the office of priest was usually hereditary, the priest being a medium through whom the gods could make known their commands. Places where religious observance were carried out were of three types: stone structures, wooden structures and undefined spaces. Gods, though immaterial, were associated with certain visible material forms, whose movements conveyed the god’s message. As a further development, the god was regarded as actually present in the living representative. Thus some spaces were taboo: Hiroa lists thirty-one animate forms—mammals, birds, fish and reptiles—of which this was true. He then lists seventeen inanimate representations, both natural (such as stones, shells and teeth) and manufactured (such as mats and weapons). In addition, there were figurative representations, many of which were destroyed at the time of conversion. Hiroa describes and illustrates five surviving examples from museums and collections, in wood and ivory. The third part of the paper is mostly concerned with images from elsewhere in the Pacific. He concludes that carving was less diversified in Tonga and Samoa than in eastern Polynesia.
278 Notes on Tongan religion E. E. V. Collocott. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 30, no. 119 (1921), pp.152–63; vol. 30, no. 120 (1921), pp.227–40 The Tongans had an elaborate theogony, narrating the birth of the great gods of sky, earth, sea and underworld who were in their turn responsible for the creation of Tonga and the adjacent islands that formed the known world. Collocott tells the stories of their exploits and describes the ways in which they were worshipped and their powers sought. By the 1920s, few Tongans were able to provide much reliable information, but Collocott sets out such data as he was able to obtain on individual gods, their manifestations, locations and powers. The strength of the links with the religion of Fiji is noted.
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The outrigger of the canoe: Tongan women missionaries to Melanesia Fangailupe Tu‘ineau. The Pacific Journal of Theology, series II, no. 20 (1998), pp.12–20
The wives of missionaries were rarely mentioned in letters and reports. In this paper, a summary of an MTh thesis, the author notes the comments of the wife of one missionary, ‘I am the outrigger of the canoe; where the canoe goes I go.’ The Tongan church preferred to send married couples rather than single men, but many of the wives felt their own strong sense of calling. Tu‘ineau describes their preparation and departure, their work with their husbands, the risks they faced, and some of their successes and failures. An appendix lists those who went to Papua New Guinea and the Solomons from 1891 to 1986.
280 Rituals of sacrifice in post-European contact Tonga and Tahiti Meredith Filihia. The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 34, no. 1 (1999), pp.5–22 Rituals in Tonga were performed to honour various gods in the Tongan pantheon, while in Tahiti they were oriented towards one particular god. In both they were used as a tool of power and authority, albeit couched in religious terms. Filihia examines the rituals of human sacrifice after European contact, the accessories of sacrifice, and its use as a political tool for reinforcing the power of the chiefs in a highly stratified society. She notes first the cutting off of finger joints in Tonga, as observed by Tasman, Cook and Mariner, common as an expression of mourning. Mariner and Wilson recorded the sacrifices of young children for the healing of sick chiefs, the higher the rank the greater the sacrifices. Tongan commoners were also sacrificed by being buried alive as an escort for a deceased chief in the afterlife, and wives were sometimes sacrificed on the death of a chief. Sacrifices may also have been offered at the threatened failure of the yam harvest. However John Thomas, arriving in Tonga in 1826, recorded no instances of human sacrifice although, despite missionary influence, finger sacrifice continued longer.
281 Seeds of the Word: Tongan culture and Christian faith Cliff Wright. Vila: Pacific Churches Research Centre, 1979. 43pp. This brief booklet, the report of a workshop, represents a thoughtful attempt by Christians of all denominations to relate the continuing power of traditional beliefs and practices to their Christian faith. Participants examined some of the fundamental elements of Tongan myths and culture, such as kava, and concluded that God was at work before the arrival of the missionaries and that in a profound sense Christ is the fulfiller of culture. Both the approach and the conclusion would have shocked the early Protestant missionaries who saw traditional culture as the antithesis of the Christian gospel. The participants may at times have overstretched themselves in seeking to identify traditional beliefs with Christianity, but the approach is illuminating.
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282 The supernatural in Tonga E. E. V. Collocott. American Anthropologist, vol. 23, no. 4 (1921), pp.415–44 Examining traditional Tongan concepts in dealing with the invisible world, Collocott considers ‘tabu’ and ‘mana.’ He defines the two thus: ‘Whilst tabu indicates the duty of man towards the occult, mana indicates the mysterious forces in operation.’ He describes the way in which they are seen, and their effects in daily life, some from his own observation and some from the classic accounts of Cook, Mariner and others. The approach is dated. Within what is a series of notes, without much rigorous analysis, is some interesting data.
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They loved her too much: interpreting spirit possession in Tonga Tamar Gordon. In Spirits in culture, history and mind. Edited by Jeannette Marie Mageo, Alan Howard. New York; London: Routledge, 1996, pp.55–74
‘Possession by spirits is a commonplace reality among modern-day Tongans, many of whom can expect, at one or more times in their lives, to be catapulted into this “other” state’, writes Gordon. In her own two years in Tonga she heard much talk about spirit possession and witnessed cases of it. Tongans say that the dead are even more outraged than the living by social transgressions, and people are often possessed by spirits who ‘love them too much’. She considers this phenomenon in the context of data from elsewhere and the records of pre-European Tonga noted by Mariner as well as in its present-day social context. In modern Christian Tonga, spirit possession persists as a parallel though not contradictory belief system. Tongans can keep them separate and can assert that neither prayer nor Western medicine can address the true status of an attack. Gordon notes the stresses undergone particularly by women (who suffer attacks more than men) due to the obligatory relations of respect and reciprocity governed by the unequal rules and statuses from father’s and mother’s side; she also emphasizes the power of anger as well as of love. She narrates and analyses three possessions, in one of which she was personally involved, and finds that possession is of a piece with the conflicts and changes of social life. The phenomenon itself is not, and presumably cannot be, explained.
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Tongan evangelism: a Wesleyan mode of evangelism from the South Pacific Tevita Maliepo Siuhengalu. The Pacific Journal of Theology, series II, no. 20 (1998), pp.74–84
The author outlines the work of early Wesleyan missionaries to Tonga, noting that they had little training in theology and none in anthropology but that they were proud of the English heritage and expression of Christianity, believing it to be the model to follow. Tonga was swept into Christianity in little more than five years and the old religion collapsed almost completely. But consolidation did not always follow conversion, and evangelism was for many a low priority. Siuhengalu reflects on the
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implications of this for the church in Tonga today and notes that many new converts in recent years have been attracted to the Pentecostal churches. He sees many signs of new life in the Wesleyan church in Tonga, but also new challenges and the need to seek a mode of evangelization that embraces the evolving culture of Tonga.
285 Tonga’s tortured venture in church unity Charles W. Forman. The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 13, no. 1 (1978), pp.3–21 The church history of Tonga is the most turbulent of all the Pacific islands as the enormous variety of churches there today bears witness. Only in Tonga did church disputes lead to warfare and deportation. This paper explains something of the background to the present situation. The moves by King George Tupou I and his prime minister, Shirley Baker, to give the Wesleyan Church in Tonga its independence led to two churches, the Free and the Wesleyan, both Methodist in background and, in 1924, still with Europeans as presidents. Forman tells how, in that year, the young Queen Sâlote, who belonged to the Free Church but whose husband was a Wesleyan, attempted to bring the leaders of the two churches together, with some initial success. But harmony did not last in the face of vested interests and a strong sense of independence. The queen had to depose the Free Church president from office, and court cases and appeals followed. A third church even emerged—the Church of Tonga. Isolation was seen by some as a matter of principle, based on a fear of foreign control. Only in 1973, after the era of foreign church presidents was over and when all the things that the 1924 rebels had objected to had disappeared, was the Tonga Council of Churches formed. At that point the churches began to work together in matters such as theological education. Yet the churches still remain separate, different in style and in ethos if not in basic doctrine. Forman believes that political factors and nationalist feelings were responsible for the failure of the 1924 scheme, and such factors’ legacy still determines the church scene in Tonga today.
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Travelling gods and nasty spirits: ancient religious representations and missionization in Tonga (Polynesia) Paul van der Grijp. Paideuma: Mitteilungen zur Kulturkunde, vol. 48 (2002), pp.243–60
Working from the writings of early travellers, missionaries and anthropologists, van der Grijp seeks to explain how the supernatural side of the ancient Tongan system of representations was organized, the phenomenon of divine possession of priests. This could take different forms, as witnessed by Gifford (item 355) and Collocott (item 278), and how the relationship with the supernatural reflects the social hierarchy of relations between Tongans. Van der Grijp describes the elaborate theogony of ancient Tonga, drawing largely on the unpublished writings of the Methodist missionary John Thomas. This comprised the gods, the souls of deceased chiefs who became lesser gods, and small malignant ghosts or goblins. He recounts the reactions of the early missionaries to the Tongan gods and to their priests, who
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were a social category, not a separate class of sacred persons. This may explain the lack of any organized resistance to the coming of Christianity, though the Tongan system was changing even before the arrival of the first missionaries. Once the chief Taufa‘âhau had demonstrated that the Tongan gods were powerless, general conversion followed.
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Winds of change: rapidly growing religious groups in the Pacific islands Manfred Ernst. Suva: Pacific Conference of Churches, 1994. 357pp. 8 maps. bibliog.
Membership in Tonga of what Ernst defines as historic mainline churches declined from 90.1 percent in 1966 to 68.1 percent in 1992, while that of new religious groups (principally Assemblies of God, Mormons, Seventh-day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Baha’i) increased from 9.7 percent to 29.5 percent in the same period. The decline in the first group and the rise in the second is sharper than in any other country in the region. Ernst’s comprehensive survey of the invasion of new religious movements in the Pacific is based both on written records and his own extensive surveys. In Part I he gives facts and figures on the more than forty new religious groups and evangelical-fundamentalist para-church organizations, with numbers of ministers, adherents and churches. Part II contains six detailed case studies, of which Tonga is one. In Part III Ernst assesses the growth and impact of the new religious groups and reflects on the reasons for their success. He relates this both to broader socioeconomic and political factors such as urbanization, and to specifically ecclesiastical factors such as patterns of ministry, style of worship, financial resources, better schools, and a different approach to the relationship between individual faith and the world. The book contains a wealth of information, with many tables and graphs.
PhD theses 288 Inventing Mormon identity in Tonga Tamar Gordon. University of California, Berkeley, 1988 289 Plucking the reed: chiefly death and regeneration in the Tongan ritual cycle M. Filihia. La Trobe University, 2001
Society 290 Alternative social structures and the limits of hierarchy in the modern Kingdom of Tonga
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George E. Marcus. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, vol. 131, no. 1 (1975), pp.34–66
In light of classical distinctions concerning social differentiation between class, status and power, this paper is primarily concerned with stratification by status, specified in cultural ideologies of rank. Marcus examines the extent to which routine everyday interpersonal relations within a low status group or class in a highly stratified society are in fact permeated by the same concerns with status differentiation or rank determination that characterize social relations between status groups and classes. At the village level researchers have not found a predominantly hierarchical quality in the everyday interactions among commoners, and Marcus’ own research confirms this. Principles of rank and status differentiation are important in some situations but not in others, and he identifies two alternative structural domains—the village community and the dispersed bilateral kin set. Marcus discusses the major changes that have occurred in Tongan society, the structure of the family estate and the village in which he lived, and the integration of these alternative social structures in terms of an individual’s strategies for managing his varying social situations.
291 Analysing the emergent middle class—the 1990s Kerry James. In Echoes of Pacific war. Edited by Deryck Scarr, Niel Gunson, Jennifer Terrell. Canberra: Target Oceania, 1998, pp.110–26 James examines the use of the term ‘middle class’ in Tonga, which first appeared in popular rather than in academic discourse in 1993, the concept of a middle class, its defining characteristics and membership, and how this Western concept fits into Tongan society. She conducted fifteen interviews on the changing pattern of social differentiation and here prints parts of three. These reveal the distinction between people in government, in the churches and in business. Within the business sector there are distinctions between newer business people and established traders. All saw the quality of rank as increasingly obsolete and irrelevant unless accompanied by wealth, skills and education. Yet she notes that vertical ties between better-off people and their poorer relations still appear to be more important than horizontal ties of common interest that are beginning to be forged among members of the putative middle class.
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The anthropologist, the mother and the cross-cultured child; lessons in the relativity of cultural relativity Heather Young Leslie. In Fieldwork and families: constructing new models for ethnographic research. Edited by Juliana Flinn, Leslie Marshall, Jocelyn Armstrong. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1998, pp.45–59
The difference that having your small child with you makes during anthropological research is Leslie’s concern. She, with her husband and daughter, arrived in Ha‘apai in 1991 to study the way in which women make and keep their children healthy. She
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had clear ideas of the importance of cultural relativity, the respect for and valuation of other forms of practice, but found these under pressure when her daughter changed from a clingy, frightened European into an energetic and wilful Tongan who spoke, behaved and seemed to think like a Tongan. As Leslie reveals honestly her own concerns for her daughter, she reveals also something of her changing view of Tongan society and of the pressures on her own research.
293 The atomization of Tongan society Keith L. Morton. Pacific Studies, vol. 10, no. 2 (1987), pp.47–72 Morton observes profound changes in the structure of Tongan society in the last few decades. He examines writings on Tongan society since the 1940s and notes weakening social relations and the growth of the nuclear family as the major structural unit, defined as ‘atomization’. He suggests that the primary cause is the change in the social relations of production, specifically the adoption of individualized land tenure, which has established the economic conditions necessary for independent nuclear-family households by replacing traditional social relations in the production process. He sets out the history of change against the background of traditional Tongan society, and provides a case study of a village, analysing households and production, in which kinship has a limited and peripheral role. He finds that most economic transactions occurred in the course of normal daily life, and only very few during ceremonial events. He concludes that Tongan local organization today is not a chaotic mixture of traditional and Western culture but is a result of the way in which Tonga has responded to its peripheral status in broader political and economic systems.
294 Becoming Tongan: an ethnography of childhood Helen Morton. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1996. 343pp. 2 maps. bibliog. Helen Morton, an Australian anthropologist, married a Tongan; she later returned to Tonga with her young son, and had a daughter there. She lived in a village on Tongatapu and learnt to speak Tongan fluently. She was thus ideally qualified to write about the process of becoming Tongan, and the social processes whereby the Tongan child acquires what are seen as the ideal characteristics as it grows into adulthood, moving from being vale (ignorant, socially incompetent) to being poto (clever, socially competent, understanding hierarchical relations and values such as obedience, respect and submission to authority). Her study spans the period from before birth to late adolescence, situating children within the wider social context in which they live. She describes attitudes towards reproduction, pregnancy and childbirth; the major events of childhood; Tongan notions of parenthood and its associated cultural values; and the ways in which children absorb these values in the home, at school and at play. She is particularly concerned with, and troubled by, physical punishment, which sometimes seems violent and cruel and yet is claimed to be given with love and for the child’s benefit. She considers how children learn to
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manage their emotions, particularly anger and humour. She links all this to current debates about political reform and what many perceive as a loss of culture among children today. She concludes by wondering how future generations will construct a Tongan identity, how they will become Tongan.
295
Blood and garland: duality in Tongan history Aletta Biersack. In Tongan culture and history. Edited by Phyllis Herda, Jennifer Terrell, Niel Gunson. Canberra: The Journal of Pacific History, 1990, pp.46–58
Biersack observes the difficulty in discovering well-defined structures in the Tongan ranking system. The title system is said to be immutable, yet Tongans acknowledge that social and political dynamics are as crucial as structural statics. Thus she explores the distinction between the rank of a title or ‘garland’ and the rank of a person or ‘blood’. Others who have studied Tongan social structures have noted the distinction between a form of ranking that operates within kinship networks and one that pertains to groups of political titles, the distinction between rank and authority. Ranking principles operate in different contexts and at different levels. Biersack notes the factors determining personal rank, the mother’s blood carrying more weight than the father’s, and titles that are associated with men. She examines duality in the Tu‘i Tonga origin myths and relates this to the kava ceremony, a complex symbol. She discusses the place of marriage in conferring status and in developing political capital, the most spectacular example being Taufa‘âhau, founder of the current dynasty as King George Tupou I. She concludes that the structure has no prescriptive rules. ‘What actors take up is not the system as such but the possibilities the system opens up.’
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Border-crossing in Tonga: marriage in the field Tamar Gordon. In Fieldwork and families: constructing new models for ethnographic research. Edited by Juliana Flinn, Leslie Marshall, Jocelyn Armstrong. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1998, pp.130–41
Gordon arrived in Tonga in 1982 to study religious and social change, particularly the impact of the Mormon church on Tongan national identity (item 275). She left in 1984 with a Tongan husband and an additional Tongan identity that changed many Tongans’ perceptions of her and her work. Through the family with whom she lived in Nuku‘alofa she was introduced to a language tutor whom she later married. She describes the difficulties of courtship in a culture that suppresses public intimacy, her relationships with his family both before and after the marriage, and how her dream of Tongan familial intimacy would never be realized despite efforts to ‘know’ his family in conventional Tongan fashion. Her fieldwork was also affected. Tongans in her research village could not understand why she was not with her husband in his village, and she was unable to develop close relationships with other
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married women. She reflects on what she calls ‘the naive encounters between myself and my Tongan in-laws’. What did her assimilation into a Tongan family mean for her identity as an anthropologist and a woman, and how possible is it to achieve authentic knowledge and ‘insiderhood’?
297 Brother/sister and gender relations in ancient and modern Tonga Futa Helu. Journal de la Société des Océanistes, nos. 100–01 (1995), pp.191–200 Helu presents, as a philosopher rather than as an anthropologist, an argument concerning the brother/sister opposition, which he believes has been misunderstood because of inadequate translations and the lack of a word for the nuclear family before European contact. European writers have failed to bring out the prime fact of Tongan society, that social customs are all based on group interests and must be seen through the eyes of sociopolitical advantage. All Tongan kinship terms are of this kind and the brother/sister rules must be grounded in this rather than in sexual or biological interests. He contests those anthropologists who have seen the power of the sister as mystical; this, he argues, is an effect of her role rather than a cause of it. He examines the division of labour in Tongan history, the role of women in producing articles of traditional wealth while men produced utilitarian objects, and the way in which Tongan society developed, noting women who exemplify how sisters become the principal ladder on which their tribes ascended in society. He sees Christian influence and the forces of modernization as attenuating the brother/sister relationship and women as moving out of their traditional roles, with Queen Sâlote epitomizing the abolition of the functional segregation of men and women. The phenomenon of the working couple is strengthening the emerging middle class.
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Captain Cook and the roots of precedence in Tonga: “leading” and “following” as naturalised concepts Arne Aleksej Perminow. History and Anthropology, vol. 12, no. 3 (2001), pp.289–314
In 1777 Captain Cook observed an ‘inasi ceremony, the annual tribute to the Tu‘i Tonga, but his description of the role of the Tu‘i Tonga’s young son seems to contradict the general association between social worth and patrilineal seniority. Perminow examines the views of scholars on this relationship of father and son, and identifies two ‘inasi ceremonies, one for immature and one for mature yams. Cook observed the first, at the beginning of the planting season, and by his presence threatened the sanctity of the ritual, in which is seen an analogy between the mature seed yam and the new yam crop and the Tu‘i Tonga and his offspring. Perminow sees concepts of ‘leading’ and ‘following’ as fundamental to Tongan concepts of natural growth as well as of social precedence. The quality of the kahokaho yam is that it leads the way, mirroring the social qualities of the Tu‘i Tonga, himself leading the way among men.
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Change in rank and status in the Polynesian Kingdom of Tonga Charles F. Urbanowicz. In Political anthropology: the state of the art. Edited by S. Lee Seaton, Henri J. M. Claessen. The Hague; Paris; New York: Mouton, 1979, pp.225–42
Neither research nor memory may give an accurate picture of precontact Tonga. Urbanowicz notes this as he outlines the four major titles of traditional Tonga, the three Tu‘i titles and the Tamaha, their respective roles, and the changes resulting from European contact. He examines the development of the concept of ‘eiki (chief), signifying noble birth but not always power, and the importance of consensus and flexibility through which power is held. Rank was possessed through birth; status could be achieved through marriage or skill in leadership or war. Urbanowicz shows the confusion of European observers who expected to find a coherent system and could not make sense of the complexity they found. He sees the early missionaries as setting Tongan against Tongan to achieve their ends, and destroying aboriginal Tongan culture in the process. In a following comment Claessen suggests that Urbanowicz may place too much reliance on 19th-century missionaries as trustworthy informants.
300 Changing roles for Tonga’s women Meleseini Faletau. Pacific Perspective, vol. 11, no. 2 (1983), pp.45–55 The author surveys the role and work of women in nineteen villages in Tongatapu, Ha‘apai and Vava‘u. She sets out the role of unmarried daughters, wives and mothers, grandmothers and sisters in household activities, the production of handicrafts and agriculture. She found that most women accept and enjoy their work and that 88 percent of husbands help their wives in household activities, but when men do not help or are overseas, then women often assume the role of both wife and head of family. Sixty-seven percent of women claim to organize family affairs and keep the family income. The problems they face include poor housing and, particularly, a poor water supply. Many male heads do not earn an adequate income and 72 percent of women help to generate income, mostly through handicrafts. Faletau concludes that their main needs are opportunities for employment, informal education and improved water supplies. The results of the survey are set out in eleven tables.
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Clothes in tradition: the ta‘ovala and kiekie as social text and aesthetic markers of custom and identity in contemporary Tongan society Jehanne Teilhet-Fisk. Pacific Arts, Part I, no. 5 (1992), pp.44–52; Part II, no. 6 (1992), pp.40–65
Distinctive to Tonga is the wearing of a waist garment as an institutionalized form of clothing over an individualized dress. These garments are of many types. Teilhet-Fisk asks why Tongans continue to wear this form of clothing, which serves no practical purpose. By examining the motives that govern their manufacture, the materials they are made of, when they are worn and their social context, she
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concludes that they are worn in an emblematic fashion that broadcasts messages denoting respect for societal rank, social status and national identity. She notes the pressure on Tongans in the 19th century to dress in the European way, the decline in the wearing of waist mats by the chiefly class until the 1950s, when Queen Sâlote encouraged the wearing of traditional garments as inspiring a collective sense of allegiance to and pride in Tonga. Teilhet-Fisk describes the weaving of mats and their use to form a ta‘ovala, and the more recent development of the kiekie, the value set on mats and the occasions on which they must be worn. She considers this revival of traditional dress in relation to movements towards democracy, and concludes by noting that Tongans perceive the wearing of the ta‘ovala as a way of binding their country around them.
302 The cost of custom: a recent funeral in Tonga Kerry James. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 111, no. 3 (2002), pp.223–38 Funeral expenses are among the heaviest burdens Tongans bear. James examines a small funeral in Nuku‘alofa to detail its costs and the ways in which customary obligations were met. She notes that what passes for immutable custom may be arbitrary, and that there is often dissension among participants. She sets out the social relations and obligations of those involved and observes how tradition has developed in novel ways, compounding issues of relative rank and status among family members.
303 Dealing with the dark side in the ethnography of childhood: child punishment in Tonga Helen Kavapalu. Oceania, vol. 63, no. 4 (1993), pp.313–29 In this paper Kavapalu (later Morton) sets out her first ideas about the harsh child punishment she observed in Tonga, and that later developed into her book Becoming Tongan (item 294). She records her own observations, discusses the concepts and goals of socialization in Tonga, and notes the association of punishment and love. She sees ambivalence towards punishment as part of a broader ambivalence towards hierarchical relationships, and a change in attitudes to physical punishment.
304 The development of marriage in Tonga Sela Fonua. The Pacific Journal of Theology, series II, no. 20 (1998), pp.85–94 Fonua describes traditional ideas of marriage in Tongan society, the polygamous life of the chiefs, and marriage ceremonies for chiefs and for commoners. Marriage was a form of social contract, an effective social control between families. She then considers the changes in Tongan society brought by the missionaries and their enforcement of monogamy. They may have swept away ideas of ownership and domination in marriage, but many of the helpful aspects of traditional Tongan ideas about marriage are retained, particularly the sense of community joy and
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participation. ‘The tradition has been redeemed, the culture has been sanctified,’ she concludes.
305 Developments in Polynesian ethnology Edited by Alan Howard, Robert Borofsky. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1980. 373pp. bibliog. Experienced researchers assess the state of Polynesian ethnology in the light of the large amount of work published in the 1970s and 1980s. This increasingly showed the diversity and flexibility of Polynesian social systems and in some areas, particularly the field of Polynesian origins, produced a completely new picture. Each contributor summarizes the research of the period, considers its significance and suggests new research themes for the future. The themes examined are prehistory (Patrick Kirch); social organization (Alan Howard and Judith Kirkpatrick); socialization and character development (James Ritchie and Jane Ritchie); mana and tapu (Bradd Shore); chieftainship (G. E. Marcus); art and aesthetics (Adrienne Kaeppler); the early contact period (Borofsky and Howard); and looking ahead (Howard). Tonga is featured throughout, particularly in the chapters written by specialists on Tonga (Kirch, Marcus and Kaeppler). The bibliography provides a comprehensive listing of the work of the period.
306 Effeminate males and changes in the construction of gender in Tonga Kerry E. James. Pacific Studies, vol. 17, no. 2 (1994), pp.39–69 Male effeminacy and transvestism are well known in Polynesia through the accounts of early travellers, though less so in Tonga. James updates the record. She examines the discontinuities between the tangata fakafefine (a man behaving like a woman) of former times, primarily having a preference for women’s work and company, and the modern fakaleitî (from the English ‘lady’) that refers to a much wider range of behaviour, Western-style transvestism and drag queen beauty contests and cabarets. She looks at the difficulties of constructing a viable identity as a Tongan male today, in contrast to the continuities of Tongan womanhood, and describes the playing out of sexual politics between men and women. She describes the fakaleitî of modern Tonga from her own observations and from what they have told her, and outlines the way they are brought up, live and behave. She notes that the annual drag queen contest (entitled, since this paper was written, Miss Galaxy) now attracts a larger audience than the Miss Heilala pageant, a beauty contest for women. She considers reasons for the recent increase in the numbers of fakaleitî, which some in Tonga have suggested may be related to the emigration of so many males, the lack of employment for many young males in Tonga, and employment in offices rather than on the land. For a subsequent treatment of this topic see Besnier (item 346).
307 Ethnographic research among elites in the Kingdom of Tonga: some methodological considerations
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George E. Marcus. Anthropological Quarterly, vol. 52, no. 3 (1979), pp.135–51
The concern of Marcus is to raise issues concerning the application of a standard ethnographic approach to elite research, and to define and describe the characteristics of the social structural domains from which old and new strategic elites have been recruited, which define the context of their formal and public activities. He describes the basis of his fieldwork, living in several households in Tonga between 1972 and 1975, and the assistance he received from Tongans in identifying both noble and commoner elite groups and understanding their concerns. He identified an elite social domain of fifty to sixty families, both commoner and noble, whose members had important positions in church and state. He considers how elites may be identified, the practical problems of where to live and how to observe them, and methods of collecting data.
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‘The father’s sister is black’: a consideration of female rank and power in Tonga Garth Rogers. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 86, no. 2 (1977), pp.157–82
Rogers examines the principle of ancient Tongan society, based on brother and sister who occupy distinct realms, the male line organizing power and utilitarian functions, and the female controlling more abstract honours. Cook observed the superior rank of the sister of the late king and Mariner observed that rank descended from the mother’s side. Rogers describes his paper as an exercise in speculative reconstruction, using fragmentary folk beliefs and observed contemporary customs to present a hypothesis about the status of women in Tongan society. He examines the relationship between fathers and mothers and their sons and daughters; between brothers and sisters; the authority of the father’s eldest sister in childbirth, marriages and funerals; and lineages and their representation in ceremonies. He sees Tongan kinship as a series of patrilines bisected by matrilines to demonstrate the power of the father’s sister who can, if crossed, be ‘black’. Melenaite Taumoefolau refutes some of Rogers’ arguments in an article of 1991 (item 319).
309 The female presence in heavenly places: myth and sovereignty in Tonga K. E. James. Oceania, vol. 61, no. 4 (1991), pp.287–308 James writes to counter the view that male rivalries are at the heart of Tongan culture and polity and that the myths of the origin of kingship and kava reveal oedipal and cannibalistic themes. She believes this obscures the centrality of the brother–sister relationship. She sees the female principle in the Tu‘i Tonga title as identified with the goddess Hikule‘o, whose myth relates directly to the kava ceremony. Further, the fundamental relationship in the Tongan polity is not expressly father/son but chief/subject, and the key to that is the relationship between sister and brother.
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Gender relations in Tonga: a paradigm shift K. E. James. In Tongan culture and history. Edited by Phyllis Herda, Jennifer Terrell, Niel Gunson. Canberra: The Journal of Pacific History, 1990, pp.93–100
James uses existing data, focusing specifically on gender relations, to question some previous formulations of the place of gender in the traditional Tongan sociopolitical order; conceptualizations of the kin group as both a corporate local group and as a synonym for a cognate kinship system; the basically Eurocentric notion of the ‘domestic’ sphere as opposed to the ‘political’ sphere; and a degree of over-formalization of Tongan systems in general. She examines the ways in which other scholars have seen the relationship between gender, rank and authority within the kin group, the different approaches to its definition, and the way in which it operated in Tongan history. Succession was not always patrilineal, while women produced the durable valuables—mats, oil and barkcloth—that were associated with their mystical powers.
311 Gender relations in Tonga, 1780–1984 Kerry James. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 92, no. 2 (1983), pp.233–43 James sets out a programme of research on prevailing and alternative structures of Tongan gender concepts, roles and relations, and their political and economic foundations. She sees gender dynamics, and Tongan Christianity in its various forms, as important for the understanding of recent social change in Tonga. She reviews the complementary roles of sister and brother, and examines various hypotheses about the position of women in society, their ritual superiority, their roles in the use and transmission of land and in disputes over succession to noble titles, their ability to earn cash and its effect on male authority, and their increasing entry into business and government. She considers how far respect for women justifies social behaviour, the critical factors for the attribution of gender and for notions of Tongan manhood, and how far newer values have influenced traditional ideals. Some of James’ subsequent writings (e.g., items 306, 309, 310, 354) embodied the results of the research agenda outlined here.
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God’s kingdom in Auckland: Tongan Christian dress and the expression of duty Ping-Ann Addo. In Clothing the Pacific. Edited by Chloe Colchester. Oxford and New York: Berg, 2003, pp.141–63
Contemporary formal Tongan dress assumes values inherent in Christianity and in the Tongan way of life. In Tonga dress expresses respect, duty and social conformity. Innovations among the Tongan diaspora do not generally involve a break with tradition but typically involve the elaboration of traditional forms. Addo describes dress among the 35,000 Tongans in Auckland, where at formal occasions indigenous barkcloth and woven mats are worn over tailored Western-style garments,
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and sees this as bridging the distance between Tonga and the Tongan diaspora. She describes traditional Tongan dress, examines changes during the missionary period, and shows how perceptions of the body, social rank and material wealth were interconnected. In Auckland clothing indicates cultural and religious devotion. Yet living in the diaspora gives access to modern fashions, so that people of lower rank may dress in the same way as their superiors. Secondhand modern-style clothing is sent back to Tonga for sale in the Saturday morning market (item 520), a rare occasion when the young in Tonga can wear such casual clothing. Addo describes the role of older women in Auckland in controlling Tongan cultural forms and clothing styles. Barkcloth designs are now transposed to cotton and viscose fabrics, and outfits made from them can now be seen as another version of traditional Tongan dress. Such innovations do not formally break with tradition, and still indicate the value of doing all one can to protect the bounty of the Tongan kingdom, wherever in the world one may live.
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Household composition in the Tonga islands: a question of options and alternatives Shulamit R. Decktor Korn. Journal of Anthropological Research, vol. 31, no. 3 (1975), pp.235–59.
The composition of Tongan households, Decktor Korn demonstrates, is best understood as the outcome of different ways of satisfying the material and social demands on the individuals and family groups who make up the households considered in relation to the resources available to them. She suggests that there is no consensus among Tongans on what constitutes the ideal household. From her survey of a village in Tongatapu she finds great variations in the numbers of family units in a household and fluctuations in its composition related to different ways of fulfilling demands on those who make it up. Households are flexible, as individuals come and go. She describes the relationships within one household in detail, and the resources that are needed if a household is to meet its own and its communal obligations: foodstuffs, fuel, taxes, church contributions, school fees and contributions to ceremonial obligations such as feasts, weddings and funerals. She sets out sources of income: mostly agricultural production, wage employment, sale of handicrafts and remittances from family overseas. If a family does not have access to land it may join another family that does. A man and wife will seek to establish their own household as soon as they can, and will seek to attract others who can contribute to it. As needs and resources change, people shift their household arrangements, which may not express norms regarding kinship. Finally, she considers the meaning of terms like ‘choice’ and ‘option’ in the Tongan context.
314 Identity and change in Tongan society since European contact Futa Helu. Journal de la Société des Océanistes, no. 97 (1993), pp.187–94 In this brief sketch of a complex topic, Helu considers the impact of external forces on social change in Tonga, first as exemplified in the kava ceremony. He describes
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the various types of kava ceremony. The formal kava ceremony is still strong, but he notes the development of informal kava clubs where an admission fee is charged, while other types of informal kava drinking have declined. This, he maintains, is a symptom of the monetarization of Tongan culture. He also sees the entry of libertarian–humanist values and bourgeois morality as outcomes of the rise of an intellectual elite and a middle class, alongside the increasing role of women in politics and business life. Forms of social organization, Helu claims, are also changing, consistent with the weakening of the subsistence economy and accelerating market sector development.
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Identity and development: Tongan culture, agriculture and the perenniality of the gift Paul van der Grijp. Leiden, the Netherlands: KITLV Press, 2004. 225pp. (Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor taal-, land- en volkenkunde, no. 213)
The aim of van der Grijp is to describe, understand and explain cultural and socioeconomic change in Tonga. Through detailed case studies of growers of squash (pumpkins) and vanilla as commercial export crops, he builds up a picture of the increasing commercialization of agriculture in Tonga and its effect on traditional Tongan culture and society. He places this in a historical and anthropological perspective, focusing on issues of identity, entrepreneurship and development.
316 Ideology and social inequality in the Tongan kinship system Paul van der Grijp. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, vol. 144, no. 4 (1988), pp.445–63 The author describes the various terms used by Tongans for kinship groupings, the relationships between members of a group living in one household, and the principles of social inequality. He examines the way in which kinship relations work through the generations, listing the Tongan terms for different relationships and setting out the appropriate behaviour between them. He considers the distinction between status and rank as exemplified in the ancestry of Queen Sâlote, and concludes that rank is a projection of the remote past to the present, while kinship status only goes back a few generations. Kinship status may apply in one situation, for instance a funeral, but not in another, and individuals may move flexibly between groups. But all Tongans, he believes, accept the distinction between commoners and chiefs as self-evident and necessary for the survival of Tongan society as a whole.
317 In search of a home Edited by Leonard Mason, Pat Hereniko. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies of the University of the South Pacific, 1987. 260pp. 10 maps Throughout the Pacific, islanders are on the move, both within and between countries, usually in search of better education for their children, land to grow crops for their own needs or for sale, and employment. This collection of case studies
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is particularly concerned with the land rights of migrants within the Pacific. Four concentrate on Tonga; land rights and lack of secure tenure are a problem in each case. Pesi Fonua examines a group of Fijians and Solomon Islanders living near Nuku‘alofa for over fifty years, some of whom have in turn emigrated to Australia and New Zealand and since returned. Though now largely intermarried with Tongans, they are still insecure. Lopeti Takau and Luiaki Fungalei describe a group settled in swampy land at Sopu that was devastated by a hurricane in 1982, and the government’s problems in attempting to resettle them on better land. Kisione Lua describes the effect that migration from the outer islands has had on Haveluloto, once a small and quiet village near Nuku‘alofa and now overcrowded, noisy and even increasingly affected by crime. Paulaki Langi examines some of the same problems in Ha‘ateiho, also near Nuku‘alofa, and suggests some ways to encourage people to stay in the outer islands, specifically by establishing secondary schools and industry in those islands, the forfeiture of unused land for redistribution, and the granting of unregistered land to people willing to farm it.
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The investiture of ‘Ulukalala VII: a moment in history Adrienne L. Kaeppler. In Oceanic culture history: essays in honour of Roger Green. Edited by Janet Davidson, Geoffrey Irwin, Foss Leach, Andrew Pawley, Dorothy Brown. Dunedin, New Zealand: New Zealand Journal of Archaeology, 1996, pp.475–89
In 1991 the king gave his youngest son the important chiefly title of ‘Ulukalala, which had been vacant since 1960, and Kaeppler observed the ceremony of investiture in Vava‘u. She explains why the title was right for him. An earlier holder of the title, ‘Ulukalala III, was an ancestor both of him and his wife, and he was the most appropriate of a number of candidates for the title. She explains the significance of the special old fine mats worn at the ceremony, the mats and tapa made for it, and the songs written. She describes the two parts of the ceremony, the presentations and the kava, and identifies it as ‘one of those rare moments in history when in the late 20th century it was possible to experience a purely Polynesian ritual’, which reflects the values of the society, the stratified societal structure on which it is based, and the political importance of land. She sees it as a ritual that helps to construct symbolic capital aesthetically. It remains to be seen, she concludes, how the new ‘Ulukalala conceives and conducts his role in Tongan society. Since this paper was published he became first, on the resignation of the crown prince, minister of foreign affairs and defence, and then prime minister in 1999, on the retirement of his father-in-law Baron Vaea. He has since resigned these offices. With the accession of his eldest brother as King George Tupou V, he is now Crown Prince Tupouto‘a Lavaka.
319 Is the father’s sister really ‘black’? Melenaite Taumoefolau. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 100, no. 1 (1991), pp.91–98
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In this short, technical paper the author shows that Rogers’ translation of the Tongan saying ‘The father’s sister is black’, upon which Rogers bases his paper (item 308) is incorrect and that, given the correct translation, the interpretation of ‘blackness’ as referring to mystical powers or to the power to curse can be eliminated. This power is not contained in the word but may be inferred from the implied greatness of the father’s sister. The paper demonstrates something of the syntactic and semantic structure of the saying.
320 Is there a Tongan middle class? Hierarchy and protest in contemporary Tonga Kerry James. The Contemporary Pacific, vol. 15, no. 2 (2003), pp.309–36 Marcus (item 290) and Bott (item 340) both used class definitions to describe a new, educated, bureaucratic elite, but the rise of the middle class in Tonga was first examined and analysed by Benguigui in 1989 (item 330). James questions the basis of his classifications, and observes that there are many middle-class people in Tonga but that they have not yet formed a class within a class-ordered society. She investigates links between social, economic, political and cultural orders that might then form a basis for mass democracy, and examines events that might be the concern of middle classes in Europe: the mass resignation of nurses in 1981, the pro-democracy movement of the 1980s, and other environmental and social concerns. She finds that none of these concerned class at all. The common factor in all protests has been the action of an educated elite and a large social underclass against what they see as the small, powerful upper class of traditional leaders and social superiors. She quotes from interviews with professional and skilled managerial men and women. Few seemed to think that a middle class existed. People still adhere to ties of family, locality, church and chiefs, and class does not satisfactorily explain the present tensions in Tonga.
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Islanders of the south: production, kinship and ideology in the Polynesian Kingdom of Tonga Paul van der Grijp. Leiden, the Netherlands: KITLV Press, 1993. 264pp. map. bibliog. (Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor taal-, land- en volkenkunde, no. 154)
The author is concerned with the way in which social labour is employed in the use of tools, skills, organization and knowledge in order to ‘transform nature into products’ to meet material and social needs, relating this to wider anthropological theory. He describes contemporary Tongan society (his fieldwork was done between 1982 and 1991) and the main means of subsistence: agriculture, fishing and manufacturing. He analyses the kinship system with its economic, political and ideological dimensions, and describes Tongan attitudes to life, death, marriage and divorce, social rights and the effects on Tonga of modern capitalism, and sees an ambivalence in the view of this as progress, since much that seems to be modern and capitalist relates to traditional concepts and practices.
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The kingly-populist divergence in Tongan and Western Samoan chiefly systems Robert W. Franco. In Chiefs today: traditional Pacific leadership and the postcolonial state. Edited by Geoffrey M. White, Lamont Lindstrom. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1977, pp.71–83 (East-West Center Series on Contemporary Issues in Asia and the Pacific)
Franco describes the sorts of chiefly systems of Western Samoa and Tonga, seen in local and regional terms, before European contact, the state of these systems at independence, and the global factors that influence them today. He then examines the impact of the kingly–populist divergence on Tongan and Samoan overseas communities. Samoan migrants, he indicates, tend to send money back to support the noble system, while Tongan migrants keep their remittances distinct from the kingly–noble system that they have left. However they continue to derive cultural and national identity from the person and position of the king.
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Kinship organisation and behaviour in a contemporary Tongan village Machiko Aoyagi. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 75, no. 2 (1966), pp.141–76
After a period in 1962–63 spent living in a Tongan village, Aoyagi examines within what sort of kinship network people live in rural Tonga, and how they behave in such a network. She describes the inhabitants of the village, their age structure, land- holding and occupations in agriculture and fishing. She maps and analyses thirtyfive households, the number of people in each and support for the elderly and for children. She places them within the context of their family and kinship organization and their church affiliation. She observes the norms of kinship behaviour between parents and children, brothers and sisters and others, and how this operates in, for instance, the giving of names and in behaviour at weddings and funerals. Her aim is to provide a description rather than a theoretical analysis, but she concludes by reviewing some of the literature on ranking and lineage, and relating it to what she has observed.
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Kinship to kingship: gender hierarchy and state formation in the Tongan islands Christine Ward Gailey. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1987. 326pp. 2 maps. bibliog. (Texas Press Sourcebooks in Anthropology, no. 14)
Gailey believes it to be generally the case that women’s authority and status necessarily decline with class and state formation. She sees a conflict between producers, working for subsistence, and civil authority, protecting the classes that siphon off goods and labour. This is the background for her analysis of the history of women in Tonga, once the only creators of wealth through the valuable objects they produced—mats, tapa cloth and baskets. She examines in great detail gender and kinship relations in precontact Tonga, the activities of missionaries and traders, the
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development of the unified state under King George Tupou I, and the effect of all these factors in Tonga as well as on documentary sources. Her appendix on ‘sources and methods’ offers a valuable summary of oral and written materials for the history of Tonga generally.
325 Land tenure and social organisation in Tonga R. R. Nayacakalou. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 68, no. 2 (1959), pp.93–114 Nayacakalou points out the individualistic as well as communalistic aspects of land tenure in Tonga, examining the role of lineage organization through which landlords grant lands to their subjects as individual tenants, with no communal ownership in the generally accepted sense. He sets out the statutory framework as it existed at the time he was writing, surveys a sample village and its lands, explains how an ‘api (homestead) is acquired and village lands distributed, land use and the way in which labour may be called upon, and examines the relationship of kinship and land use. He finds that, in the village surveyed, kinship is supplanted by other ties, including economic and religious. His conclusion is that at that stage of economic development the land tenure system had certain social advantages that outweighed its economic weakness.
326 The long way home: dilemmas of everyday life in a Tongan village Arne Aleksej Perminow. Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1993. 166pp. 3 maps. bibliog. Perminow’s study of an island in the Ha‘apai group focuses on the process by which an individual is made into and kept as a member of society, and remains part of or becomes alienated from a particular culture. He examines particularly the situation of young people struggling to learn and decide who and what to be; they, he believes, are no longer children living in a controlled world of limited access to alternatives. He introduces the community through a day in the life of a child, examines the attraction of migration to Nuku‘alofa for older members of the family, and tells the story of three young men who left the island to train as evangelists and teach the dangers of alcohol and of the impure life of the city generally. This is contrasted with the Tongan way of drinking kava and all that it symbolizes about the nature of Tongan life, society and relationships generally. There are many vivid accounts of directly-observed behaviour.
327 Marriage in Tonga E. E. V. Collocott. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 32, no. 128 (1923), pp.221–28 Collocott describes the traditional Tongan marriage ceremony, following the service in church: the anointing of the bride and bridegroom with scented oil and dressing in fine mats and cloth; the bringing of the bride to the bridegroom’s home; the changing of clothes; the preparation and drinking of kava; and the
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distribution of food and other gifts. Traditional marriages in Tonga today still retain many of these elements. He also surveys the records of other older marriage customs.
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Me‘a faka‘eiki: Tongan funerals in a changing society Adrienne L. Kaeppler. In The changing Pacific: essays in honour of H. E. Maude. Edited by Niel Gunson. Melbourne, Australia; Oxford; Wellington; New York: Oxford University Press, 1978, pp.174–202
‘A man becomes a chief when he dies’, is the English translation of the Tongan proverb in the title. At a funeral a public record is made of how the deceased was related to others, his dignity, rank and how much and by whom he was loved. Kaeppler shows the importance of funerals in the perpetuation and evolution of Tongan social and cultural traditions, and describes and analyses in detail the funeral of Queen Sâlote Tupou III in 1965, demonstrating how the ranking of mourners relative to her affected their role, their behaviour and even their dress. Kaeppler further outlines the difficulty in reconciling the retention of Polynesian values with Western ideas of a money-based economy, personal achievement and the nuclear family, shown in changing funeral practices, and warns of the danger of adapting Western values while conjuring up a spurious form of tradition for tourists. She shows how much the funeral reveals of the real Tonga.
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Men are from Maama, women are from Pulotu: female status in Tongan society M. Filihia. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 110, no. 4 (2001), pp.377–90
Filihia notes that ethnographers and anthropologists have been unable to explain the privileged status of women in Tonga. She shows that the Tongan cosmogonic legend provides a mythological foundation. Pulotu, the world of the spirits, held in awe but little understood, was the source of the sacred yam and of fire and water, chiefly things. Above all, women came from Pulotu, and are thus chiefly, as Puloto was chiefly to Maama, the earth and the source of men. Thus descent today from a female will always have higher status than from a male. Filihia considers the implications of this in the role of women today, in family events and particularly at funerals, where women demonstrate their capacity either to build up life or to destroy it. Though submissive to their husbands, their rank is passed to their children.
330 The middle classes in Tonga Georges Benguigui. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 98, no. 4 (1989), pp.451–63 Benguigui examines the implications for the class structure of Tonga of what he calls the ‘development-and-overseas oriented policy’ instituted by King Taufa‘âhau
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Tupou IV after the death of Queen Sâlote. These policies included the encouragement of migration as a response to demographic pressure; the development of tourism; the establishment of light industries; the institution of large infrastructure projects financed by overseas aid; and the improvement of education so that many positions formerly held by foreigners could be held by Tongans. He describes social stratification in Tonga, the development of middle class and professional behaviour, and its implications in the political and cultural areas. He concludes that the state, which is closely involved in much economic activity, plays a key role in the generation of middle classes in Tonga as elsewhere.
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The Miss Heilala beauty pageant: where beauty is more than skin deep Jehanne Teilhet-Fisk. In Beauty queens on the global stage: gender, contests and power. Edited by Colleen Ballerino Cohen, Richard Wilk, Beverly Stoeltje. New York; London: Routledge, 1996, pp.185–202
The Heilala Festival, a week of cultural events, developed as a celebration of the late king’s birthday in July, to promote tourism and to instill pride in ‘the Tongan way.’ Its focal point is the Miss Heilala beauty pageant. Teilhet-Fisk examines the complex political and cultural meanings that are put into play around different perceptions of beauty. She identifies tensions and conflicts between traditional Tongan standards of behaviour and what constitutes beauty, and those held by expatriate Tongans with global standards who return to Tonga for the contest. She describes the 1993 festival, which she witnessed, noting the way in which it reflects and questions social hierarchy and rearranges social relations. She examines Tongan concepts of female beauty. Displaying the female body in western-style swimwear conflicts with Tongan concepts of modesty and appropriate behaviour. She concludes that the pageant works because expatriates and locals can compete on broadly the same basis. The Tongan details allow the locals to accept the form, while vesting the whole with real relevance to their culture. She does not consider how much some of the views on the display of the body might have come from 19th-century missionaries rather than from traditional Tongan culture.
332 Neither black nor white: the father’s sister in Tonga Françoise Douaire-Marsaudon. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 105, no. 2 (1996), pp.139–64 The place and role of the father’s sister in Western Polynesia has long aroused the interest of anthropologists (see items 308 and 319) and is probably among the most original features of the area. She is seen as having a negative ‘black’ power to curse, to compensate for her exclusion from the transmission of title and land. The author examines the core brother–sister relationship, showing its role in the sociocosmological order as a whole, taking examples from her own fieldwork and demonstrating a singular continuity between past and present on this topic in Tonga, despite many changes.
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The nobility and the chiefly tradition in the modern Kingdom of Tonga George E. Marcus. Wellington: The Polynesian Society, 1980. 170pp. bibliog. (Memoir, no. 42)
Tonga, Marcus observes, is the only contemporary Polynesian society to have retained a traditional king and group of titled nobles. Under the Constitution nobles exist within both Western-style institutions and surviving elements of precontact culture. Marcus’ study of chiefly culture focuses on the ideology and place of the nobility in modern Tongan social organization. He describes the concept of the chief in precontact Tonga, how status was acquired, and how it is still maintained and exhibited. The holders of the thirty-three noble titles established under the 1875 Constitution acquired functions in government to complement their traditional roles. Marcus depicts their role in the transmission of chiefly traditions in modern Tonga, their legal position, their life in its present social context and their relation to church and state, education and family. He provides three vivid case studies of what he calls ‘gentry nobles’, living a more traditional life on their estates in contrast to elite town-dwelling nobles, each of these having different views on how honour is demonstrated within the chiefly tradition. He concludes that chiefly culture persists, that the fate of the nobility is linked ever more closely with the monarchy through strategic marriages, and that flexibility will be necessary for the system’s survival.
334 ‘Ofa! the treasure of Tonga S. Langi Kavaliku. Pacific Perspective, vol. 6, no. 2 (1977), pp.47–67 Kavaliku, at the time of writing minister of education in Tonga, examines the concept of ‘ofa within its setting in Tongan society. ‘Ofa is broadly defined as ‘love’ and Tongans see it as the main characteristic feature of their society, the supreme justification for their behaviour. It is a concept experienced rather than analysed. Kavaliku looks at examples of feelings of warmth, pity, respect and admiration as aspects of ‘ofa. In it are elements of sadness, kindness, concern, hope, practical care and help, sexual love and sharing. All these he illustrates from literature and from his personal experience. He believes that ‘ofa not only includes all these qualities but also indicates the relationship between people using the term, and that it is used to explain anything whose end result is positive. He quotes a Tongan saying, ‘The life of Tonga is ‘ofa’, and concludes that any study of Tongan society needs an understanding of ‘ofa.
335 On female presences and absences in heavenly places Valerio Valeri. Oceania, vol. 65, no. 1 (1994), pp.75–92 This is a technical contribution, in part in psychological terms, to a complex debate about the role of male and female in Tongan society, particularly as exemplified in the kava ceremony, which is sacrificially representative of how ‘Aho‘eitu became the first Tu‘i Tonga. His myth displays at times oedipal symbolism as it
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represents conflict between father and son. Valeri emphasizes the predominantly male relationships in the titular system and asserts that, even if the father is absent in the early development of the child, the relationship is still important. The basis of authority in ancient Tonga, the titular system, was wholly framed in a paternal idiom with the Tu‘i Tonga as the sacred father of the whole nation. Valeri is unconvinced by arguments against the presence of oedipal themes in some of the myths. He sees the myths as using universals of human experience, found in Tonga as elsewhere, for particular purposes, and the challenge of the kava bowl lies in the intertwining of tensions between male-dominated title and female-dominated rank. In a ‘Reply’ that immediately follows (pp.92–93) Kerry James, whose views Valeri has been disputing, states that Valeri’s use of sources is not always correct, and that he has not addressed the crucial question of the implications of his view that the symbolism of the kava bowl enabled men to ‘make’ kings without the intervention of women.
336 Pangai—village in Tonga Ernest Beaglehole, Pearl Beaglehole. Wellington: The Polynesian Society, 1941. 145pp. 2 maps (Memoirs of the Polynesian Society, vol. 18) The Beagleholes spent seven weeks in Pangai, Vava‘u, in 1938–39 and produced the first, and still often-quoted, detailed study of a Tongan village from the inside. They did not claim their study was exhaustive, nor did they draw any general conclusions; however, they gave a vivid description of the day-to-day life of a Tongan village of that time, covering its largely subsistence economy. They describe the village’s land system; the organization of labour; agriculture; food preparation and consumption; social life within the household and relations between kin; the life cycle from pregnancy and birth to death; medicine; kava; crime; and religion. They see their village as a well-integrated blend of the old and the new and ponder questions of crosscultural contact and influence.
337 Persistence of the gift: Tongan tradition in transnational context Mike Evans. Waterloo, Ontario, Canada: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2001. 208pp. map. bibliog. From his fieldwork on the island of Ha‘ano in the north of the Ha‘apai group, Evans seeks to establish how far traditional Tongan social values remain important in a changing kingdom and changing world. The population has fallen sharply through emigration both to Tongatapu and overseas. Evans presents and analyses Ha‘ano’s social structure and organization, in light of European contact, and its primarily subsistence economy with its land tenure, distribution and use, its fishing, its traditional crafts and the impact of remittances from kin overseas. He sets all of this within the context of gift exchange and ceremony, which remain at the heart of Tongan life and values. Much of the income from remittances is used for gift exchange rather than for consumption. He finds that Tonga has not become, as some have claimed, a cash economy, at least as demonstrated by Ha‘ano. Dispersed kin
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play their part in the pursuit of economic goals firmly rooted in gift exchange and non-commoditized social relationships.
338
A Polynesian village: the process of change in the village of Hoi, Tonga Penisimani Tupouniua. Suva: South Pacific Social Science Association, 1977. 70pp. 2 maps. bibliog.
Tupouniua examines the life of Hoi, a small village in Tongatapu, continuing the tradition of village studies begun by the Beagleholes in Vava‘u in 1941 (item 336). This is a briefer sketch than theirs. He describes the setting of the village and its population; socioeconomic change through the changing role of the household and the rise of the cash economy; economic changes in production and distribution; and the role of church and school. He finds that the people of Hoi are conservative over custom and tradition, selective and often resistant to change, but that they realize they can no longer stay isolated; they hope that they can absorb change without disruption.
339 Power and personhood in Tonga Helen Kavapalu. Social Analysis, no. 37 (1995), pp.15–28 Kavapalu examines the notion of person and self in Tonga from the perspective of childhood socialization and notions of ideal personhood in relation to the strongly hierarchical nature of Tongan society. She discusses Tongan theories of childhood development and the conflicting messages that Tongans receive about ideals of personhood, and briefly considers family and political changes taking place in modern Tonga. She finds that Tongans learn from childhood to alter their presentation of self according to context. Child socialization is inherently political and children learn to shift between high and low status behaviour, although the fundamental dichotomy between chief and commoner is nowadays being weakened and the hierarchical nature of Tongan society called into question. As with her paper on child punishment (item 303), Kavapalu develops material from this paper more fully, writing as Helen Morton did, in her book Becoming Tongan (item 294).
340 Power and rank in the Kingdom of Tonga Elizabeth Bott. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 90, no. 1 (1981), pp.7–81 Bott discusses the interplay of rank and power in the traditional political and social systems of Tonga and their partial transformation, under modern political and economic conditions, into a system of socioeconomic classes similar to those of Western society, with a ruling elite of aristocratic nobles, a set of nobles of much lower rank, a variegated middle class and a peasantry. She considers that class is emerging and the traditional system of stratification weakening under the pressures of land shortage, overseas employment and the desire for Western goods. Education too has
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played its part. Yet twenty-five years later class has by no means replaced rank. Her claim that political, economic, educational and religious developments in the last 150 years have changed the Tongan system of stratification so that it now resembles a system of social class may be overstated at this stage. Rank still seems to matter in Tonga. Like Bott’s other work (item 356), this was greatly assisted by discussions with Queen Sâlote Tupou, alongside Bott’s close observation of Tongan society at both the domestic and political level.
341 Power on the extreme periphery: the perspective of Tongan elites in the modern world system George E. Marcus. Pacific Viewpoint, vol. 22, no. 1 (1981), pp.48–64 In world system terms, Polynesia is on the extreme periphery. Marcus examines the degree to which Tongan elites can be seen in relation to European concepts. He notes that long-term migration with large overseas Tongan communities may give even a home-based elite a view of a set of international possibilities. He believes that Tongan elite formation has depended on the development of international family networks. Elite Tongans are able to convert this into position and personal power, accentuated by the small scale of Tongan society. Marcus describes recent developments in overseas networks, and the roles of an old and a new elite, both in Tonga and overseas, through particular families, in the context of the then king’s desire to attract foreign capital for investment.
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Putting down sisters and wives: Tongan women and colonization Christine Ward Gailey. In Women and colonization: anthropological perspectives. Edited by Mona Etienne, Eleanor Leacock. New York: Praeger, 1980, pp.294–322
Gailey contends that before there was any significant European presence in Tonga, Tongan chiefly women had means of support independent of their husbands. There was no fixed gender hierarchy; both chiefly and non-chiefly women had sources of authority and relative autonomy not dependent on personal attributes; and Tongan chiefly women were chiefly first. Gailey examines processes of production and the role of wives and mothers in the structure of society, noting particularly the relationship of men’s and women’s labour and products. She then considers changes during the European experience, arguing that Tongan women have lost important sources of structural authority and autonomy through a combination of missionary zeal, the institution of production for exchange, the introduction of cloth and other European commodities, the revision and codifying of customary inheritance and land use arrangements, and the creation of a civil sphere especially associated with chiefly men. These processes have restricted women’s authority as sisters and redefined their role as wives in such a way as to bring them into structural and economic dependency. This is an early version of a view of the role of women in Tongan society that Gailey developed in subsequent writings (items 324 and 521).
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Rank and leadership in Tonga Kerry James. In Chiefs today: traditional Pacific leadership and the postcolonial state. Edited by Geoffrey M. White, Lamont Lindstrom. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1997, pp.49–70 (East-West Center Series on Contemporary Issues in Asia and the Pacific)
All cabinet ministers in Tonga are regarded as chiefs, whether of noble birth or not, but not all chiefs are regarded as effective leaders by the people, especially if they neither sit in Parliament nor take an active interest in their people. Both civic and household order is strongly hierarchical. James considers the notion of chiefliness in Tonga, which most people still wish to retain. She describes the old chiefly system and the creation of the new nobility by the 1875 Constitution. She notes that the children of nobles are increasingly obtaining good educational qualifications, and examines the role of nobles today, some resident on their estates and some absentee. She considers alternate role models, and relates the legitimization of their authority to the new pro-democracy movement. Unless the chiefs carve out niches for themselves in the private sector, they may well find that their functions become merely ritual and ceremonial. She concludes that the new entrepreneurs and reformers do not want to replace their unique system, but want to be able to trust and respect it.
344 Rank in Tonga Adrienne L. Kaeppler. Ethnology, vol. X, no. 2 (1971), pp.174–93 In this classic and much-cited paper, based more on her own fieldwork than on published sources, Kaeppler examines the major forms of kinship groupings in Tonga. She sets out and defines the different categories of societal ranking and the behaviour expected between each grouping, their origins in myth and history, and their working out in the ancestry of the then king. She sees Tonga as characterized by having multidimensional ranking, and the dimensions do not all fit into one pattern. She sees signs of change at the time of her fieldwork, with highly-educated commoners not satisfied to take a rear seat to those of high birth whom they feel to be intellectually inferior. Yet she doubts that Tonga will cease to be a rank-oriented society, though the principle of rank may shift to a greater emphasis on achievement, and she believes it likely ‘not too far in the future’ that real political power will be in the hands of nontraditional leaders operating new principles of rank. Over thirty-five years later this is only now beginning to happen, with the recent appointment of the first prime minister neither royal nor noble.
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Role distance in conversations between Tongan nobles and their ‘people’ George E. Marcus. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 89, no. 4 (1980), pp.435–53
Though Tonga is a highly stratified society, Marcus found instances of nobles holding their nobility apart and engaging casually in ordinary conversations with
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commoners, usually in the context of informal kava drinking sessions. He sees nobles as having to bear a burden of role playing and these instances as occasions when the relative discrepancy between a noble’s chiefly person and office is mutually established for himself and his people. Only a few nobles embody unambiguous substance as chiefs; others are common men without chiefly substance who hold noble titles, or are formally separated from the commoner population by their titles and offices, but are of ambiguous chiefly substance. Some live on their estates, but many live in Nuku‘alofa and only visit them. Marcus describes their behaviour and that of their people in various situations to show the different degrees to which nobles can interact socially with their people, and reflects on its significance for the role of the nobles generally in modern Tonga. A slightly revised version of this paper was published in Dangerous words: language and politics in the Pacific, edited by Donald Lawrence Brenneis and Fred R. Myers (London; New York: New York University Press, 1984, pp.243–65).
346 Sluts and superwomen: the politics of gender liminality in urban Tonga Niko Besnier. Ethnos, vol. 52, nos. 1–2 (1997), pp.5–31 In Tonga some men identify themselves and are identified by others as taking on some attributes of womanhood on a regular basis. Many are associated with domestic social spheres and do work normally associated with women. They occupy various places in the socioeconomic structure and moral order. Some are highly productive in the market economy; others are principally concerned with casual sex relations and are branded as unproductive consumers. This is the more frequent stereotype. Besnier analyses the ethnographic diversity of transgendered relationships, the way in which symbolic and material forces relate in defining these identities, and the power of stereotyping in the lives of those on whom these forces play. He describes the very different lifestyles and achievements of two such men, occupying opposite poles in the range of possible identities. Some similar and related ground is covered by James (item 306).
347 Some economic aspects of kâinga ‘I. F. Helu. In Critical essays: cultural perspectives from the South Seas. Canberra: The Journal of Pacific History, 1999, pp.192–98 The kâinga (kinship group) is central to Tongan social organization. Helu points out that the word is made up of two particles, ‘eat’ and ‘place for’ or ‘recipient’. The root meaning was a local production and consumption unit. In modern practice the term has two meanings. The first is a unit built around a chief comprised of a number of extended families, all ‘relatives’ to the chief in some way. Helu describes its work and duties, with produce distributed by the conventions of the chiefs. The second is the extended family, made up of single households or nuclear families. Helu considers how the kâinga in both senses may have developed, and changes at the present time in its structures and in its role in the distribution of resources.
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State formation, development and social change in Tonga Christine Ward Gailey. In Social change in the Pacific islands. Edited by Albert B. Robillard. London; New York: Kegan Paul International, 1982, pp.322–45
Gailey presents a view of Tongan social and political dynamics before and since European contact, focusing on changes in the form and content of social strata, land tenure, gender roles and the relations of production and societal reproduction. The papers in this volume are written from a neo-Marxist viewpoint and Gailey, in a complex thesis for specialists in political economy, contrasts her approach to class and state formation with a conventional national agenda among the elite. The crystallization of class and a kingdom in the 19th century, she argues, had profound effects on the structure of Tongan society in all its aspects. Changes in gender roles, the development of a cash economy and the role of migration are seen as particularly important. Classes, she observes, are still forming and the state is in flux. Her earlier work, Kinship to kingship: gender hierarchy and state formation in the Tongan islands (item 324), provides a fuller treatment of this theme.
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Succession disputes and the position of the nobility in modern Tonga George E. Marcus. Oceania, vol. 47, no. 3 (1977), pp.220–45; vol. 47, no. 4 (1977), pp.284–99
The nobles of Tonga, created by King George Tupou I from the old chiefly establishment in the 1875 Constitution, have been seen as anachronistic and conservative. But, although fixed and rigid in principle, the nobility has been characterized by a degree of fluidity and has shown flexibility and accommodation in response to modernizing and liberating changes. Marcus examines the public litigation of modern succession disputes and discusses what these indicate about the position of the nobility in modern Tongan society. He analyses in detail some cases that raise issues relating to the traditional legitimacy not only of the nobility but also of the present dynasty itself in light of some irregular appointments made by King George Tupou I and King George Tupou II, and demonstrates the historical ambiguity concerning the nobility. He sees these cases as raising important issues relating to the relationship of the monarch to law and legal process, relationships between noble kin groups, and the overall status of the nobility in contemporary society. These demonstrate that the privileged sector of society, the nobility, has been thoroughly infiltrated by socially levelling and individualizing forces, within what Marcus calls ‘the westernizing trends of the post-1875 compromise culture in Tonga’.
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Through the eyes of a child: a gaze more pure? Barbara Burns McGrath. In Fieldwork and families: constructing new models for ethnographic research. Edited by Juliana Flinn, Leslie Marshall, Jocelyn Armstrong. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1998, pp.60–70
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Good enthnography, McGrath states, requires assimilation into another culture and the sacrifice of aspects of one’s own, and the ideal fieldworker is a tabula rasa. She reflects on the part her own family played in her attempts at representing cultural beliefs of Tongans. She lived in Tongatapu with her husband, son and two daughters, while studying the decision-making process regarding illness and dying (item 428), and she found that being part of an established social group of mothers helped to establish access and respect. Also her children gave her new insights concerning Tongans’ relations with their spirits.
351 Tonga and Samoa: images of gender and polity Edited by Judith Huntsman. Christchurch, New Zealand: Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, University of Canterbury, 1995. 122pp. bibliog. Four scholars provide essays on the past and present of Tonga and Samoa, throwing light on past relationships and presenting points of divergence. In ‘Hierarchy and the prerogatives of history-making in Tonga’ (pp.37–55) Phyllis Herda challenges assumptions about Tonga’s past as homogeneous and rigidly stratified. She sees a degree of fluidity and examines how this was and is expressed in oral narrative, with a modern reordering and refocussing of themes that is fully in keeping with Tongan notions of history and oral traditions. The ‘truth’ of the Tongan past, she believes, lies in the integrity of its many versions. The paper by Kerry James, ‘“Rank overrules everything”; Hierarchy, social stratification and gender in Tonga’ (pp.59–81) is a revised version of her paper in Social Analysis (item 354), in which she examines how what is seen as true Tongan custom has developed and remains valid. Both Herda and James connect and contrast the past and the present, and suggest that Tongan society is now more rigidly ranked and centralised than it was, with scholars modelling the past on the present.
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Tongan adoption Keith L. Morton. In Transactions in kinship: adoption and fostering in Oceania. Edited by Ivan Brady. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1976, pp.64–80 (ASAO Monograph, no. 4)
Morton defines adoption in Tonga as a specific formal process within the kinship system that both creates new kin relationships and redefines kinship networks; it is goal-directed kinship behaviour. His data came from a survey of almost all households in one village in Tongatapu, where the dominant form is the nuclear family joined into kinship groups. Nearly all Tongans have had some experience of adoption, either directly or indirectly, but few adoptions are formally sanctioned through the courts. There are two types: ‘the adoption of non-kinsmen’ and ‘the adoption of consanguines’, the latter being much more frequent. Morton describes the procedures for adoption, usually initiated by adopters rather than parents, and usually closely connected with achieving adult status. Most parents are willing to assist kinsmen who wish to adopt. Morton explains the respective roles of mother’s and father’s kinsmen and notes that grandparent–grandchild adoption is quite common,
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but only after the natural parents agree to relinquish their rights. Generally speaking, adoptees benefit from adoption because it enlarges the network of their close kin and gives the advantage of reckoning kinship status either from natural or adoptive parents; this expands and reinforces their access to strategic resources.
353 Tongan kin groups: the noble and the common view Shulamit R. Decktor Korn. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 83, no. 1 (1974), pp.5–13 Korn notes that most Polynesian specialists focus on the upper classes of society and on political leaders. She brings together kinship in its rank aspect and kinship operating at a local level. Her concern is to describe the more important types of kin groups and to differentiate their scope of operation. She examines the ha‘a, a network based on groupings of chiefly titles, membership in which is a claim to high rank. She relates this to smaller household and family groups, and compares their nature and function. She concludes that a noble view is a faulty basis for generalizing about an entire society.
354 Tongan rank revisited: religious hierarchy, social stratification, and gender in ancient Tongan polity Kerry James. Social Analysis, no. 31 (July 1992), pp.79–102 James takes as her text a statement by Queen Sâlote, ‘Rank overrules everything’. She posits that rank is best conceptualized in terms of an underlying cosmic hierarchy, which bears only a problematic relationship to the principles underlying external forms of social stratification. She believes the underlying structure of social differentiation in Tonga has long eluded observers. Tonga is one of the most stratified societies in Polynesia, yet has systems of rank and power that are contradictory. Rank ascribed by birth, power achieved in performance and authority vested in titles overlap. But, if seen in terms of religious hierarchy, rank can be conceptualized as the primary value that encompasses all others. James examines this, and the way in which it has been understood by modern scholars, in considerable detail. She sees mana, the mysterious power derived from the gods, to be clearly associated with high rank, and as distinct from pule, political power. She considers how this hierarchy was worked out in Tongan myth and history, particularly in the last century with the coming of Christianity. It is remarkable, she notes, that so many ideas and practices, having their roots in the old religious hierarchy, still have such salience in Tonga.
355 Tongan society Edward Winslow Gifford. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: Bernice P. Bishop Museum, 1929. 366pp. map. bibliog. (Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin 61) Gifford refers to Mariner (item 69), over a century earlier, as providing the most extensive and accurate account of Tongan society until his time, and advises his readers to consult Mariner for further information. He notes a surprising similarity
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between his account and Mariner’s. Nevertheless his work, based on a visit to Tonga in 1920–21, marks the first attempt to provide a scholarly and systematic study. His range is wide, covering population; the family; the lineages of the royal and chiefly lines; social structure and organization; kava; land tenure; law; the major events of life (birth, marriage and death); warfare; entertainment; names; religion and more. In many respects scholars have since developed or questioned his account and doubts have been cast on the accuracy of some of his information. But still, the work remains the classic introduction to the subject, the point from which further work must begin.
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Tongan society at the time of Captain Cook’s visits: discussions with Her Majesty Queen Sâlote Tupou Elizabeth Bott with the assistance of Tavi. Wellington: The Polynesian Society, 1982. 187pp. bibliog. (Memoir, no. 44)
Bott’s study of the historical basis of Tongan society, although undertaken and originally written in the late 1950s, remains the foundation of much work since. Her aim was to describe the social and political organization of Tonga as visited by Cook in the 1770s. In this she had the unique assistance of Queen Sâlote Tupou. Bott describes Cook’s experience of Tonga before giving a generalized account of Tongan political and social organization based on her own observations in Tonga as well as information from Tongans. Finally she describes the events—largely as expressed in myths, legends, traditions and genealogies—that are thought by Tongans to have led to the form of Tongan society that Cook observed. In all this, Queen Sâlote Tupou was able to add much interpretation and explanation, passed down through her own family and developed through her long reign, though Bott admits that the picture is somewhat idealized. The work was originally written as a private report to the queen and the government of Tonga, and was published many years later after a further visit to Tonga to review and check the paper.
357 Transgenderism, locality and the Miss Galaxy beauty pageant in Tonga Niko Besnier. American Ethnologist, vol. 29, no. 3 (2002), pp.534–66 Beginning in the early 1990s, the Miss Galaxy beauty pageant has become an extravagant, glamorous and increasingly popular show for transgendered males, fakaleitî, particularly those poorer and of lower rank. Besnier, developing his earlier paper (item 346) seeks to identify the social, economic, symbolic, performative and linguistic dynamics that constitute their lives and experiences, and the interplay of local and global forces. Whereas participants in the Miss Heilala pageant are expected to perform dignified and locally grounded versions of Tonganness, as examined by Teilhet-Fisk (item 331), Miss Galaxy participants make every effort to do the opposite—non-local, cosmopolitan, modern, using English rather than Tongan, and displaying broad humour and sometimes outrageous behaviour. He considers the identity and experience of fakaleitîs, both within Tonga and overseas, with their
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many tensions. At root, despite its cosmopolitan expression, the Miss Galaxy pageant belongs to a festival designed to celebrate Tongan identity and does not mean giving up one’s place in it, though a leitî may have opportunities to dislocate from the constraints of Tongan society. Further, most adamantly reject any connection with Western gay and lesbian identities.
358
Under the toa tree: the genealogy of the Tongan chiefs Aletta Biersack. In Culture and history in the Pacific. Edited by Jukka Siikala. Helsinki: The Finnish Anthropological Society, 1990, pp.80–106. (Transactions, no. 27)
Biersack examines the dualistic foundations of Tongan kinship by way of exploring the historicity of the Tongan polity. While paramounts descended ‘from the sky’ they were also kinsmen of the villagers and people living under them, and the terms of sovereignty needed to be negotiated. She interprets the 19th-century revolution when Taufa‘âhau, a secondary chief, suppressed the Tu‘i Tonga title of his superior and created a superordinate one, and examines Queen Sâlote’s strategies for defending and celebrating the conquests and reforms of the 19th century. Biersack sets out the founding legends of the Tu‘i Tonga, both divine and human, his role in Tongan society, and the history of the title. She relates this to Queen Sâlote’s definition of what constitutes a ‘good chief’, determined to look after the land and the people. Chiefly power is as much populist as kingly, and Biersack believes that, despite the union of the three Tu‘i titles through the marriage of Queen Sâlote to Tungî Mailefihi, the Tongan polity remains restless, mobile and self-transforming.
PhD theses 359 The ancien regime in the modern Kingdom of Tonga: conflict and change among the nobility of a Polynesian constitutional monarchy George Emmanuel Marcus. Harvard University, 1975 360 Becoming Tongan: an ethnography of childhood in the Kingdom of Tonga Helen Kavapalu. Australian National University, 1992 361 Competing circuits in the Vava‘u social economy C. Morgan. Australian National University, 1985 362 Conflict management in congregation and community in Tonga E. G. Olson. University of Arizona, 1993 363 Kai and kava in Niuatoputapu: social relations, ideologies and contexts in a rural Tongan community Garth Rogers. University of Auckland, 1975
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364 Kainga: Tongan families as agents of change Bradley Vaden. University of Hawai‘i, 1998 365 Ko e laupè (It’s just talk): ambiguity and informal social control in a Tongan village Louise M. Bernstein. University of California, Berkeley, 1983 366 Moving things of love: an ethnography of constitutive motions on Kotu island in Tonga Arne A. Perminow. University of Oslo, 1997 367 On being Tongan: responses to concepts of tradition Wendy Cowling. Macquarie University, Sydney, 1990 368 ‘Our history is written in our mats’: state formation and the status of women in Tonga Christine Ward Gailey. New School for Social Research, New York, 1981 369 To please oneself: local organization in the Tongan islands S. Dektor Korn. Washington University, Missouri, 1977 370 Tongan culture: the methodology of an ethnographic reconstruction C. Urbanowicz. University of Oregon, 1972
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Changing interpretations of the kava ritual Meredith Filihia. In Echoes of Pacific war. Edited by Deryck Scarr, Niel Gunson, Jennifer Terrell. Canberra: Target Oceania, 1998, pp.127–48
Filihia outlines the traditional myths of the kava ritual and the different occasions of drinking kava today, formal and informal. Different western interpretations of the formal kava ceremony are then summarized and considered: Bott’s psychoanalytical approach and Leach’s reply (item 374); Valeri’s identification of the father–son relationship that he sees as crucial in the constitution of Tongan kingship, with the kava ceremony as a sacrificial communion (item 335); James’ reply to this, emphasizing the female principle; and Biersack’s view of the ritual as a set of binary opposites (item 379). Filihia believes that none of these has the core message of the kava ritual, which is really a ritual display of power designed to impress upon society the claims of a select group to the resources of that society. The symbolism of the kava bowl serves to reinforce the claims of those who participate in the ritual as holders
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of political power. The views of the authors cited are subjected to critical analysis in light of this viewpoint.
372 Drinking in the Polynesian Kingdom of Tonga Charles F. Urbanowicz. Ethnohistory, vol. 22, no. 1 (1975), pp.33–50 Urbanowicz seeks to explain not the ceremonial of kava but why kava drinking rather than any other beverage continues to function as an integrating force in Tongan life. He finds that kava drinking has been the way in which Tongans have maintained their identity. He sets out the different types of kava drinking, everyday and ceremonial, the same structural features that apply to all, and the role of rank. He describes the disapproving attitude of the early missionaries to kava. In the 19th century kava drinking sessions were a way of discussing current affairs and maintaining Tongan unity in the face of missionary influence. He outlines kava’s role as a ‘seal on all occasions’ whether formal or informal, and the way in which it was observed by the first Europeans and its role today, particularly the royal kava ceremony. He concludes, ‘A kava drinking session is a model of Tongan society’.
373 Informal kava drinking in Tonga Henry Feldman. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 89, no. 1 (1980), pp.101–03 In this brief note Feldman describes the drinking of kava not as a formal ceremony symbolic of social stratification but as an informal social event. He describes the procedures followed both in private kava drinking and in public kava clubs where a fee may be charged and funds raised for churches and schools.
374 The interpretation of ritual: essays in honour of A. I. Richards Edited by J. S. La Fontaine. London: Tavistock Publications, 1972. 298pp. bibliog. This book contains three papers that contribute to the debate on the nature and meaning of the Tongan kava ceremony. In ‘Psychoanalysis and ceremony’ (pp.203– 37) Elizabeth Bott considers it from the two viewpoints of an anthropologist and a psychoanalyst. Both from her observations of the ceremony and from her reading of the myths underlying its origin, she sees the kava ceremony as clarifying social principles and social roles, where rank is separated from political power; as a conserving and conservative tradition; and as expressing a fundamental contradiction, bringing together people who in other contexts might be in opposition. It resolves problems of dependence, envy and rivalry, and transmits messages on many different levels. In ‘The structure of symbolism’ (pp.239–75) Edmund Leach takes issue with her psychoanalytical approach to the myths, and offers a structuralist reading that leads him to different and suggestive conclusions. In a brief ‘rejoinder to Edmund Leach’ (pp.277–82) Bott acknowledges the value of some of Leach’s views but professes herself dissatisfied with the structuralist approach, feeling her own interpretation, that the kava ceremony and myths are statements about emotional
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and social as well as logical and cognitive problems, remains valid. The debate is complex and the terminology technical.
375
Kava, alcohol and tobacco consumption among Tongans with urbanization Sitaleki A. Finau, John M. Stanhope, Ian A. M. Prior. Social Science and Medicine, vol. 16, no. 1 (1982), pp.35–41
This is a report of a study in Nuku‘alofa and the island of Foa in 1973. It found that kava was consumed by 48 percent of men but almost no women; alcohol consumption was almost exclusively urban and predominantly male; and tobacco consumption was higher among men and in the urban population. Kava seems to have lost ground to alcohol as urban Tongans adopt a more cosmopolitan lifestyle, and kava might be promoted as a less unhealthy alternative to alcohol and tobacco. Results are set out in tables and graphs. The report notes that alcohol is a socially unacceptable but prestigious agent, which temporarily releases the young from social responsibilities in a confining feudal system, while kava is an agent of Tongan cultural identity.
376 Kava ceremonial in Tonga E. E. V. Collocott. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 36, no. 141 (1927), pp.21–47 Much has been written in more recent times by scholars such as Bott and Leach (item 374) and Valeri (item 335) on the meaning of the kava ceremony, but this paper provides factual information gathered by the author from observing several kava ceremonies of the Tu‘i Kanokupolu, when Queen Sâlote drank kava with her chiefs. He illustrates the structure of the kava ring, setting out the relationships determining the order of seating. He describes the order of the ceremony, the presenting of the gifts of food and kava and their counting, the preparation of the kava root, the mixing and straining, the distribution by rank of the food and of the kava. He suggests how the kava ceremony of the Tu‘i Tonga might have differed.
377 The kava ceremony in Tonga W. H. Newell. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 56, no. 4 (1947), pp.364–417 Newell describes Tongan social structure and suggests that the material tools used in the kava ceremony are determined by and related to this structure. He suggests that kava was introduced from Micronesia and the eastern islands. He shows how the modern kava ceremony has a ritual and symbolic character, and discusses the relationship between that of the Tu‘i Tonga and that of the Tu‘i Kanokupolu. He considers the role of the kava ceremony at times of war and marriage, and describes the differing forms of kava bowl found in Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. His description of the ceremony itself is based largely on Collocott (item 376), but he examines further the concepts of tapu and ritual status, and shows how the kava ceremony
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reinforces the functioning of the ranking system. He lists the occasions—social and ceremonial—on which kava ceremonies are held.
378
Kava, the Pacific elixir: the definitive guide to its ethnobotany, history and chemistry Vincent Lebot, Mark Merlin, Lamont Lindstrom. Rochester, Vermont: Healing Arts Press, 1997. 255pp. 4 maps. bibliog.
This comprehensive guide summarizes the literature and research on kava, consumed throughout the region as a relaxing beverage for social interaction. The authors believe it to be superior to alcohol, nicotine, tranquillizers and other substances used to reduce stress and improve mood. The book surveys kava from the point of view of the horticulturalist, the ethnobotanist and the pharmacologist. The authors examine the morphology, biogeography and origin of the species that produces kava, its chemical composition, its cultivation and preparation, its place in traditional medicine, its cultural significance and social use and its value as a cash crop, both domestic and export. They note that some Western drugs contain kava extract and suggest that it might become a world drug. While the emphasis of the book is more on Melanesia, Tonga is included in the coverage, though for kava as a crop rather than for the kava ceremony.
379 Kava‘onau and the Tongan chiefs Aletta Biersack. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 100, no. 3 (1991), pp.231–68 As is widely agreed, the Tongan kava ceremony is central to any understanding of the Tongan polity. Biersack examines the myths of the origin of kava and of ‘Aho‘eitu, the first Tu‘i Tonga, and the interpretation of them by modern scholars. She describes the status systems that govern people within kinship networks, and the system of titles, and how this is reflected in the order of seating at the royal kava ceremony and the way it is conducted, with taboos governing what is done. The myths and the ceremony link the obligation to serve a superior with the reciprocal responsibilities of chiefly paternalism, a pact of mutual sacrifice between the leader and the led. The analysis is complex and detailed. Biersack concludes, ‘The kava ceremony is more than a reflection of an existing order. Each performance is a structure-making event’.
Health and Welfare 380 Alcohol: a threat to Tonga’s time-honoured values? Kerry James. Pacific Health Dialog, vol. 6, no. 2 (1999), pp.261–64 James reviews alcohol consumption in Tonga and its relationship to the drinking of kava; they do not go well together. In 1964 it was said that drunkenness hardly
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existed, but now alcohol is much more widely available. James relates drunken violence to the Tongan concepts of love, harmony and respect. Leaders should try to understand the fears and insecurities that beset young urban drinkers.
381 ‘Avanga: Tongan concepts of mental illness Mapa Ha‘ano Puloka. Pacific Health Dialog. vol. 6, no. 2 (1999), pp.268–75 ‘Avanga for a Tongan means an acute illness thought to be caused by a spirit. Puloka, the only psychiatrist in Tonga, examines the meaning of the word, considers the symptoms of sufferers, and examines psychosocial and ecological factors and the role of traditional healers who are almost always the port of entry for psychiatric consultations, and who still play an important role.
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Belief and trust: health caring for migrant Tongan healers and patients in New Zealand Viliami M. Toafa, Losa Moata‘ane, Barbara E. Guthrie. Pacific Health Dialog, vol. 6, no. 2 (1999), pp.160–67
The authors survey the work of traditional Tongan healers in Auckland, setting out three types of illness that they treat, both spiritual and physical. They believe that disapproval by Western doctors has undermined the belief and trust of Tongans in traditional healing, leading to a spiritual malaise and perhaps to the development of lifestyle diseases such as diabetes.
383 Blood groups of the Tongan islands Olga Kooptzoff, R. J. Walsh. Oceania, vol. 27, no. 3 (1957), pp.214–19 The authors report the results of their analysis of 102 blood samples from Tonga. The results are tabulated and the gene frequencies are compared with those of related populations. The authors conclude that Polynesians are not homogeneous throughout Polynesia and that there has been considerable intermixing of Polynesians and Melanesians.
384 A commonsense perspective on Tongan folk healing Mapa H. Puloka. International Journal of Mental Health, vol. 26, no. 3 (1997), pp.69–93 Puloka describes the different types of ‘avanga, a psychiatric condition believed to be caused by spirits, leading to disturbed behaviour. He tabulates their folk explanations, physical symptoms and precipitating factors, and relates them as far as possible to definitions of psychiatric disorders. He sees some types of ‘avanga as best treated by folk healers, but others as warranting medical and psychiatric assessment and treatment. He describes the plants used by traditional healers and how they are used, and asserts that traditional and modern approaches to mental health must work together to produce a service relevant to Tonga.
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385 Developments in the role of the Tongan healer Claire D. F. Parsons. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 92, no. 1 (1983), pp.31–50 Parsons first reviews historical comments on the origins of the healer role in Tonga. She then shows that, contrary to what might be expected, traditional healing practices have not declined since the days of European contact. Rather, they have developed alongside, and in spite of, Western medical practice. She notes an association between the early priestly role and the secular role of the traditional healers and their practice. She describes the contemporary role of healers, differentiating between their skill and their power to heal. Finally, she refers to notions of payment and of gift exchange for healing services, which involve the social–moral value of the healer role in the community.
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Eclectic elements in Tongan folk belief and healing practice Wendy E. Cowling. In Tongan culture and history. Edited by Phyllis Herda, Jennifer Terrell, Niel Gunson. Canberra: The Journal of Pacific History, 1990, pp.72–92
Present-day folk beliefs in Tonga regarding the causes of some illnesses appear to be a synthesis of precontact religious ideas and of Christian-derived beliefs. These, together with ideas on the functioning of the dead in the afterlife, appear to be in a constant state of modification and development. In recent years there seems to have been an increase in a form of culturally specific illness that appears to be a form of depression, for which traditional healers are consulted. Cowling lists the five types of this traditional illness known as ‘avanga, with folk explanation, physical symptoms and precipitating factors. Cowling examines the role of traditional healers, the nature of the treatments they offer—some symbolic and some therapeutic—and the role of the family and community in healing. The increase in the numbers of people consulting traditional healers for ‘spirit-caused sickness’ is mostly among women, and she suggests that this may be the result of rapid social change and economic development, and thus likely to continue to increase. An appendix lists some of the leaves and barks used in traditional treatments.
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Epidemiologic, clinical and virologic observations on dengue in the Kingdom of Tonga Duane J. Gubler, Dwayne Reed, Leon Rosen, James C. Hitchcock. American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, vol. 27 (1978), pp.581–89
The authors examine a relatively mild outbreak of dengue fever in Tonga in 1974 and a more severe one in 1975. They describe the types of mosquito prevalent in Tonga, the courses of the two outbreaks and their symptoms, and suggest some reasons for the difference in severity.
388 Epidemiology and the Tongan health care system Sitaleki A. Finau. Fiji Medical Journal, vol. 7, no. 7 (1979), pp.192–94
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Finau examines the position of epidemics in Tonga, which is difficult to determine because of the lack of data. He considers the position of tuberculosis and diabetes and believes that many cases must remain unknown. He calls for a health education programme on chronic and degenerative diseases, and for more data in order to plan for the best way to meet needs.
389 Ethnomedicine in Tonga M. A. Weiner. Economic Botany, vol. 25, no. 4 (1971), pp.423–50 Weiner reviews the practice of traditional medicine in Tonga from its first recording by Mariner. He lists plant families with their Latin and Tongan names, identifying where the same Tongan name is given to different species. He describes his interviews in Tonga with traditional practitioners, recording ninety-one remedies using fifty-nine different species of plants. These were identified using Yuncker (item 96) and are set out with botanical descriptions, the complaints for which they are applied and the method of use.
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Family planning and contraception in Tongoleleka village, Kingdom of Tonga Henry Ivarature. Pacific Health Dialog, vol. 4, no. 1 (1997), pp.43–50
This paper reports on a survey of family planning and contraception in a village in the Ha‘apai group in 1991–92. It found little knowledge and use among men. Contraception was seen as the wife’s responsibility, but knowledge of methods was generally deficient. The paper tabulates methods used, including traditional medicine. The full potential of the family planning service is not realized. Yet the number of children per family overall in Tonga has declined a little since 1970.
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Folk medicine in Tonga: a study on the use of herbal medicines for obstetrics and gynaecological conditions and disorders Yadhu N. Singh, Talita Ikahihifo, Monalisa Panove, Claire Slatter. Journal of Ethnopharmacology, vol. 12, no. 3 (1984), pp.305–29
The authors studied the use of traditional medicinal practices in two communities in Tonga, one rural and one urban, with particular emphasis on obstetrics and gynaecological complaints. They collected data on the nature and frequency of complaints, patterns of consultation and preferences for Western and traditional practitioners, and examined the expertise of traditional practitioners. The survey suggests that reliance on traditional medicine is rapidly declining in favour of Western medicine, but that self-administration of herbal remedies was still common, especially in rural areas, and might even be increasing. Sixty plant specimens used in treating complaints were collected and identified and are listed with Latin and Tongan name, therapeutic indications and plant part, and form of remedy.
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Food me‘akai and body sino in traditional Tongan society: their theoretical and practical implications for health policy Okusitino Mâhina. Pacific Health Dialog, vol. 6, no. 2 (1999), pp.276–87
Most of this paper is an extensive examination of the cultural and social context of the Tongan words for food and body and the early dual marine-based and landbased productive modes of the economy with its class divisions and functions. Mâhina then relates these to the Tongan conception of beauty or harmony on the one hand, and disease and health on the other.
393 Foot complications among diabetics in Tonga Paula S. Vivili, ‘Eseta Finau, Sitaleki A. Finau, Taniela Lutui. Pacific Health Dialog, vol. 6, no. 2 (1999), pp.205–07 Diabetes is an increasing problem in Tonga. In 1993 a Diabetes Centre was established, which saw 1,200 cases in its first three years, and there may be five more cases for every one registered. This paper reports a brief survey of foot complications among patients at the Centre. A brief note immediately following, by David S. Wilkinson and Seini Kupu, examines sepsis and its treatment in the feet of diabetics.
394
From ma‘uli to motivator: transformations in reproductive health care in Tonga Helen Morton. In Birthing in the Pacific: beyond tradition and modernity? Edited by Vicki Lukere, Margaret Jolly. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2002, pp.31–55
Morton’s concern is with state efforts to manage antenatal care and childbirth through the introduction of a ‘Western’ model of pregnancy and birth. The role of the ma‘uli, the traditional midwife, has rapidly diminished, with most women attending antenatal clinics and giving birth in the hospital. But Tongan women have an ambivalent attitude towards this model. Morton herself gave birth to two children in Tonga and writes from personal experience. She examines Tongan ideals of fertility and femininity and outlines the history of health care services and the role of the ma‘uli, some formally trained and some not, in preparing the mother for and assisting in the birth. The Ministry of Health tries to work with the ma‘uli when possible, but there is antagonism between them and the medical staff, who think that they are untrained and no longer needed. Yet clinics and the hospital are busy and understaffed, and many women dislike or fear hospital staff and procedures. The stratification of Tongan society is intensified in the Western medical model. Patients are expected to obey orders without question; nurses are seen as authoritarian and uncaring. The system is certainly inadequately resourced and staffed, and probably deteriorating. Yet the Western model, Morton believes, could empower women by educating them, as they have not been, about sexuality and reproduction.
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395 General surgery in Tonga: an audit David S. Wilkinson, Faka‘osi Pifeleti. Pacific Health Dialog, vol. 6, no. 2 (1999), pp.199–201 The authors survey most of the surgery done at Vaiola Hospital, Nuku‘alofa, in 1998. They tabulate the types of surgery, and note that operations may be carried out by doctors with no formal surgical training.
396 Health and healing in contemporary Tonga Barbara Burns McGrath. Pacific Health Dialog, vol. 6, no. 2 (1999), pp.265–67 McGrath notes that there is more than one medical ideology in Tonga. The traditional and the modern coexist. She reviews the history of healing in Tonga, the role of the missionaries, and the present situation in which the sick may consult both traditional healers and doctors. This flexible approach is the strength of the Tongan health system.
397 The incidence of twins in the Kingdom of Tonga and maternal and perinatal implications Mario Felszer. Fiji Medical Journal, vol. 7, no. 6 (1979), pp.156–62 From his analysis of the birth of twins in Tonga from 1975 to 1978, Felszer finds that the incidence of twins is higher than in many of the countries of Europe and Asia. He charts them by age of mother, lists some of the possible implications, and concludes that prenatal diagnosis is a high priority.
398
Idioms of distress: kinship and sickness among the people of the Kingdom of Tonga Claire D. F. Parsons. Culture, Medicine and Society, vol. 8, no. 1 (1984), pp.71–93
Parsons analyses the relationship of family experience to kinship ideology and sickness in Tonga, showing how knowledge is constructed, maintained and modified in Tongan culture, and the way in which explanations of sickness retain their flexibility and accommodate to social change. Sickness is seen to arise through failure to conform to normative social behaviour. If a father’s sister is offended by not being given the traditional right to name the firstborn child of her brother’s marriage, she may use her supernatural power in retaliation. Failure to mourn in the proper way at a funeral can also create social tension and sickness. Ultimately sickness is caused by deceased kinfolk whose spirits can afflict the living. Parsons describes instances of spirit possession with common features of family, tension and duty, and outlines the obligations of family members to the sick and also to the pregnant, feeding and caring for the patient and making arrangements for healers and medicines. She observes how the time may come to turn from traditional to Western medicine, one neither better nor worse than the other, each appropriate in its own way but discarded if ineffective. Sickness can be a time to identify family disharmony and reconcile
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relationships. Confession and forgiveness are essential, and many explanations of sickness describe tensions within the family such as breach of tapu or failure to do one’s duty within the family. ‘Ofa (love) and ma (shame) should make for a calm and relaxed life but the tension between them may be another source of distress, as also may modern phenomena such as the emigration of parents or the general effects of westernization.
399 Illness and cure in Tonga: traditional and modern medical practice Siosiane Fanua Bloomfield. Nuku‘alofa: Vava‘u Press, 2002. 174pp. 6 maps. bibliog. Four categories of health practised in Tonga are identified by Bloomfield: modern, traditional, religious and card playing. Her study, based on surveys in the northern island of Tafahi and in Nukunuku village on Tongatapu, examines how these relate to each other, with special emphasis on maternal and child health and family planning. She identifies good health, for the Tongan, as related to the feeling of freedom, of knowing that one has done all expected duties to family, land and society. Sickness arises from the breakdown in relationships, social or supernatural, and forgiveness is vital in regaining health. She examines the curers and their cures, with case studies, and highlights the differences in attitudes to health care between Nukunuku and Tafahi. The book is based on an MA thesis submitted in 1986. The general conclusions remain valid, but it is unfortunate that it takes no account of much subsequent work in this field.
400
Introduction and development of family planning in Tonga 1958–1990 Henry Ivarature. In Echoes of Pacific war. Edited by Deryck Scarr, Niel Gunson, Jennifer Terrell. Canberra: Target Oceania, 1998, pp.99–109
A limited family planning programme on modern lines was introduced in Nuku‘alofa in 1958 by the International Planned Parenthood Federation. The government had no trained staff or medical infrastructure to implement it nationally until 1965, when the Ministry of Health began a programme with a clinic at Vaiola Hospital. Initially attendance figures were low, but concerns expressed by the king in 1966 over population growth produced more resources and a more systematic approach to mothers and to women’s groups. Between 1971 and 1980 family planning became a major social and health policy, integrated into the maternal and child health framework, and reaching at least half the married female population. The birth rate was reduced, though this may have been due to migration as well as to family planning. The policy seems to have been working.
401
Marketing and primary health care: an approach to planning in a Tongan village Sitaleki A. Finau. Social Science and Medicine, vol. 17, no. 8 (1983), pp.511–16
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Finau uses a village in Tonga as an example of the marketing approach to the planning of health care facilities and to determining priorities at a village level in light of the wishes of the villagers. They sought a local service, in a Tongan environment, to deal largely with immediate first aid, and this was to be provided by a trained village health worker with a suitably equipped motor vehicle, to be financed by a low-interest loan. Finau tells how the matter was discussed in the village and decisions reached.
402 Mental dis-ease in a Tongan general practice Glennis H. Mafi. Pacific Health Dialog, vol. 6, no. 2 (1999), pp.196–98 From her work in a village clinic in Tonga, Mafi considers the relationship between physical and psychiatric illness, tabulating the number of consultations for each. Doctors need more time if they are to examine and treat mental dis-ease.
403 Mental health, ethnopsychiatry and traditional medicine in the Kingdom of Tonga Wolfgang G. Jilek. Curarae, vol. 11, no. 3 (1988), pp.161–76 Tonga has been seen as having very little psychiatric disorder, but this is based on Western perceptions and excludes most of the many cases interpreted as due to possession by spirits of the dead. Jilek examines the symptoms of such cases, the reaction of patients to the application of plant extracts, and the visions and dreams of the patient, which are validated by elders and traditional healers. Traditional healing involves plant remedies and massage, supported by collective and individual suggestion and by active family involvement. In most cases there is complete remission or significant improvement. Jilek analyses the different types of spirit-caused conditions, illustrated by case studies. He suggests that, whatever the benefit of plant remedies, the efficacy of Tongan healing always depends upon the skilful use of cultural symbols and of collective suggestion by the individual healer.
404 Mortality analysis for Tonga, 1982–1992 Seini Kupu. Pacific Health Dialog, vol. 6, no. 2 (1999), pp.221–35 This paper examines the validity and value of mortality data for the period. It describes the records available and methods of collection, and relates the figures to historic and census data. It gives an estimated average life expectancy for the period of 66.8 years. Estimates of infant mortality range from 9.1 to 24 per thousand live births; some may not be recorded. Death registration needs to be improved.
405
Nemesis, speaking and tauhi vaha‘a: interdisciplinarity and the truth of “mental illness” in Vava‘u, Tonga Michael Poltorak. The Contemporary Pacific, vol. 19, no. 1 (2007), pp.1–36
Truth is flexible, Poltorak suggests in his examination of those suffering from ‘mental illness’ in Vava‘u. In this paper, developed from work for his PhD thesis (item
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426) he sees mental illness as a ‘questionable and contentious attribute’. He outlines the modernization of psychiatry in Tonga. Yet modernist psychiatric claims are largely resisted in Vava‘u. He describes the language used regarding mental illness and the importance of maintaining harmony in relationships. Through a detailed case study he explores the perceived causes of eccentric behaviour, the Tongan understanding of tèvolo (spirits), and the local values of household, family, church and life in Vava‘u generally. The person is not to blame. He is not stigmatized as he would be by modern psychiatry.
406 The 1986 national nutrition survey of the Kingdom of Tonga Elizabeth Maclean, François Bach, Jacqui Badcock. Noumea: South Pacific Commission, 1992. 77pp. map. bibliog. (Technical Paper, no. 200) This report, based on an 8 percent random sample of the population of Tonga, sets out information on dietary habits, infant feeding patterns, maternal and child health care practices, nutrition knowledge and anthropometric indicators. The main findings of the survey were generally encouraging; however, there was a high prevalence of obesity in adults, which is a primary causal factor in diabetes, hypertension and heart disease. Those in urban areas eat more imported food than those in rural areas. The report provides much information on dietary patterns in Tonga, detailed statistics, and discussions of their implications. It recommends to the government measures to improve nutritional status.
407 Nutrition of mothers and infants in Tonga Rufina Latu. Pacific Health Dialog, vol. 1, no. 1 (1993), pp.31–33 Latu briefly examines the nutritional needs and behaviour of mothers and infants in Tonga, noting that many pregnant women have an unbalanced diet with too much starchy food and not enough protein, and that mothers need guidance on breastfeeding and on weaning foods.
408 Oral conditions among Tongan children and adults, 1966 and 1986 Terry W. Cutress, N. Moi Tapealaua, Sisilo Tomiki. Pacific Health Dialog, vol. 3, no. 1 (1996), pp.8–14 Surveys in 1966 and 1986 showed an increased level of dental decay in infants and of loss of teeth among adults. The authors relate this to changes in diet, lifestyle and mobility.
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The prevalence of diabetes in the Kingdom of Tonga Stephen Colagiuri, Ruth Colagiuri, Siva Na‘ati, Soana Muimuiheata, Zafirul Hussain, Taniela Palu. Diabetes Care, vol. 25, no. 8 (2002), pp.1378–83
Diabetes is more prevalent in the Pacific islands than in developed countries. A diabetes care programme began in Tonga in 1997. This paper reports on a survey conducted between 1998 and 2000. It showed that rates in Tonga are among the
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highest in the region, that much was previously undiagnosed, and that rates have doubled in the past twenty-five years. Much of the population is overweight and at risk of cardiovascular disease.
410 Sickness, ghosts and medicine in Tonga E. E. V. Collocott. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 32, no. 127 (1923), pp.136–42 Collocott describes the attitude of Tongans to illness and pain, their lack of a concept of diagnosis of illness and its causes, and the part played by ghosts in the illnesses of the living. Traditional medicines may cause the illness they should cure if not treated properly, and healers guard their knowledge jealously. Massage is very effective in many cases, and Tongans are constantly attentive to the sick.
411 Small island health needs: follow-up approaches in Tonga Sitaleki A. Finau, et al. Pacific Perspective, vol. 13, no. 2 (1983), pp.91–95 Finau and colleagues review the work of village health workers, introduced in an attempt to improve health care throughout Tonga. They surveyed six islands in Ha‘apai, each of which selected one female worker, trained over twelve weeks in basic health care and given a limited stock of medicines. The survey, after three months, analysed the illnesses reported and dealt with, and considered the relationship with traditional healers. It was obvious that the health workers were meeting a real need. Fever and wounds were by far the two largest categories of illness dealt with.
412 Social context of alcohol in Tonga H.R.H. Princess Sâlote Mafile‘o Pilolevu Tuita. Pacific Health Dialog, vol. 6, no. 2 (1999), pp.149–52 Princess Pilolevu reviews the increasing consumption of alcohol in Tonga in the context of global trends, seen as a symbol of the good life, particularly in Nuku‘alofa. With the establishment of a local brewery in 1987 and the removal of licensing in 1989, beer consumption increased greatly, raising concerns over domestic violence, misuse of family income and increased mortality. She relates this to the stress of urban living, and sees the need to create new forms of urban environment to embody traditional community values.
413 Suicide in Tonga, 1982–1997 Paula S. Vivili, Sitaleki A. Finau, ‘Eseta Finau. Pacific Health Dialog, vol. 6, no. 2 (1999), pp.211–12 There were forty-three recorded suicides in Tonga between 1982 and 1997, nine out of ten were males, mostly young, but some may not be recorded. The authors chart them annually. They suggest a declining resilience among young Tongan men, associated with exposure to foreign media influences and diminished traditional support systems.
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414 Swimming from island to island: healing practice in Tonga Barbara Burns McGrath. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, vol. 13, no. 4 (1999), pp.483–505 A church leader in Tonga explained the presence of so many religious denominations by likening churches to fish in the ocean. The many different types all find their way to the same fishing pole, they all find their way to God. This is the Tongan way, faka Tonga, always looking for something else, perhaps better. ‘We swim from island to island.’ McGrath was often reminded of this when studying illness and healing in Tonga. People try all available therapies, both traditional and biomedical (and sometimes both at the same time) until one works. If a therapy does not work it is simply not appropriate. She examines the open, flexible and pluralistic approach to illness as a continuation of early Tongan medical practice, along with the more recently introduced biomedicine, offering multiple options for cure, and she relates practice in Tonga to that in other parts of the world. She gives some telling examples of how Tongans combine the traditional and the modern. She describes early medical practice, the medical work of missionaries, and present practices of both traditional healers and hospitals. She discusses what Tongans feel about the causes of illness, with the distinction between indigenous illnesses often spirit-caused and those of the modern world, but noting that ‘whatever therapy works defines the illness’. She sets the debate about healing practices within the wider context of the debate about the political and cultural future of Tonga generally, how far it should retain that which is distinctively Tongan, or absorb modern values.
415 The thinking of a psychotic ‘I. F. Helu. In Critical essays: cultural perspectives from the South Seas. Canberra: The Journal of Pacific History, 1999, pp.37–46 Helu describes two case histories of ‘avanga, an acute psychosis that afflicts young unmarried women. He identifies some of its effects on thinking and describes how the disorder originates, develops and is cured with traditional remedies. One of the cases he observed himself. He suggests reasons for what he calls the ‘flight into psychosis,’ an antisocial situation that, because of its suggestion of freedom, anonymity, power and harmony, is very potent.
416 The Tonga healthy weight loss program, 1995–1997 Lois Englberger, Vizo Halavatau, Yoshiko Yasuda, Risa Yamazaki. Pacific Health Dialog, vol. 6. no. 2 (1999), pp.153–59 Data from a 1986 survey (item 406) showed that 39 percent of women and 10 percent of men were obese. There was increasing concern over the growing problems of diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. This paper describes a national weight awareness programme begun in 1995, which attracted wide attention and participation, and some success. The availability of healthy low-cost food remains a problem.
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417 Tongan doctors and a critical medical ethnography Heather Young Leslie. Anthropological Forum, vol. 15, no. 3 (2005), pp.277–86 Tonga began to send students to study medicine in Fiji in 1928. As part of a project to document the contribution of Tongan health-care professionals to the process of modernity in Tonga, Leslie sees medicine, carefully selected, as a vehicle in the conscious stratagem of the Tongan monarchy to retain self-governance while joining the ‘civilized world’. She describes the current medical system in Tonga, and the way in which doctors may also still observe traditional social practices, growing their own food or weaving mats. She finds that Tongans were originally called native medical practitioners after a three-year training. It was not until the 1950s that the first Tongan completed full medical training as a doctor. Leslie works towards a critical medical anthropology of the process.
418
Tongan healing practices Claire D. F. Parsons. In Healing practices in the South Pacific. Edited by Claire D. F. Parsons. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: University of Hawai‘i Press for the Institute of Polynesian Studies, 1985, pp.87–107
In 1979, Parsons conducted fieldwork in Tonga to understand how Tongans talk about sickness, what they know and believe about it, and what they do when they are sick. She found the public and government officials at variance over the effectiveness of indigenous healing practices, proscribed by Western-trained doctors yet still widely used. She defines the Tongan concept of the healthy life as the maintenance of harmony in relationships, lists the Tongan terms for various aspects of illness, and describes the differences between what are seen as Western and Tongan illnesses in which supernatural spirit influences are at work. Some are seen as controllable by Western medicine and some by Tongan. For some Tongans all illness is caused by spirits, and she describes Tongan ways of dealing with it, including massage and traditional medicines. Treating Tongans, she concludes, is not simply a matter of providing medicine or surgery but involves dealing with an extensive range of meanings reflecting a fundamentally different world view.
419 Tongan herbal medicine W. Arthur Whistler. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1992. 122pp. 2 maps. bibliog. Tongans traditionally saw illness as of two types, those of natural origin or whose origins could be seen, such as wounds and broken bones, and ailments such as internal illnesses and tumours whose origins were thought to be caused by the actions of supernatural beings. Even today Tongans still often turn first to Tongan medicine and consult healers. Whistler reviews the medical problems of Tongans, the role and practice of traditional healers as revealed in the literature and as he found it, and in particular the role of herbal medicine, its preparation and prescription. He then lists seventy-seven Tongan medicinal plants with Tongan, Latin and English names,
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habitats, botanical descriptions and discussions of medical uses. He concludes with a glossary of Tongan medical terms. The book is illustrated with many of his own photographs.
420 Traditional medicine in Pacific health services Sitaleki A. Finau. Pacific Perspective, vol. 9, no. 2 (1980), pp.92–98 Finau asserts that a marriage of old Pacific knowledge and new Pacific scientific medicine must take place, without sacrificing one to the other. He describes the concepts underlying traditional Tongan medicine and its coexistence with new scientific medicine. To ghosts, spirits and taboo have been added the Bible and God. The in-hospital death rate is high because many people try traditional medicines first. He believes that a proportional and integrated approach to modern medicine is required and maintains that some psychiatric illnesses are more responsive to traditional healers than to scientific medicine. He further suggests that kava should perhaps be served at official functions rather than alcohol. He concludes that there should be more research on the traditional lifestyles that are conducive to health; it is time to model health systems in the Pacific way.
421 Traditional medicine in Tonga: a preamble to a Pacific model Sitaleki A. Finau. Fiji Medical Journal, vol. 9, nos. 6–7 (1981), pp.93–99 As in his earlier article (item 420), Finau stresses the need for a marriage of traditional and scientific medicine. Tongans are still dying of precontact illnesses such as dengue fever, as well as suffering from one of the world’s highest rates of diabetes and high blood pressure. Traditional medicine must enhance new concepts. Tongans believed that heredity and the breaching of taboos were major predisposing factors to illness. Finau describes the way in which illnesses were dealt with and treated, and suggests how government policies may encourage the best of the traditional and the new. He concludes that more indigenous health research is needed.
422 Typhoid fever in Tonga Taniela Lutui, Malakai ‘Ofanoa, Sitaleki A. Finau, Maika Kinahoi Veikune. Pacific Health Dialog, vol. 6, no. 2 (1999), pp.240–44 Typhoid fever is endemic in Tonga, and significant outbreaks continue. The authors tabulate annual cases from 1956 (298) to 1997 (16). Improvements are due to better education and hygiene, diagnosis and treatment, but there are still some bad years and the average remains high. A new vision for typhoid control is needed.
423 Weaning practices in rural and urban Vava‘u, Tonga island Senorita H. Laukau, Pacific Health Dialog, vol. 1, no. 2 (1994), pp.22–26 A comparison of practices in the main town, Neiafu, and in two rural areas of Vava‘u shows that children are weaned earlier in the town but are more vulnerable to
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nutritional problems. Rural children have a better balanced diet of traditional foods, and these should be encouraged.
424 What is that lump? Soft tissue tumours in Tonga David S. Wilkinson. Pacific Health Dialog, vol. 6, no. 2 (1999), pp.202–04 This paper describes and tabulates the soft tissue tumours removed at Vaiola Hospital, Nuku‘alofa, in 1998. Most cannot be observed over time as patients return to their villages or islands if not treated immediately. There should be more time for diagnosis.
PhD theses 425 Adolescent obesity in Tonga C. Fusimalohi. Flinders University, South Australia, 1997 426 Aspersions of agency: tèvolo, love and sickness in Vava‘u, Tonga Michael Poltorak. University College London, 2002 427 Inventing health: tradition, textiles and maternal obligation in the Kingdom of Tonga Heather Young Leslie, York University, Toronto, 1999 428 Making meaning of illness, dying and death in the Kingdom of Tonga Barbara Burns McGrath. University of Washington, 1993 429 Sickness experience and language: aspects of Tongan and Western accounting Claire D. F. Parsons. Waikato University, 1981
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Changing their minds: tradition and politics in contemporary Fiji and Tonga Rory Ewins. Christchurch, New Zealand: Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, 1998. 298pp. bibliog.
For his research into the nature and role of tradition in Fiji and Tonga undertaken in 1993, Ewins interviewed about thirty people in each country drawn from the ranks of cabinet and Parliament, media, academia, churches, the civil service, trade unions, business and the traditional elites of chiefs and nobility. Through these interviews, lengthy extracts of which are printed, he seeks to establish that tradition
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plays a central role in the contemporary politics of Fiji and Tonga, and shows how the social forces of education, business and the media offer political challenges to traditional authority. He also considers the influence of tourists and expatriates, the place of the family, and the role of women in politics. He outlines major developments in the four years since 1993, and considers some possible options. Here are authentic voices discussing issues that remain at the heart of Tongan political and social discourse today.
431 Democracy and its prospects in the Pacific Teresia Teaiwa, Malaki Koloamatangi. In Pacific futures. Edited by Michael Powles. Canberra: Pandanus Books, 2006, pp.20–35 In the course of a general review of the prospects for democracy in the Pacific, the authors use Tonga as a significant example. Writing in 2004 they note that the government intended to appoint elected members of Parliament—nobles and commoners—to cabinet. This followed the resignation of three senior ministers, and disputes over the policy for internal airlines. The catalyst was the government’s ultimately unsuccessful attempt to regulate media freedom and independence and general moves towards greater democracy. This was the setting for more recent developments, moving further towards the election of all members of Parliament and the choice by the king of ministers only from among them. Compromise positions are still under discussion.
432
Democracy bug bites Tonga ‘I. Futa Helu. In Culture and democracy in the South Pacific. Edited by Ron Crocombe et al. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific, 1992, pp.139–51
Helu and his ‘Atenisi Institute have been the intellectual base of the movement for greater democracy in Tonga. He sees Tonga as progressing from aristocracy to kingship rather than, as in classical Greece, from kingship to democracy. But, even if Tonga would never become a liberal society through natural evolution, he sees overseas travel, migration and education as now moving in that direction. However, a party political system, which he anticipated, has not yet developed. There is no common ideology uniting pro-democracy People’s Representatives in the Legislative Assembly other than the call for greater democracy itself.
433 The democracy movement and the 1999 Tongan elections I. C. Campbell. The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 34, no. 3 (1999), pp.265–72 The 1999 general election in Tonga is seen by Campbell as delivering a sharp reversal to the fortunes of the movement for democratic reform after a decade of growth and strong support, but as not rejecting this political alternative. The result helps to distinguish between support for democracy and a wish for cleaner, better government. With pro-democracy candidates attracting 40 percent fewer votes than
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before, the election was more about economic prospects and opportunities than about political ideologies. Campbell describes concerns over the previous decade about the mode of government, lack of accountability, corruption and incompetence. Democracy would ensure accountability: popular participation as a basic human right and a reduction of the scope for corruption. Democracy as an abstract principle was not a popular concern. Campbell sets out the details of the elections for the representatives of nobles and people, and tabulates voters’ support for prodemocracy candidates for this and the previous three elections. He notes newspaper reports in 1996 that 72 percent of Tongans preferred the present monarchy to any other form of government. Yet personal support for Pohiva, the leader of the movement, remains strong, though there is clearly not just slippage but some definite reaction against the movement. Economic development now seems to be of equal concern. Yet, Campbell concludes, the pro-democracy movement still has substantial popular support to work for reform both of the Constitution and of Tongan political ethics.
434
The doctrine of accountability and the unchanging locus of power in Tonga I. C. Campbell. The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 29, no. 1 (1994), pp.81–94
Campbell traces ideas on power and accountability in Tonga through the elections of 1987, 1990 and 1993, when discussion began to focus on the role of elected representatives and their relationship with a hereditary head of state who is also a head of government. The 1987 election was the first to be based on issues, and newlyelected People’s Representatives were determined to scrutinize a government they believed should be accountable to them. But he observes that the king’s authority derives from tradition, conquest and inheritance, and not from the Constitution, which itself depends on the authority of the king. The idea that power derives from the people and not from the king is not acceptable in Tonga. The initially interlocking issues of democracy and of sound and accountable government have become separated: democracy has become a separate issue from alleged corruption. Campbell sees the central issue in Tongan politics through these years as concerning content and structure rather than policy; alternative constitutional possibilities were not under consideration. A considerable degree of consensus persisted concerning the state, its identity, functions and so on, and there was no threat to its stability. Questions about the accountability of government threaten neither lives nor livelihoods.
435 The emergence of parliamentary politics in Tonga I. C. Campbell. Pacific Studies, vol. 15, no. 1 (1992), pp.77–97 During the late 1980s the people of Tonga became more aware of the process of politics and more open to suggestions of constitutional change. But it would be wrong to assume that the challenge to authority and demand for change were
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without precedent. Only in the latter part of Queen Sâlote’s reign was the image of stability, peace and unity made a reality. She marginalized Parliament by dealing directly with the people and dispensing patronage in traditional ways and through the church. King Taufa‘âhau Tupou IV inherited the legacy of stability, but his dedication to modernization implied a preference for social, and thus political, change. Campbell outlines signs of popular discontent through Parliament from the 1970s over land ownership and other issues. He considers the role of the churches and of education; the development of a wealthy middle class independent of the old aristocracy; the role of ‘Akilisi Pohiva and his pro-democracy movement; the significant general election of 1987; and the contentious parliamentary session that followed, culminating in a walkout and the bitter election of 1990 that produced a vote for change, yet of a very conservative sort. Campbell saw change at that time as necessary, though a few minor reforms could persuade people of the honour and integrity of their traditional leaders.
436 The 1990 election in Tonga Rodney C. Hills. The Contemporary Pacific, vol. 3, no. 2 (1991), pp.357–78 The 1990 election in Tonga took place against a background of unprecedented concern over the accountability of ministers with regard to expense allowances, passport sales, land deals and financial management generally. Many Tongans who travelled or had families overseas were learning of other patterns of parliamentary democracy. The unofficial press was increasingly outspoken and traditional loyalties and behaviour patterns were breaking down. While political parties did not emerge then and have not subsequently, a group of candidates standing broadly on a platform of constitutional reform and ministerial accountability to Parliament rather than to the monarch was elected with large majorities. Then Australian High Commissioner to Tonga Hills was able to observe this remarkable election firsthand. He describes the parliamentary system under the present Constitution, the conduct of the campaign, the candidates and the issues, and considers the election’s significance for the government of the day, and for Tonga’s national interest.
437
The organization of ideological diversity in discourse: modern and neotraditional visions of the Tongan state Susan U. Philips. American Ethnologist, vol. 31, no. 2 (2004), pp.231–50
Through an analysis of cases heard in Tongan magistrates’ courts, Philips finds that crimes are framed both in modern legal terms and in distinctly Tongan terms. Within the formal legal framework that identifies Tonga as a modern nation-state, a Tongan moral framework prevails that is strongly moralizing, invoking ‘the Tongan way,’ and the social relationships central to Tongan life. She uses this as an example of the way in which neotraditional and modern nation-constituting discourses relate
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to each other in Tonga. However in other domains of Tongan political life she finds that very different and local ways of representing the nation coexist. She compares Tonga with other Pacific nations.
438 Predicaments in Polynesia: culture and constitutions in Western Samoa and Tonga Rodney C. Hills. Pacific Studies, vol. 16, no. 4 (1993), pp.115–29 Hills sees both similarities and differences in the constitutional development of Tonga and of Western Samoa. They began the 19th century with similar social and political conditions. Each tried to adapt representative government to its own traditions, and each has found that the compromise with chiefly authority has worked only partially. Tonga adopted the features of the modern state earlier, with the Constitution of 1875, but the centralised and relatively authoritarian government, while laying the foundation of a century of stability, was a distortion of Polynesian traditions that Tongans themselves now seem unwilling to accept. Hills feels that Western Samoa has tackled the challenges more successfully than Tonga, where the system lost its flexibility with the introduction of hereditary titles. Tonga now needs to allow the expression and adoption of dissenting views. It must be added that the years since publication have demonstrated just how much freedom there is to express dissenting views, both in Parliament and in the kingdom generally, though within limits, even if the system of government has not yet changed.
439 The pro-democracy movement in Tonga Sione Lâtûkefu. The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 28, no. 3 (1993), pp.52–63 Lâtûkefu describes the background to the establishment of the pro-democracy movement in Tonga in 1991, the changing religious, educational, social and economic situation that led to demands for a more democratic system of government. He observes the important role of some church leaders, the allegations of unjust actions by the government over the sale of passports and of parliamentarians collecting large and unjustified allowances, the success of reformers in the election of 1990, the emergence of new and radical publications, and subsequent pressure for reform. He notes that the Constitution of 1875 was radical in its time, with everyone equal in the eyes of the law, but that some of its provisions are undemocratic and in need of revision. At a convention on constitutional reform in 1992 no one advocated doing away with the monarchy. What most people wanted was a more democratic monarchical government, with the people electing Parliament and the monarch appointing ministers from among them. The government defended the status quo, based on the traditional Tongan respect for age, seniority and traditional leaders. Yet in the 1993 election pro-democracy candidates again did well. Writing in that year, Lâtûkefu felt that any prospect of rapid change was unrealistic. Many government ministers were well educated and highly qualified and the pro-democracy movement was unable to agree on a comprehensive and coherent plan for the
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future. Reforms demanded, he believed, could not be achieved under the present system, and only the king can initiate any movement for significant change if they are to occur peacefully.
440 Progress and populism in Tongan politics I. C. Campbell. The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 41, no. 1 (2006), pp.49–60 The March 2005 election followed major setbacks for the government. There was much discontent over the much-increased price of electricity. US$20 million of Tongan investments, raised through the sale of Tongan passports to non-Tongans, were lost through unwise speculation. The government attempted to control the media by banning a radical paper published in New Zealand and attempting to limit media ownership to Tongan citizens, which involved amending the Constitution, subsequently declared null and void by the chief justice. Then Royal Tongan Airlines ceased operation and a new internal airline policy was disputed. Campbell comments, ‘In three years, the government’s reputation for competence and integrity had suffered more than the usual damage: five ministers dismissed and three major controversies.’ Before the election the government had announced a significant political reform, that two People’s Representatives and two representatives of the nobles would be appointed to the cabinet, whose members had all previously been appointed directly by the king. Campbell sets out in detail the candidates, the issues and the manner of the campaign. The result was much as before, with sweeping wins for candidates of the Human Rights and Democracy Movement of Tonga, except in Vava‘u. But there followed a six-week general strike by civil servants over new salary scales, at the end of which the government had to concede all their demands. Campbell sees this defiance and agitation over the other issues as unprecedented in Tongan history. The paper sets the scene for the dramatic events later in 2006.
441 Public sector reform in Tonga—the show must go on Desmond Velese Amosa. Pacific Economic Bulletin, vol. 22, no. 3 (2007), pp.183–90 Amosa examines the recent public sector reforms in Tonga against a background of low economic growth and a public sector perceived to be ineffective and inefficient, failing to deliver in many areas including water, health, transport and education. Lack of interest by the private sector means that the government had to engage in commercial activities. The intention is to corporatize and privatize some of these. Much progress has been made since 2002. Following the civil servants’ strike in 2005 and the large pay settlement, numbers were reduced from 5,558 to 4,581, but the salary cost rose from T$40.3 million to T$63.6 million. Amosa believes that the government must continue to clarify its policy on investment in high-risk activities and that political stability is important. Reform is still challenged by some civil servants. There is still much to be done.
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442 The quest for constitutional reform in Tonga I. C. Campbell. The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 40, no. 1 (2005), pp.91–104 Most constitutions of Pacific island states were drafted by Western lawyers. Tonga is the exception, but many now see its Constitution as archaic, the kingdom as feudal or absolutist. Amendments were made as early as the 1880s, to allay opposition of nobles to the new order. Campbell follows the progress of discussions about constitutional reform in Tonga from the 1970s. Proposals have largely been cautious and conservative, seeking an enlarged legislature and responsible executive. The first proposals were aired at a constitutional convention called by the Pro-Democracy Movement in 1992, but there was no formal movement for political change. Through the 1990s there were several parliamentary motions calling for reform. A further public convention in 1999 produced further proposals. Allegations of misuse of power, corruption and nepotism fuelled further agitation for reform. Campbell summarizes and tabulates proposals made in 1997 and April and September 2002, the last the most radical in that the king would be head of state but no longer head of government, with the Privy Council becoming an upper house and the prime minister elected from and by a reformed House of Representatives. Yet he concludes that in the end this is an academic enterprise: there is no realistic chance of the government taking any notice. But he notes in a postscript that the king implemented the change announced the previous year, that two each of the elected Nobles’ and People’s Representatives should be appointed to cabinet. Some see this as a step in the right direction, others as a Machiavellian ploy.
443
The recent elections in Tonga: democratic supporters win but does democracy follow? Kerry James. The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 37, no. 3 (2002), pp.313–22
In the elections of March 2002 supporters of the Tongan Human Rights and Democracy Movement won seven of the nine seats for commoner People’s Representatives. The result was quickly hailed by the most vocal reformers as a clear mandate from the people for democratic political change. However James suggests that this may not be so. Voter turnout was only 49 percent, and there seems little evidence of voting for changes in the legislature or Constitution. People seem to have voted for those who might help them, and the reformers have no policies or programmes for change. Popular opinion may regret corruption and cronyism but many people are still loyal to the present monarchy and simply seek greater transparency and accountability rather than radical reform. An analysis of voting figures over the last twelve years shows the vote for THRDM candidates declining. It is far too soon, James believes, to start claiming a victory for democracy.
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Rock of ages: tension underlying stability in Tonga I. C. Campbell. In Australia’s arc of instability: the politics and cultural dynamics of regional security. Edited by Dennis Rumley, Vivian Louis Forbes, Christopher Griffin. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 2006, pp.273–88 (The GeoJournal Library, vol. 82)
Australia sees an arc of unstable nations to its north and east, from East Timor to Tonga. However Campbell sees Tonga’s problem not as instability but as a perception of rigidity, not too little authority but too much. He describes the Tongan political system with a lack of political parties but the rise, from the 1987 election, of a ‘pro-democracy movement’. Yet there is little discontent with the basic institutions, only a call for greater accountability and justice. Culture, society and the state are coextensive. The system of nobility and of political authority is inherent in Tongan culture. He describes the instabilities of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the stability achieved by Queen Sâlote Tupou III and the drive for modernization by King Taufa‘âhau Tupou IV, among whose many successful schemes were some that were controversial. Government remained stable despite some demonstrations of dissatisfaction. The Supreme Court and the Privy Council clashed over freedom of speech and publication; the government was seen as heavy-handed. Pressures for constitutional change continue, but Campbell sees Tonga as basically stable. The paper was written before the damaging riots in Nuku‘alofa in November 2006. Campbell may be right, but his thesis remains to be tested.
445 Thy kingdom come: the democratization of aristocratic Tonga Epeli Hau‘ofa. The Contemporary Pacific, vol. 6, no. 2 (1994), pp.414–28 Hau‘ofa sees the present movement for democratization in Tonga, perhaps paradoxically, as the consequence of the Constitution of 1875, which abolished the real power of the nobles, but which ultimately exposed a centralizing but now vulnerable monarchy directly to the ordinary people of Tonga, often better educated and with more economic power than the nobles. He sees the nobles as still having a role to perform as a focus of culture and identity, but he believes that they have been ‘transformed from knighthood into pawnhood’ as the powers of the monarchy have increased. He does not note that the interests of the monarchy and the nobility have become increasingly identified through intermarriage, strengthening the role of the nobility in one respect at least.
446
Tonga Colin Newbury. In Patrons, clients and empire: chieftaincy and over-rule in Asia, Africa and the Pacific. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, p.240–55.
In a volume of essays on the broad theme of traditional leadership and imperial rule, Newbury reviews the development of leadership and power in Tonga and its relationship with status by rank. He considers how chieftaincies consolidated their
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positions before European contact, and examines the influence of European missionaries through their alliances with high chiefs. Early codes of laws, from that of Vava‘u in 1839 onwards, indicated religious sanction for the role of the new paramount chief George Tupou I, and later Shirley Baker and the king worked together to develop both a centralised state and religious conformity. He follows the story through the reigns of King George Tupou II and Queen Sâlote Tupou III. He concludes that, in the century from the 1870s, political patronage overtook status by ascription and achievement. Nobles and chiefs were now part of the government of Tonga through political appointment as ministers. He also relates Tonga’s experience to that of Hawai‘i and Fiji.
447
Tonga Ropate Qalo. In Decentralisation in the South Pacific: local, provincial and state government in twenty countries. Edited by Peter Larmour, Ropate Qalo. Suva: University of the South Pacific, 1985, pp.238–42
In this brief note Qalo sets out what little there is to be said on local government within Tonga. The major units of government are the three island groups of Tongatapu, Ha‘apai and Vava‘u. Each is divided into districts containing a number of villages. Each village has a town officer whose role is to mediate between village and government and to deal mainly with public health, cleaning, weeding, etc. Each reports to a district officer. On Tongatapu town officers report directly to the prime minister’s office. Ha‘apai and Vava‘u both have a governor to whom their district officers report. Both town and district officers are elected for three years. The law also provides for several levels of public meeting (fono) called by senior government officials, a noble or a village.
448
Tonga: the last Pacific kingdom Emiliana Afeaki. In Politics in Polynesia. Edited by Ron Crocombe, Ahmed Ali. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies of the University of the South Pacific, 1983, pp.55–78
Afeaki describes the political system in Tonga as it operated at that time under the terms of the 1875 Constitution, a unique transplant of the English model of government to a Polynesian kingdom with traditional roles and relationships between ranks. The king exercises power through a Privy Council and a cabinet, whose members he appoints. Its members, together with an equal number of Nobles’ Representatives and People’s Representatives, constitute the Legislative Assembly. Afeaki predicts some of the economic and political pressures that have become clearer since she wrote, with tentative, though still largely unsuccessful, moves towards party politics. The changes agreed to in 2006 could hardly have been anticipated at that time.
449 Tonga since the 1990 election: things change but stay the same I. C. Campbell. The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 27, no. 3 (1992), pp.61–65
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Campbell provides a general overview of Tonga after the 1990 election, which saw an overwhelming vote for critics of the government and an apparent unity of interest among the People’s Representatives. Two years later there was little sign of the dramatic developments anticipated by some observers, despite popular dissatisfaction over the government’s handling of passport sales to nonresidents and other matters. However, the People’s Representatives have obliged ministers to examine their own behaviour more critically. The economy saw the value of remittances fall, and the growth of pumpkin exports that has brought riches to some. The questions remained how far the government would foster economic development and social change without either conceding a larger share of political power to the new interests or resorting to repression. Campbell saw the people at that stage as expectantly waiting for change rather than pressing for it.
450 Tonga’s pro-democracy movement Kerry E. James. Pacific Affairs, vol. 67, no. 2 (1994), pp.242–63 James traces the movement for political reform in Tonga, beginning with the criticisms of several government ministers for alleged financial irregularities. She notes that the growing discontent among professionals and wealthy businessmen seeks not to change policy but to correct behaviour through greater accountability. The number who understand and want full democracy remains uncertain. She sets out the constitutional provision for limited democracy, with the underrepresentation of commoners in government, and outlines social and economic developments and their impact on the political scene leading to the allegations by ‘Akilisi Pohiva in 1986 of irregular payments to ministers and members of Parliament, the role of the media in encouraging popular agitation, and the results of the general elections of 1987, 1990 and 1993. She attempts to evaluate the importance of democracy to Tonga, and notes some disillusion with criticism of social superiors and a wish for more positive ideas for reform. It is difficult to see how democratic control might occur without an emphatic change of heart by the then monarch or the next.
451
Tradition versus democracy in the South Pacific: Fiji, Tonga and Western Samoa Stephanie Lawson. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1996. 228pp. 4 maps. bibliog.
Lawson sees the political elite in Tonga as using a largely invented tradition to defend its power and privilege against demands for accountability and participation. She traces the political history of Tonga from the Constitution of 1875 to the pro-democracy movement of the late 1990s as an attempt by chiefly elites to use invented tradition to sanctify their own dominance. She quotes the Tongan writer Epeli Hau‘ofa: ‘It is the privileged who can afford to tell the poor to preserve their traditions.’ There is truth in this, but there are many who still value tradition with its ancient origins, when freed of abuse, and who see the nobles
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created by the 1875 Constitution as but the ancient chiefdoms continued. Lawson quotes the Hon. Fusitu‘a, speaker of Tonga’s Legislative Assembly at that time, as saying that a country that decides for itself how to run a democracy is a democracy. This observation, in the Tongan context, not judged by the standards of Western liberal democracy, may be more valid in Tonga even today than Lawson might admit.
PhD theses 452 Culture-bound public administration: the value basis of public administration in Tonga Taniela L. Fusimalohi. University of Queensland, 2005 453 The political ecology of a Tongan village C. J. Stevens. University of Arizona, 1996 454 Tradition, politics and change in contemporary Fiji and Tonga A. R. Ewins. Australian National University, 1995
Constitution and Legal System 455 After the vanilla harvest: stains in the Tongan land tenure system Paul van der Grijp. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 102, no. 3 (1993), pp.233–53 This is a detailed case study of the inheritance of land within a kin group, at a stage of transition from shifting cultivation to intensive agriculture, from a society in which all have a place of their own to one that engages extensively in wage labour. The author sets out the historical background to land tenure in Tonga, and then examines a village in Vava‘u in which vanilla has become the main cash crop; the way in which capital is invested and the cash returns are spent; and the effect of cash on patterns of inheritance of land. The cost of gifts to nobles for the right to land has greatly increased and traditional concepts of access to land are changing.
456 The Constitution and the traditional political system of Tonga Laki M. Niu. Pacific Perspective, vol. 13, no. 1 (1985), pp.67–70 From a brief review of the process that led to the Constitution of 1875, Niu concludes that a sharing similar to the one made then between king, chiefs and people must now be made again.
457 Constitutions and people’s values: changing the Constitution of Tonga
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Guy Powles. In Tonga and the Tongans: heritage and identity. Edited by Elizabeth Wood-Ellem. Alphington, Victoria, Australia: Tonga Research Association, 2007, pp.25–45
Powles considers the principles upon which the 1875 Constitution of Tonga was based, and reviews the changes that have been made to it since and current proposals for further significant changes. He sees the need to adopt a comprehensive and consistent blueprint for the nation that all Tongans could feel belonged to them and responded to their cultural values and aspirations.
458
The early accommodation of traditional and English law in Tonga Guy Powles. In Tongan Culture and History. Edited by Phyllis Herda, Jennifer Terrell, Niel Gunson. Canberra: The Journal of Pacific History, 1990, pp.145–69
The introduction of British concepts of law to Tonga was accompanied by some controversy and conflict, but the architects of the new state of Tonga selected elements from each legal culture and arrived at an early accommodation with Tongan legal culture. In this way, Powles claims, Tonga was able to lead Pacific island societies in establishing stable central government. This paper examines the establishment of that accommodation and how it was enforced during the period 1875 to 1930. It presents data and analysis in the form of three studies—the essentials of the 1875 Constitution in their early context; constitutional and statutory changes in the law from 1875 to 1903; and the implementation of laws by central government to 1930. A useful appendix lists all the codes, early treaties, laws and revisions from 1836 to 1988.
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The impact of the British on the Tongan traditional concept of justice and law Sione Lâtûkefu. In European impact and Pacific influence: British and German colonial policy in the Pacific Islands and the indigenous response. Edited by Hermann J. Hiery, John M. MacKenzie. London; New York: I. B. Tauris in association with the German Historical Institute, 1997, pp.177–88
Lâtûkefu notes that before European impact Tongan society, being nonliterate, lacked codified laws and relied on oral transmission of knowledge of traditions and customs from one generation to the next. In its stratified society chiefs ruled and developed traditions and customs to perpetuate, protect and legitimize their status. These were based on concepts of mana (sacredness) and tapu (prohibition). The system at its best relied on reciprocity when not abused, but there was no concept of personal liberty, social equality or justice for commoners. These concepts have been considerably modified through British influence, although that influence remained indirect in accordance with British policy for small countries like Tonga. Lâtûkefu describes how King George Tupou I saw that the missionaries could help him rule his people in the British way, riding the wave of European impact rather than going
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against it. He outlines the legal codes the king promulgated with the missionaries’ help, from the Vava‘u Code of 1839 to the Constitution of 1875. But he notes, with personal reminiscences of the behaviour of chiefs when he was young, that the tension between introduced laws of equality and social justice and traditional Tongan culture has not been completely resolved even in the present day.
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Laws of Tonga: comprising all laws, acts, ordinances and subsidiary legislation in force on the 31st day of December 1988 Revised 1988 edition prepared under the authority of the Laws Consolidation Act, 1988 by Neil James Adsett. Nuku‘alofa: The Government of Tonga, 1989
The most recent edition of Laws of Tonga is published in five volumes, with each act paginated but no continuous pagination. Volume 1 contains a general preface setting out the changes since the previous edition in 1967, consequent upon independence in 1970, a complete Table of Acts and an index to the laws. Acts are set out under the following titles: A - Interpretation (chapter 1); B - Government (chapters 2–8); C - Administration of justice (chapters 9–24); D - Civil law (chapters 25–34); E Police, prisons, public order (chapters 35–40); F - General administration (chapters 41–54); G - Defence (chapters 55–58); H - Nationality and immigration (chapters 59–63); I - Revenue (chapters 64–73); J - Health and medical (chapters 74–85); K - Education and national heritage (chapters 86–91); L - Government services (chapters 92–101); M - Finance and banking (chapters 102–12); N - Commerce (chapters 113–21); O - Fish and plants (chapters 122–31); P - Land and minerals (chapters 132–35); Q - Marine (chapters 136–45); R - Animals (chapters 146–50); S - Aircraft (chapters 151–54); T - Road and traffic (chapters 155–57); U - Diplomatic and international relations (chapters 158–64); V - Entertainment (chapters 165–69). The five volumes contain the following chapters: Volume 1, chapters 1–38; Volume 2, chapters 39–73; Volume 3, chapters 74–101; Volume 4, chapters 102–35; Volume 5, chapters 136–69. Volume 5 also has a chronological table and general index by topic. An annual volume of new and amended legislation is prepared and issued by the Ministry of Justice. The laws of Tonga are now also available on a CD from the Ministry of Justice, and on a Web site, www.legislation.to, with texts both in Tongan and in English.
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Litigation, interpersonal conflict and noble succession disputes in the Friendly Islands George E. Marcus. In Access to justice, Vol. IV, the anthropological perspective, patterns of conflict management: essays in the ethnography of law. Edited by Klaus-Friedrich Koch. Alphen aan der Rijn, the Netherlands: Sijthoff & Nordhoff; Milan, Italy: Dott. A. Giuffré Editore, 1979, pp.69–104
Marcus observes that the traditional means of expressing and managing disputes among Tongans are in principle contradictory to the procedure of a European-style legal system based on an adversary relationship between disputing parties. Tongans
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are avidly litigious, yet bitter disputes in court are followed by smooth social relations. Marcus considers the significance of litigation in the broader context of interpersonal conflict, concentrating on litigation involving land and titles. He describes informal traditional methods of dispute resolution as governed by traditional Tongan behaviour, knowing how and when to get angry, how to ask forgiveness and how to express residual resentment; he also considers the role of gossip and public opinion. He describes the court system and legal profession, and the nature of litigation over nobles’ titles and estates. He examines and analyses three title disputes in detail. His conclusion is that litigation offers possession or compensation in a way that traditional resolution does not, and that the use of lawyers avoids direct confrontation between adversaries, allowing for the ideal pattern of smooth social relations. The best long-term interests of litigants often appear to be served by mutually rejecting the disruptive role of past litigation in their continuing public relations.
462
Pacific courts and legal systems Edited by Guy Powles, Mere Pulea. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific, in association with the Faculty of Law, Monash University, 1988. 376pp. map
This book consists of fifty-five short papers by people engaged in courts and legal work. Most combine personal reflection with systematic description. There are three papers on Tonga. Hingano Helu (‘Independence of adjudicators and judicial decision making in Tonga’) makes clear the effect on the adjudicator’s work of Tongan traditions of gift making and of obligations to relatives and friends. ‘Alisi Afeaki Taumoepeau (‘The Land Court in Tonga’) raises the growing problem of the legal status of the tax allotments of Tongans who have left to live overseas. Taniela Manu (‘Lawyers in Tonga: a personal view’) observes that, of thirty lawyers licensed to work in Tonga, only eight have law degrees and some of them live overseas. Most have been trained and gained experience locally. For them more training is needed, but he believes that there will always be a place for lay lawyers in Tonga alongside law graduates, providing a service within reach of the common people.
463 Pacific law bibliography Jacqueline D. Elliott. Hobart, Australia: Pacific Law Press, 1990. 2nd ed. 659pp. The ‘countries’ section of this bibliography lists forty-four items for Tonga, including the Constitution, statutes, law reports and articles in books and journals, classified by topic and published to May 1990. All items are also printed in a general subject sequence.
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Right and privilege in Tongan land tenure Kerry James. In Land, custom and practice in the South Pacific. Edited by R. Gerard Ward, Elizabeth Kingdon. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp.157–97
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James begins by pointing out that the Constitution of 1875 set Tonga on a course quite different from that of its neighbours. There was no distinction between freehold and customary title. All land became the property of the crown and was divided into royal, government and noble estates. The history of land tenure is thus concerned with changes in social strata and in the nature of the value of land. James identifies and develops four major themes: commoners exercising their rights by applying for allotments; the increase in population that now makes it impossible for many Tongans to acquire land; the government’s resistance to change in the original land measures; and the appearance of an informal land market with extralegal payments for the lease or use of land, which has grown rapidly since the 1970s, fuelled by the impact of remittances. James describes the pre-European system of land holding and the reforms of the 19th century and subsequent developments. She examines customary practice from a detailed survey of the pattern of land holding on an island in Vava‘u, with case studies of patterns of transmission of land. In the late 1970s the government amended the Land Act so that farmers could acquire holdings larger than their statutory allotment and could use land as security to obtain bank loans. Subsistence farmers are becoming commercial growers and can pay considerable sums to lease land, as can those needing urban land for housing. James concludes that land practice has never been in step with the legal code and the illusion that the present is not really different from the past has become more difficult to preserve as commercial activity leads to a greater assertion of individual land rights.
465
Tonga H. H. Marshall. In International encyclopedia of comparative law, Vol. 1: national reports T. Edited by Viktor Knapp. Tübingen, Germany: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck); Paris, The Hague: Mouton, no date (c. 1973), pp.T25–26
This two-page entry briefly summarizes the constitutional system of Tonga (nationality, territorial division, state organs and the judiciary) and sources of law and present law (the Constitution and the basic law).
466 Tonga C. Guy Powles. In South Pacific islands legal systems. Edited by Michael A. Ntumy. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1993, pp.315–41 The sources of Tongan law are the Constitution, statutes and subsidiary legislation of Tonga, English common law and some statute law. Powles outlines these sources, the constitutional system and form of government, and the law in its particular respects: international, financial, criminal, land and titles, family, wills and successions, contract, and commercial. He also describes judicial procedures and legal education. The book treats the law of all the South Pacific countries, following the same scheme of headings. The law and legal system of Tonga can thus be compared usefully with those of its neighbours.
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467 Tonga: equality overtaking privilege Alaric Maude, Feleti Sevele. In Land tenure in the Pacific. Edited by Ron Crocombe. Suva: University of the South Pacific, 1987, 3rd. ed., pp.114–42 Maude alone wrote the chapter on Tonga for the first edition of this book in 1971; for the third edition his contribution has been updated by Sevele (now prime minister). They describe the precontact landholding system as far as the evidence allows, the claim by King George Tupou I to all land in 1850, the consolidation of this process through the 19th century, and the important 1976 amendments to the Land Act whereby land could be mortgaged to secure bank loans and landlords can lease out their allotments. They describe the present system, with statistics on ownership and distribution, and discuss the problems of rising population and uneven distribution of land, with migration from the outer islands and the villages both to the towns and overseas. They suggest some of the problems over allocation and tenure that will have to be faced in the future but have largely not been resolved in the years since they wrote.
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Tonga law reports: Volume I, cases decided in the Supreme Court of Tonga, 1908–1959 Edited by D. B. Hunter. Nuku‘alofa: Government Printer, 1961, 120pp. Tonga law reports: Volume II, reports of Land Court cases 1923– 1962, Privy Council decisions, 1924–1961 Edited by D. B. Hunter. Nuku‘alofa: Government Printer, 1963. 220pp. Tonga law reports: Volume III, Land Court cases and Privy Council decisions, 1962–1973 Edited by H. Steed Roberts. Nuku‘alofa: Government Printer, 1974. 52pp. Tonga law reports, 1974–1980 Edited by D. Paterson, N. Hampton. Nuku‘alofa: Ministry of Justice, 1995. 109pp. Tonga law reports, 1981–1988 Edited by D. Paterson, N. Hampton. Nuku‘alofa: Ministry of Justice, 1995. 144pp. Tonga law reports, 1989 Edited by D. Paterson, N. Hampton. Nuku‘alofa: Ministry of Justice, 1995, 110pp. Tonga law reports, 1990 Edited by G. W. Martin, D. Paterson. Nuku‘alofa: Ministry of Justice, 1994. 208pp. Tonga law reports, 1991 Edited by N. Hampton. Nuku‘alofa: Ministry of Justice, 1997. 71pp. Tonga law reports, 1992 Edited by N. Hampton. Nuku‘alofa: Ministry of Justice, 1997. 84pp. Tonga law reports, 1993 Edited by N. Hampton. Nuku‘alofa: Ministry of Justice, 1997. 42pp.
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Tonga law reports, 1994 Edited by N. Hampton. Nuku‘alofa: Ministry of Justice, 1997. 135pp. Tonga law reports, 1995 Edited by N. Hampton. Nuku‘alofa: Ministry of Justice, 1997. 219pp. Tonga law reports, 1996 Edited by N. Hampton. Nuku‘alofa: Ministry of Justice, 1997. 257pp. Tonga law reports, 1997 Edited by N. Hampton. Nuku‘alofa: Ministry of Justice, 1998. 267pp. Tonga law reports, 1998 Edited by J. Ford. Nuku‘alofa: Ministry of Justice, 2003. 251pp. Tonga law reports, 1999 Edited by J. Ford. Nuku‘alofa: Ministry of Justice, 2004. 269pp. Tonga law reports, 2000 Edited by J. Ford. Nuku‘alofa: Ministry of Justice, 2005. 440pp. Tonga law reports, 2001 Edited by J. Ford. Nuku‘alofa: Ministry of Justice, 2006. 333pp.
All these volumes report on the most significant cases concerning criminal, civil, land and family law.
469
Tonga: legal constraints and social potentials Mosikaka Moengangongo. In Land rights of Pacific women. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies of the University of the South Pacific, 1986, pp.87–102
The author believes that, in spite of the limits of legislation in Tonga in giving land rights to women, their ‘silent rights’ are still significant, but now inadequate. She describes the system of ranking in Tongan society and how it impinges on land rights. Traditional land tenure was predominantly the domain of men. Under the present system brought in by the Land Act of 1862, land is acquired largely by inheritance, the male being preferred to the female because the land belongs to the male-headed extended family. A widow is entitled to a life estate in her husband’s property, but this automatically terminates if she remarries. It is possible for a daughter to inherit if there is no male heir. However, only 2 percent of tax allotments were then held by women, and under terms that can be restrictive. Women are increasingly involved in income-generating activities; uncertainty of tenure is a major constraint to longterm capital investment, and land laws need to be revised.
470 The Tongan Constitution: a brief history to celebrate its centenary Sione Lâtûkefu. Nuku‘alofa: Tonga Traditions Committee, 1975. 152pp. map. bibliog. That Tonga remained the only independent nation in the Pacific by 1900 was largely due to the Constitution of 1875. Completed by King George I from material prepared by Shirley Baker, and building on the earlier codes of 1839, 1850 and 1862,
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it established the fundamental freedom of all Tongans, limited the power of the chiefs, made land inalienable and defined a constitutional monarchy of an appropriately Tongan style. Lâtûkefu describes the development of the Constitution and its place in the history of Tonga in the following century. He concludes that, for all its shortcomings, it has served Tonga well. Appendixes give the complete texts of the Constitution of 1875 and that of 1975, which is updated but still essentially the same.
PhD theses 471 The persistence of chiefly power and its implications for law and political organization in Western Polynesia C. Guy Powles. Australian National University, 1979 472 Tonga’s contemporary land tenure system: reality and rhetoric S. N. K. Halatuituia. University of Sydney, 2003
Foreign Relations 473 Kingdom, People’s Republic formalize diplomatic relations The Tonga Chronicle, 5 November 1998, pp.1, 3 In a surprising and dramatic development in October 1998 Tonga established diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China, ending twenty-six years of warm and close relations with Taiwan. Taiwan had provided much aid in infrastructure projects and such public works as the Queen Sâlote Memorial Hall and the ‘Atele Stadium, and as recently as July 1998 had sent a large, high-level delegation to Tonga for the king’s eightieth birthday celebrations. It had recently built a large new embassy. The report in The Tonga Chronicle said that China would build a new embassy and provide financial assistance and an interest-free loan to assist economic development. Vice-Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, in Tonga for the announcement on 2 November, said that there was no conflict of fundamental interest between the two countries. ‘The Chinese people stand ready to join hands with the people of Tonga to build an even better world’, he said. According to the report the decision was made when the king visited China in July 1997.
474 Microstates and nuclear issues: regional cooperation in the Pacific Yoko S. Ogashiwa. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific, 1991. 92pp. map. bibliog. Few issues have more united the independent states of the South Pacific than nuclear testing and the dumping of nuclear waste. Testing started with the Americans in 1946, followed by the British and then, from 1966, the French. Protests from the
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island states, including Tonga, began in 1970, and the book records their progress to the signing of the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty in 1985 by eight countries. Tonga, however, did not sign, believing that its security depended on the American military presence, supported by a nuclear-armed force. For a while it was the only independent Pacific state to accept US warships in its ports. The book quotes Tonga’s then foreign minister, Crown Prince Tupouto‘a, as saying that the ban was an emotional reaction, and that Tonga’s approach was more strategic. The book brings out the independence of Tonga’s foreign policy, maintained despite its status as part of the South Pacific community of states.
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The Pacific island states: security and sovereignty in the post-Cold War world Stephen Henningham. London: Macmillan Press; New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995. 174pp. 7 maps. bibliog.
This is a study of security and defence issues and trends in the Pacific, and of the challenges the Pacific island states face to their security and sovereignty. From the 1960s fourteen small independent states emerged, including Tonga. Initially they maintained close connections with the Western nations. The 1980s were less stable, with the USA, France, Japan, the former USSR (that approached Tonga in 1976 for port access in return for aid) and even Libya paying increased attention to the region. With the ending of superpower rivalry in the 1990s, the island states faced new challenges, with less interest from the wider world. Writing for both an academic and a general audience, Henningham pays particular attention to three topics: French nuclear testing and related issues; the role of Australia and New Zealand in the region; and military and paramilitary intervention such as the coups in Fiji. He identifies Tonga as the most conservative state in Polynesia in its foreign policy, giving only cautious support to regional positions on French nuclear testing, and having a more positive attitude than other states to French presence and policies generally. He also notes that Tonga is one of only three Pacific states to have armed forces, with Fiji and Papua New Guinea. He concludes that the region as a whole and its links with the wider world have become more complex and to some extent more volatile. All of them, including Tonga, face economic and environmental problems and a lessening of interest and of aid from the major powers. Henningham sees an uncertain future.
476
Restructuring foreign and defence policy: the Pacific islands Richard Herr. In Asia-Pacific in the new world order. Edited by Anthony McGrew, Christopher Brook. London; New York: Routledge, 1998, pp.209–28
Herr identifies environmentalism as a substantial part of the contemporary South Pacific’s regional approach to foreign policy, though he does not note that this is probably less the case for Tonga than for some of the other island states. He follows the theme of ‘unity in diversity’ and the challenge of adapting to a post-Cold War
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order. He identifies the limitations in the tiny and vulnerable states of the South Pacific—diverse in size, geography and political background—in exercising sovereignty through the management of their external affairs, and the development of regionalism as an appropriate response. He sees that the range of foreign policy options available to them has probably declined since the end of the Cold War. He records how the establishment of nonresident diplomatic relations between Tonga and the Soviet Union in 1976 startled the Western states into agreeing that Soviet involvement in the South Pacific should be opposed. He describes the importance of the 200-mile economic zones established in the early 1980s, the changing relations with major Western powers and with Australia and New Zealand, and the possible roles of Japan, China and Taiwan. Finally Herr looks at the domestic dimension, with political changes, population pressures and environmental concerns all of significance. He concludes that, small as they are, the island states have been and can continue to be effective. All this is in general terms; Tonga’s concerns and constraints are not always those of the other islands, but most of the general factors identified that affect them affect Tonga too.
477 The South Pacific foreign affairs handbook Steve Hoadley. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, in association with the New Zealand Institute for International Affairs, 1992. 258pp. 3 maps. bibliog. ‘Tonga has been perceived as slightly eccentric in foreign policy’, writes Hoadley, citing such events as the talks with the Soviet Union in 1976 over facilities for fishing in return for upgrading the airport, its diplomatic relations at that time with Taiwan, and its friendship with France despite nuclear testing. Hoadley sees the policy as part of a movement to widen room to manoeuvre and broaden the resource base of a small island state. The general introductory chapters describe Tonga’s place in the international and regional structures of the South Pacific. The chapter devoted to Tonga describes how the Tongan government works out its stated aim of ‘harmonious relations and mutual cooperation . . . with all nations and international organizations’. In his thorough summary Hoadley’s only major omission is perhaps the importance of the particularly close relations with Fiji, resulting from historical and dynastic factors and shown in Tonga’s expression of some support for the military coups there.
478
Strategic cooperation and competition in the Pacific islands Edited by F. A. Mediansky. Sydney: University of New South Wales, Centre for Pacific Studies; Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University, AustraliaNew Zealand Study Center, 1995, 390pp.
This general survey of strategic and security issues provides two general overviews; four papers on economic, political, security and regional cooperation perspectives; and papers on the major external powers: Australia, France, Japan, New Zealand, the (former) Soviet Union, China and others. Tonga surfaces briefly when appropriate. Given the considerable Taiwanese presence in Tonga at the time of writing,
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more might have been said of Taiwan’s intentions and the relationship of the island countries with China. The king, on a perhaps unprecedented visit to both in the late 1990s, was warmly received in both countries, although diplomatic relations with Taiwan were ended shortly after, and relations with China were formalized (item 473). The island states cannot isolate themselves from the political and strategic concerns of the world’s major powers, and this book records the main issues and relationships that affect Tonga as much as the other states.
479 Tonga and Australia since World War II Gareth Grainger. In Echoes of Pacific war. Edited by Deryck Scarr, Niel Gunson, Jennifer Terrell. Canberra: Target Oceania, 1988, pp.64–75 Relations between Tonga and Australia have changed fundamentally since World War II. Before 1939 there was little contact except through the Wesleyan church, though Grainger notes that all prime ministers from 1923 to 1992 were educated in Australia, forming a strong personal link. On independence in 1970 diplomatic relations were established. The present relationship focuses on development assistance and defence cooperation. In the 1970s Britain was still the largest aid donor; now it is Australia, with the emphasis on infrastructure and resource development, education, and the key sectors of agriculture, fisheries and tourism. He sets out the details of co-operation in defence and education, the growth of tourism and the increasing importance of large-scale Tongan emigration to Australia, where he estimates there may now be 50,000 people of Tongan origin. However there are social problems among them, and divisions within the community mean that Tongans have less voice in Australia’s multicultural policy processes than they might have.
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Between the forest and the big lagoon: the microeconomy of Kotu island in the Kingdom of Tonga Arne Aleksej Perminow. Pacific Viewpoint, vol. 34, no. 2 (1993), pp.179–92
Perminow sets out to understand the character of the everyday economics of a peripheral local community in Tonga, a small island in the Ha‘apai group that is farmed mostly for subsistence crops, though the islanders grow kava as a cash crop on the neighbouring island of Tofua. The large lagoon provides a major source of seafood, which has also become significant in the cash economy. Perminow examines patterns of cultivation, trends in population and the increasing role of the cash economy, finding that enhanced social recognition and respectability are more important than cash itself. Examples are given of the careers of the church president and a business entrepreneur. The analysis of the island’s economy and the central role of the church indicates that the economic activities of the islanders resonate
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strongly with the past while at the same time encouraging acumen and business entrepreneurship.
481 The birth and growth of a Polynesian women’s exchange network Cathy A. Small. Oceania, vol. 65, no. 3 (1995), pp.234–56 Small describes the birth and growth of a commoner women’s exchange network in Tonga, within what has been called ‘the compromise culture’. It developed in the first two decades of the 20th century, beginning with the interisland exchange of women’s prestige wealth. It expanded to incorporate groups in Fiji and Samoa, to cover Western commodities and cash, and to include Tongans resident overseas. The story demonstrates the deeply conservative nature of seemingly radical change in Tonga, and the profound changes in Tongan life now under way.
482
Corned beef and tapioca: a report on the food distribution systems in Tonga Epeli Hau‘ofa. Canberra: The Australian National University, 1979. 180pp. map. (Development Studies Centre Monograph, no. 19)
There are now two or three supermarkets in Nuku‘alofa, as well as some sizable shops, and smaller general stores in Pangai (Ha‘apai) and Neiafu (Vava‘u), but every village has its small store selling mostly imported tinned and processed goods, while fresh local produce is largely sold in the markets in Nuku‘alofa and Neiafu. Hau‘ofa describes and analyses the commercial distribution of foodstuffs in Tongatapu. He finds that most retail stores are very small, undercapitalized and unstable; that most market vendors are semi-subsistence and semicommercial growers; and that with the growth of urbanization there is a move towards more commercial farming. His findings are based on a wealth of detailed statistical tables.
483 Country Report: Tonga London: Economist Intelligence Unit. quarterly The quarterly country report on Tonga of the Economist Intelligence Unit provides briefings on the political and economic state of the country and analyses current trends The EIU also produces an annual Country Profile: Tonga, providing background information and general economic and political data.
484 Economic development in seven Pacific island countries Christopher Browne with Douglas A. Scott. Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund, 1989. 219pp. 8 maps The main value of this book lies in the twelve tables provided for each of the seven countries surveyed, including Tonga. These provide detailed information and analysis for the five fiscal years 1982–83 to 1987–88 on: GDP by sector; consumer price index; central government budget, revenue and expenditure; the monetary position; interest rate structure; balance of payments; exports and imports by commodity; external debt; and international reserves. Each country chapter also
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describes geographic and demographic features, outlines the economic structure and institutions and traces the evolution of the economy and the economic strategy to generate growth while retaining the traditional structure of society. The authors conclude that cautious domestic financial management remains crucial, given the particular difficulties of such small and isolated countries dependent largely on a few agricultural products for exports, supplemented by remittances and income from tourism. The IMF sees the 1980s as largely a success story, with accelerating growth and improved living standards, with the traditional way of life preserved amid the development of modern institutions. A comparative table of the seven countries shows Tonga mid-range in GDP, with the highest population density but lowest but one of the countries in population growth, and with the largest calorific intake. There are annexes on multilateral and bilateral economic assistance programmes to the Pacific and on IMF relations with Pacific island countries, showing the type of support given to each.
485 The economic impact of tourism in Tonga Simon Milne. Pacific Viewpoint, vol. 31, no. 1 (1990), pp.24–43 Tourism is supposed to bring great economic benefits, but it also incurs costs. Milne examines the role of tourism in Tonga’s development plans, in the context of its overall trading position and of its concern to minimize negative cultural impacts. He analyses visitor statistics, estimates what visitors spend, and the need to import to meet their needs. He suggests that in 1987, estimated tourist expenditure of T$8 million led to the generation of T$3.34 million in local income and government revenue of T$1.9 million. Finally, Milne suggests that locally run small hotels and guesthouses generate more than larger hotels, and that the government should devote more resources to the development of tourism.
486 An effective framework for trade policy in Tonga Siope V. ‘Ofa. Pacific Economic Bulletin, vol. 22, no. 3 (2007), pp.191–96 ‘Ofa examines the key challenges to the Tongan trade policy framework over the past ten years and how policy has evolved. This is to promote investment and growth in the private sector, with a skilled workforce and an effective government, but advice received has not always been adequate. In April 2007 the government hosted its first National Economic Summit, but a consolidated policy framework is still needed.
487
Entrepreneurship and business venture development in the Kingdom of Tonga S. Deacon Ritterbush. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: Pacific Islands Development Program, East-West Center, 1986. 200pp. 2 maps. bibliog.
The purpose of this exploratory research was to determine the factors that assist or obstruct entrepreneurial attempts at business development in Tonga; it does not
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claim to be exhaustive. A number of recent indicators have shown Tonga to rank high in economic self-sufficiency, largely because of its lack of mineral wealth and its geographical isolation. But new challenges mean that the private sector must be encouraged in order to produce a more balanced business sector. Ritterbush researched 185 local entrepreneurs and concluded that the prognosis for business development in Tonga appeared to be favourable, especially for small- and mediumsized businesses and commercial fishing ventures, but that much structural and attitudinal work needed to be done if Tonga was to continue to develop and expand. Local entrepreneurs must be given the opportunity to master the basics of business and financial management. The survey findings are fully tabulated.
488
Entrepreneurship in an ascribed status society: the Kingdom of Tonga S. Deacon Ritterbush. In Island entrepreneurs: problems and performances in the Pacific. Edited by Te‘o I. J. Fairbairn. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: Pacific Islands Development Program, East-West Center, 1988, pp.137–63
Some theorists have suggested that traditional ascribed-status societies such as Tonga are not culturally preadapted to entrepreneurship. Status is recognized through kinship affiliation rather than economic achievement. This may be too simplistic, and in this paper Ritterbush attempts a comprehensive analysis of the complex and varied factors that have affected and now affect indigenous entrepreneurship and private sector growth. In the early years of European contact Tongans were largely outside the cash economy. In the mid-1970s a public campaign encouraged citizens to save, invest and reinvest income. By 1980 many, particularly commoners, had responded with enthusiasm, though the failure rate was still quite high. Ritterbush conducted interviews in 1983. She found that many had started with inadequate information or advice but that traditional communal obligations were often a motivating force, although they also created problems. The more successful entrepreneurs, better educated and travelled, were more able to manipulate the environment to suit their own needs, and to make communalism work to their favour. Emblems of status are slowly changing and increasing numbers of women, unable to progress in traditional sectors, are establishing their own businesses.
489 A historical perspective on aid and dependency: the example of Tonga I. C. Campbell. Pacific Studies, vol. 15, no. 3 (1992), pp.59–75 Campbell notes the heavy dependency of many Pacific island nations on aid, often linked to the donor’s political interests; dependency also operates in the sense that much of the commercial sector is owned by foreign interests. Aid and trade often seem closely related. Campbell traces Tonga’s pattern of trade from the 1880s and shows that Tonga’s quasi-colonial status made no difference to its economic development before 1970. He considers how foreign aid might have compounded
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Tonga’s economic development since. Until 1965, during the reign of Queen Sâlote, Tonga was economically independent, receiving no budgetary or commercial subsidies. From 1965, aid was intended as an interim arrangement to accelerate the coming of economic independence when island economies would ‘take off’ and become self-sustaining. The first two five-year development plans were intended to be largely self-financed, but from the third in 1975, large amounts of foreign aid were anticipated, though economic independence remained the ultimate aim. Campbell concludes that aid dependency is not the cause of structural weakness. Growing payment deficits are largely caused by private consumer demand paid for by remittances from Tongans overseas. Export productivity has not kept pace with government spending, and the ratio of exports to government revenue has fallen from 300 percent in 1955 to 26 percent in 1985. The loss of remittance income would be much more serious than the ending of foreign aid.
490 Indigenous wealth and development: micro-credit schemes in Tonga Jane C. Horan. Asia Pacific Viewpoint, vol. 43, no. 2 (2002), pp.205–21 Horan examines a scheme where aid donors provided funds for micro-credit schemes for small producers. One project was for the development of women’s commercial handicraft production, to make the weaving of mats and the production of tapa more productive, assuming that the goods would enter the formal economy. In fact, most production is for traditional purposes, not for sale. Horan shows that, though deemed a failure by its funders, it was in Tongan terms a success as women were able to generate more indigenous wealth. She describes the concepts of koloa, traditional objects of wealth, largely exchanged and seldom sold, and of fakalakalaka, the Tongan concept of development, producing wealth within the community. She sees no tidy and clear distinction between a modern realm of economics and a traditional domain. Aid donors should take note and not impose their own assumptions.
491 Kingdom of Tonga—annual foreign trade report 1997 Nuku‘alofa: Department of Statistics, Government of Tonga, 1998, 153pp. This report covers all goods imported into and exported from Tonga, classified by sector (government or private) and type, with total figures for the previous ten years. Foreign trade figures, compiled by the Statistics Department of the Government of Tonga, are now available from the South Pacific Commission Web site, www. spc.int/prism/country/to/stats/.
492
Labour absorption in the Kingdom of Tonga: position, problems and prospects Michael Hess. Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, 1996. 22pp. bibliog. (Economics Division Working Papers, South Pacific, no. 96/1)
The local labour market in Tonga is weak both in terms of demand and supply. Opportunities for paid employment are limited, yet in some areas there are
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shortages of skilled workers. Employment growth is difficult given the lack of capital investment and the small size of the domestic market. The Small Industries Centre has not been very successful, perhaps as much because of distance both from raw materials and from markets as because of lack of labour productivity. Hess believes that agriculture is unlikely to absorb more labour and that the potential of tourism to create more jobs has not yet been realized. Many Tongans readily find work overseas, but Hess sees the only real prospects of growth in Tonga to be in public sector services, though this is dependent on budgetary constraints and requires better human resource management than at present. Education, he concludes, needs to be oriented more to job skills.
493
Labour markets in the South Pacific: an overview of Fiji, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Vanuatu and Western Samoa L. J. Perry. Canberra: National Centre for Development Studies, The Australian National University, 1986. 44pp. bibliog. (Islands/Australia Working Paper, no. 86/11)
The few pages on Tonga in this brief report summarize recent trends in population, employment and unemployment, wage trends and policy issues at time of publication. It identifies the relatively slow population growth, largely because of migration to seek work opportunities overseas. Both unemployment and underemployment are problems in Tonga, with an imbalance between demand for labour and supply. On the other hand, the 51 percent shown working in agriculture, forestry and fisheries would be largely self-employed. Tables show population and growth from 1966 to 1984 by island group and employment by industry sector, with estimated figures for mean household income by island group. The successful development of small secondary industry was seen as a success at the time of writing, but has not developed since in the way that had been hoped.
494 A macroeconomic framework of the Tongan economy Mark Sturton. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: Pacific Island Development Program, East-West Center, 1991. 146pp. bibliog. This paper describes the economic model and social accounting matrix that were built to form the basis for the macroeconomic framework for Tonga’s sixth development plan. The model must provide a consistent economic basis for planning and provide a set of projections, including variables, taking note of the relationship between the public and private sectors, given that Tonga is a mixed economy. The paper describes the model in detail, covering the major categories of the economy, and sets out the equations for preparing accounts on each. There are thirty pages of detailed tables.
495 Mobilizing money in a communal economy: a Tongan example Keith L. Morton. Human Organization, vol. 37, no. 1 (1978), pp.50–56
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Morton examines Tongan methods of saving, through a study of credit organizations, in an economy that was then a ‘dual economy’ and that was monetized but also noncommercialized. He distinguishes between the market economy working through money and the communal economy working through reciprocity. Food and many goods should traditionally be exchanged as a gift, not sold, and even money is treated reciprocally. At that time cash income, whether from agriculture or from wage labour, was negligible outside Nuku‘alofa. It was difficult for the individual household to accumulate money because of social pressures and obligations, so savings clubs and credit associations were used. Morton presents data on these, gathered in Tonga in 1970–71. He describes how they are organized and operate, and also mentions associated fund-raising concerts. These organizations rely on values and methods within the communal economy to achieve their goals. Money is collected communally, not commercially, and principles of reciprocity, not of the market, determine its flow within the communal economy.
496 New Zealand aid and the development of class in Tonga Andrew P. Needs. Palmerston North: Massey University, 1986, 140pp. 2 maps. bibliog. Needs examines the redistributive effect of New Zealand aid to Tonga, principally, the Banana Export Scheme, and concludes that, although large sums of money were pumped into the Tongan economy, a concern with productivity undermined the redistributive aims of the aid, which largely benefited those who already had access to land, capital and labour. In the course of doing this, Needs sets out the history of New Zealand aid to Tonga, the overall approach of that aid, and the centrality of land in Tongan economics. He describes the Banana Export Scheme, the nature of the labour force (largely family-oriented) with case studies of some participants, and considers the effect on class relations and inequality. It should be noted that the scheme is now defunct and bananas are no longer exported.
497 A note on economic development in Tonga M. U. Tupouniua. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 69, no. 4 (1960), pp.405–08 This brief note is of more than historical interest. The author, who later became deputy prime minister and then took an active role in politics as a People’s Representative in Parliament, sets out a broadly optimistic picture of aspirations and developments in produce marketing, commercial fishing, agriculture, shipping and other areas that might help Tonga meet the needs of the modern age. Nearly fifty years later it can be seen that there have been some successes, such as vanilla in Vava‘u, which Tupouniua foresaw as likely to become a useful new industry, and the development of a banking system. Other areas, such as commercial fishing, have yet to achieve their potential.
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498 The pangs of transition: kinship and economy in Tonga Epeli Hau‘ofa. The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, vol. 14, no. 2 (1978), pp.160–65 Hau‘ofa sees three periods of development in the last 150 years of Tonga’s history: the reign of King George Tupou I who established a new order in part on a Western model; the reigns of King George Tupou II and Queen Sâlote who consolidated these achievements while shielding Tonga from undue foreign influences; and the reign of the then King Taufa‘âhau Tupou IV who opened the hitherto closed community to the outside world. Writing in the late 1970s, Hau‘ofa looks at two issues, the nature of the kinship system and the direction of economic development. He sees the extended family as becoming burdensome and the kinship system as inadequate for a modern Tonga. He believes there must be a clear separation between public and private affairs. In economic development he feels that Tonga is drifting, at the mercy of forces beyond its control, with contradictions in its development policy, while Tongans dream of growing rich quickly. He regrets moves to link shipping and telecommunications to foreign interests. King George Tupou I worked to ensure Tonga’s independence but it now seems as if Tonga is moving in the opposite direction. Hau‘ofa sees Tonga’s basic problem as an authoritarian attitude that permeates all relationships in society. The media, he maintains, should be more independent; what Tonga needs is a new national consensus.
499
The performance and prospects of the Pacific islands economies in the world economy A. P. Thirlwall. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: East-West Center, 1991. 66pp. map. (Pacific Islands Development Program, Research Report Series, no. 14)
The average per capita income in the Pacific islands in 1987 was US$800, with Tonga at US$720. However their economies are small, isolated and vulnerable. Thirlwall provides an economic analysis of the Pacific islands, including Tonga, in the context of the world economy. In the 1970s the islands were reasonably successful, but they fared less well in the 1980s with the fall in commodity prices. Tonga recorded better rates of economic growth than most of its island neighbours between 1977 and 1987, though it also experienced higher rates of inflation. Thirlwall tabulates and analyses rates of growth of GDP, of investment and of export earnings, balance of payments and inflation. He sees the best hope for the 1990s in developing exports of high-value commodities, which, although he wrote too soon to observe it, was exactly what Tonga did with its new export trade in squash for Japan.
500 Private sector development in the Kingdom of Tonga Sione Ramanlal. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: Pacific Islands Development Program, East-West Center, 1990. 137pp. Ramanlal provides an overview of the performance of the productive sectors of the Tongan economy, detailing GDP by sector, and of the role of the public sector. He examines Tonga’s resources, the opportunities for private sector investment, and
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constraints and problems involving such investment. He sets out specific factors affecting investment climate—political, economic, legal and social—and suggests how risks might be reduced, what training and promotional programmes might be needed, what the government has done so far to promote private sector development, and what it might do in such areas as land tenure, infrastructure development and the regulatory regime. He ends by projecting prospects for export growth.
501 Recent economic developments in the Kingdom of Tonga Leigh Harkness. Pacific Economic Bulletin, vol. 16, no. 1 (2001), pp.19–43 In 2001 the Tongan economy was seen as having grown rapidly. GDP rose 4.6 percent in 1999–2000. Harkness reviews in detail the performance of the sectors of the economy—agriculture and fisheries, manufacturing and handicrafts, electricity and water, government enterprises, commerce, hotels and restaurants, transport and communications, finance and business services, education and health—all in the light of government fiscal policy. He concludes that needless and excessive government regulations should be reviewed, that Tonga’s monetary system is structurally sound, and that Tonga seems to be moving rapidly towards forming a wealthy middle class. He anticipates a growth in exports of agricultural products and fish, creating a demand for other services. The challenge is not of production but of distribution, ensuring that all share in growing wealth. The economic performance of the next five years (see Utoikamanu, item 507) suggests that he may have been unduly optimistic.
502 South Pacific: an annotated bibliography on regional development Nagoya, Japan: United Nations Centre for Regional Development, 1984. 388pp. This bibliography aims to provide an essential information base for the study of regional development problems of the countries of the area, and for the evolution of specific policy responses. For each country, works are listed by subject, author and title, with a bibliographic description. The thirty-one works listed for Tonga at that time are a mixture of published books and reports by the Tongan government and external aid and development bodies. Some are probably now of historical interest rather than of contemporary relevance.
503
Sustaining livelihoods: promoting informal sector growth in Pacific island countries Margaret Chung. Suva: United Nations Development Programme, 1997. 82pp. bibliog.
It is likely that labour force growth in Tonga and other Pacific islands will almost certainly outstrip formal sector jobs. This reinforces the need to sustain and develop the semi-subsistence or informal sector as the main source of employment in the Pacific islands in the foreseeable future. This report outlines opportunities to
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stimulate the informal sector and suggests how to overcome barriers such as lack of skills, lack of access to credit and poor communications. Comparative tables for the countries surveyed show Tonga as having quite a low proportion of the formally employed and the highest percentage of women classified as not economically active, together with the highest but one for men. However it has one of the lowest figures for population and labour force growth and from 1985 to 1994 had one of the highest rates of per capita GDP growth.
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Tonga—a brief on Tonga and sustainable development and population: a personal view Langi Kavaliku. In Sustainable development and population: proceedings of the fourth Pacific islands conference of leaders, June 24–26, 1993, Tahiti Nui, French Polynesia. Edited by Sitiveni Halapua, Barbara Naudain. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: Pacific Islands Development Program, East-West Center, 1995, pp.150–57
The then deputy prime minister of Tonga offers his own view on the related issues of population and development. He characterizes the government’s approach as trying to achieve faster economic growth, while deciding on sustainable development and population for the future. The mechanisms, he maintains, are in place: family planning and population education, environmental policies, conservation measures and human resource development. In the immediate future, with a young population and a relatively weak employment sector, migration remains a critical issue and remittances are crucial to economic survival. Employment creation is a longer-term issue. He sees these as matters not just of material things but of a philosophy of life, without being nostalgic for a past ‘classical Pacific period’. Each country has to ask what standard of lifestyle it can afford. Countries of the West should not simply give aid and return home but stay to experience living in the environment of the poor, where the choice is often not between different qualities of life, but between life and death. Two themes need to be remembered: that each generation must live with the past and participate in the present as a basis for the next generation; and that one must lead a good life in accordance with one’s own philosophies and values and with pride in being Tongan and not just a Pacific version of what is Western and modern.
505 Tonga—recent economic developments S. Nagai, C. H. Lim, O. Liu. Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund, 1995. 76pp. (IMF Staff Country Report, no. 95/67) The authors note the obstacles of Tonga’s isolation, its heavy reliance on a state-led development strategy, its cautious economic management, its low rate of growth and its dependence on external transfers, with about one third of imports financed by remittances. It does not have a diverse productive base. They record the problems caused by drought and by declining copra prices, as well as by increased expenditure on civil servants’ salaries, set against the benefits of the development
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of squash cultivation, the scaling back of the public sector and the introduction of competition into the commercial banking system, all of which began to revive the economy, though problems remain from overdependence on a single crop. They survey in some detail agriculture, manufacturing and construction, wages and prices, the government’s finances, public sector commercial activities, banking and finance and trade. They summarize the tax system at that time. Comprehensive statistics are presented in tables from 1989–90 to 1993–94 for many sectors of the economy.
506 The Tongan economy: setting the stage for accelerated growth T. I. Fairbairn. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1992. 53pp. map. bibliog. At the time of writing, economic growth in Tonga had been moderate, but stability was threatened by fiscal deficits, inflation, and pressure on balance of payments through buoyant import demand. The report suggested that macroeconomic stability needed to be restored through the expansion of vanilla, squash and watermelon exports, the moderate expansion of tourism and light industry and increased receipts from personal transfers and external aid. Accelerated economic growth would be achieved by pursuing growth-oriented policies and structural reforms in key areas of the economy. The size of the public sector should be reduced and the private sector encouraged to play a more dominant role, while the environment should be protected. The report contains economic data on Tonga in tables and charts.
507 The Tongan economy 2007 Siosiua T. T. Utoikamanu. Pacific Economic Bulletin, vol. 22, no. 3 (2007), pp.15–27 The minister of finance in the government of Tonga notes that the Tongan economy has demonstrated its ability to withstand two severe shocks in 2006—the very large public sector pay increase, offset by substantial redundancies, and the damage caused by the civil disorder of 16 November in Nuku‘alofa. He outlines measures to maintain economic stability and business confidence, though the immediate priority is to restore social stability through law and order and political reform. Statistics given for the previous five years show volatile economic growth by sector. Agriculture and fisheries make up about 25–30 percent of GDP, with low returns from squash and fish exports. Manufacturing remains limited. Construction should do better. Tourism was set back but may increase. Remittances from Tongans overseas remain important, offsetting the large excess of imports (T$236.3 million) over exports (T$30.4 million), and domestic living standards have risen. He also reviews trends in domestic credit, interest and exchange rates and inflation in the setting of the government’s monetary and fiscal policy. He sees the economy as returning to positive growth in 2007–08, through Tonga’s inbuilt stability and the resilience of the domestic business sector. (A similar but briefer review of the Tongan economy
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in 2005 by Utoikamanu appeared in Pacific Economic Bulletin, vol. 21, no. 1 (2006), pp.14–19. For an earlier more general review, ‘The Tongan economy: recent performance and future challenges,’ by Te‘o I. J. Fairbairn, see Pacific Economic Bulletin, vol. 13, no. 1 [1998], pp.18–35.)
PhD theses 508 Gifts and commodities on a Tongan atoll: understanding intention and action in a MIRAB economy M. Evans. McMaster University, 1996 509 Kinship, economics and exchange in a Tongan village Keith L. Morton. University of Oregon, 1972 510 Regional inequalities in socio-economic development in Tonga: a preliminary study F. V. Sevele. University of Canterbury, Christchurch, 1973 511 The role of accounting in the developing economy of the Kingdom of Tonga S. L. Taifu‘i. University of Woolongong, 1996 512 Sources of economic growth in South Pacific small-island economies: Fiji and Tonga Sione Ngongo Kioa. Australian National University, 1992 513 Women’s associations and the pursuit of wealth in Tonga: a study in social change Cathy A. Small. Temple University, 1987
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The Asian and Pacific island peoples of Australia Charles A. Price. In Pacific bridges: the new immigration from Asia and the Pacific islands. Edited by James T. Fawcett, Benjamin V. Curino. Staten Island, New York: Center for Migration Studies, 1987, pp.175–97
Price’s analysis of migration to Australia includes within the general category of Pacific islanders data on Tongans, whose population by 1981 was 2,795. He tabulates distribution by state (68 percent of Tongans were then in New South Wales) and by occupation (most in production or processing).
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Creating a culturally safe space for Tongans in Adelaide: the gap project Tangakina Moimoi Steen. In Tonga and the Tongans: heritage and identity. Edited by Elizabeth Wood-Ellem. Alphington, Victoria, Australia: Tonga Research Association, 2007, pp.195–202
Steen examines the dual identity of the small Tongan community in Adelaide, the ways in which it holds itself together through social activities and through radio, and its attempts to retain its language, identify its core values and find its culturallyidentified space within a multicultural community.
516 Creating their own culture: diasporic Tongans Helen Morton. The Contemporary Pacific, vol. 10, no. 1 (1998), pp.1–30 Following her work on the way in which children in Tonga are brought up to acquire their Tongan identity (item 294), Morton examines the extent to which Tongans resident in Australia regard themselves as Tongan in terms of their cultural identity. From a survey of migrants in Melbourne she finds significant variation and complexity. Some very deliberately seek to retain their Tongan identity, particularly through Tongan churches; others reject their Tongan identity at least in part or seek to maintain a balance between being Tongan and being Australian; others are ambivalent and confused. The degree to which parents try to ensure that their children speak Tongan in the home is an important factor. Morton notes how some Tongans relate to the recent resurgence of Polynesian identity generally.
517 The determinants of remittances among Tongans in Auckland Mele Fuka Vete. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, vol. 4, no. 1 (1995), pp.55–68 Vete examines factors explaining variations in remittances-related behaviour among Tongans in Auckland. She finds that gender differences, length of stay and residence status are important. Most migrants, especially of recent status, send substantial sums, up to 15 percent of net income. Most remittances are sent for subsistence needs, though many remitters are not concerned about use and believe that the duty of supporting kin is the critical factor.
518
Do migrants’ remittances decline over time? Evidence from Tongans and Western Samoans in Australia Richard P. C. Brown. The Contemporary Pacific, vol. 10, no. 1 (1998), pp.107–51
It is generally believed that the value of remittances sent home by migrants overseas declines over time. Brown’s analysis of Tongan households in Sydney shows this not to be so. Migrants are motivated by many factors to send money home—sometimes for their own benefit, sometimes for that of their community. Among those surveyed, the value increases in early years and then remains steady at between A$3,000
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and A$3,500 per year. Given that total recorded remittances to Tonga in 1992 were T$27.2 million, representing 20 percent of GDP and 90 percent of total exports of goods and services, these new findings, if equally valid for all Tongans overseas, will be significant for the Tongan economy.
519
Generational change: the children of Tongan migrants and their ties to the homeland Helen Lee. In Tonga and the Tongans: heritage and identity. Edited by Elizabeth Wood-Ellem. Alphington, Victoria, Australia: Tonga Research Association, 2007, pp.203–17
Lee has written extensively (also as Helen Morton) on cultural identity among overseas Tongan communities (e.g., items 516, 547). Here she examines the form and extent of the ties the second generation, the children of original migrants, maintain with Tonga. Preliminary responses to surveys of those age eighteen to thirty show that many keep contact with Tonga by phone, e-mail or letter, and send remittances or goods, but that a significant minority does not. Some who maintain contact see no obligation to offer support, and are more critical of Tonga than their parents. For some, contact with other Tongan diasporic communities is more important. Lee wonders whether the need to rebuild Nuku‘alofa after the 16 November 2006 riots will motivate second-generation Tongans to increase their support, or discourage it.
520
The global flea market: migration, remittances and the informal economy in Tonga Richard P. C. Brown, John Connell. Development and Change, vol. 24, no. 2 (1993), pp.611–47
The authors examine and question, through a study of one group of remittance recipients in the flea market of Nuku‘alofa, some common assumptions about the form and use of migrants’ remittances. They suggest that economic analysis and policy recommendations based on data on recorded remittances should be treated with caution. The unrecorded inflow of remittances in kind, and the associated spread of the domestic informal sector, has important implications for Tonga’s economy and may be influencing other changes in the domestic economy. The flea market, with over one hundred stalls at times, sells a wide range of second-hand clothes, furniture and other goods sent by Tongans overseas, usually relations of the stall holders. The authors’ survey estimates the annual turnover at more than T$2 million, a significant amount and one that has affected the formal retail sector. Some traditional Tongan goods and craft products are sent to relatives overseas in return. The authors identify three phases of activity: goods sent for family maintenance instead of cash to earn income, as a source of income for investment, and to produce income for reinvestment in the local economy and produce export goods.
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A good man is hard to find: overseas migration and the decentered family in the Tongan islands Christine Ward Gailey. Critique of Anthropology, vol. 11, no. 1 (1992), pp.47–74
Overseas migration for work has created what Gailey calls ‘decentered’ families, where the husband is absent overseas. The relations of men and women in the producing class in Tonga show the strain of trying to balance the promotion of the nuclear family by church and state, and the economic necessity for decentering. Gailey outlines the historic context of gender, marriage and family in Tonga, and the world context of migration and gender. She notes the general view that it is usually men alone who migrate, but finds that in fact many women migrate too. She sets out the reasons for migration: an increase in landlessness and limited availability of credit, as well as an increasing need for cash for domestic and social obligations. She examines who migrates and the situation of migrant families overseas, the effect of migration on family relationships in Tonga, and the place of remittances. Migration has had an impact on the family redefining certain gender and kin roles.
522
Hidden foreign exchange flows: estimating unofficial remittances to Tonga and Western Samoa Richard P. C. Brown. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, vol. 4, no. 1 (1995), pp.35–54
Brown shows how sample survey data from both the remitting and receiving ends can be used to derive estimates of total remittances and provide information on the way they are sent. Unrecorded remittances are found to form a highly significant part of total remittances, and estimates from official balance of payments data should be treated with caution. It was found that 67 percent of households in Tonga received remittances amounting to 36 percent of average household income.
523
How cost-elastic are remittances? Estimates from Tongan migrants in New Zealand John Gibson, David J. McKenzie, Halahingano Rohorua. Pacific Economic Bulletin, vol. 21, no. 1 (2006), pp.112–28
Remittances from Tongans overseas are a major contribution to the Tongan economy, 37 percent of GDP in 2001 and 19.7 percent of household monetary income. Of Tongan households in New Zealand, 73 percent had remitted cash the previous year, averaging NZ$2,200. But the costs of remitting are high. This paper sets out the costs of various methods of remitting and suggests that, if costs were to be reduced, there would be a more than proportionate increase in remittances
524 The impact of remittances on rural development in Tongan villages Sione ‘U. Faeamani. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, vol. 4, no. 1 (1995), pp.139–55
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Faeamani examines the use of remittances in two villages in Tongatapu, one in Ha‘apai and one in Vava‘u, all primarily agricultural. In three of the villages, remittances constitute more than half of all income. In the other, waged employment was important. Faeamani finds that remittances were primarily sent for religious donations, food and housing, but that a proportion was also invested in the small business sector. Church expenditure also supports village development and remittances directly support village projects.
525 Is Tonga’s MIRAB economy sustainable? A view from the village and a view without it Mike Evans. Pacific Studies, vol. 22, nos. 3/4 (1999), pp.137–66 Using material derived from research in Ha‘apai, Evans explores the effects of the MIRAB economic pattern on the social relationships in a rural village, and the extension of relationships founded in village life to a transnational frame through migration of socially connected Tongans. Migration and remittances have provided more economically attractive alternatives to agricultural growth, while intensive farming techniques, as for the production of squash, may destroy soil fertility very quickly. It is suggested that the MIRAB model can better promote pragmatic solutions to the challenge of development in South Pacific microstates. Evans’ concern is the social ties that knit migrants to those who remain. He examines the concept of ‘transnational corporations of kin,’ the construction of social groups within Tonga, and the different ways in which scholars have understood them. In his village in Ha‘apai the population had fallen sharply by migration, and there were few intact family units. Even husbands and wives may be separated. He describes the gift exchange at the heart of Tongan social and church life, epitomized by the concepts of love, respect and mutual assistance, and the way in which kinship connections may ensure educational opportunities for children. Most remittances flow from children to parents, and they are the largest source of cash for church offerings and school fees. But depopulation means that subsistence activities and the traditional forms of wealth they support are now under threat. This aggravates problems brought on by dependence on overseas labour markets and imported goods, and could be disastrous for the social ties that facilitate resource flows from overseas Tongans. Thus the stability and sustainability of the MIRAB pattern are much in doubt.
526 Island populations of the Pacific Norma McArthur. Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1967. 381pp. 6 maps. bibliog. For each of the main countries or island groups in the Pacific, including Tonga, the author provides a résumé of pre-census estimates of population, setting them in their historical context. She then tries to assess the size of each population, and the directions and sources of change since European contact. She describes censuses and analyses the growth of population as revealed in the data, with patterns of gender distribution, mortality and fertility, noting the effects of war and epidemics.
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For Tonga the data begins with Cook’s estimates, followed by those of early travellers and missionaries. The first census for which data survives was in 1891, although registration of births and deaths began in 1867. Within the period surveyed the population grew from perhaps 20,000 to 56,838 in 1956, and McArthur anticipates the effects of the future pressure of population growth on land resources. The book presents the historical background to discussions of population today.
527
Land shortage and population pressure in Tonga Alaric Maude. In The Pacific in transition: geographical perspectives on adaptation and change. Edited by Harold Brookfield. London: Edward Arnold, 1973, pp.163–85
At the time of writing Tonga faced annual population growth of 3.1 percent and potential problems of land shortage and population density as severe as any in the Pacific. Maude looks at the land resources of the different island groups; the land tenure system, agriculture being by far the most important use of land; and the perception of and response to population pressure by Tongans. He also attempts to relate the Tongan material to more general statements on the effects of population growth on man–land relationships. His work is based on the 1956 and 1966 censuses, some detailed household and village surveys, interviews with key informants in some other villages, and historical material. He sees the main response to population pressure on land resources as emigration, both internal and external, rather than a change in the traditional techniques of agriculture. In the years since his paper was written emigration has continued to mitigate the effects of population growth.
528 Mental health among Tongan migrants Siale Foliaki. Pacific Health Dialog, vol. 6, no. 2 (1999), pp.288–94 There are more than 20,000 Tongans in New Zealand. This paper surveys, as far as figures permit, the incidence of mental illness, alcohol and drug dependence, suicide and abortion, and the roles of hospitals and traditional healers. The author considers socioeconomic factors: a period of full employment in the early 1970s and then unemployment and consequent stress, the link between poverty and rising figures for youth offences, and the extended family increasingly replaced by single-parent households. Unless the problems of cultural identity and poverty are addressed, he sees worsening mental health.
529 Migration and mental health: the Tongan experience Siale Foliaki. International Journal of Mental Health, vol. 26, no. 3 (1997), pp.36–54 Foliaki examines how well Tongan migrants in New Zealand have coped with the transition from their simple tradition-bound societies to a modern, complex and industrialized world, in which the number of single-parent Tongan households is increasing and many children are being disconnected from their culture and suffer-
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ing stress from economic hardship. Initially, in the early 1970s, many Tongans did well. Then unemployment rose and it became less easy for them to fulfil their social obligations, a particular cause of mental stress. Yet poverty and family fragmentation are not reflected in higher rates of first admission to psychiatric hospitals, or in significantly more severe alcohol or drug problems or youth crime, though they are higher than in Tonga. He believes that mental health problems will intensify.
530 Migration and remittances: a Tongan village perspective K. E. James. Pacific Viewpoint, vol. 32, no. 1 (1991), pp.1–23 James believes that reciprocity and obligation between kin may be increasingly discharged by trading partnerships, overseas hospitality to migrant workers and other forms of help, rather than by direct remittances, and that remittances may stimulate rather than stifle the production of cash crops and items of traditional wealth. The children of migrants may also be fostered within the home communities. Studies in one village show that the largest and most dependable remittances take the form of savings for oneself and immediate family, rather than gifts for a larger family group. Many Tongans overseas now send back goods rather than money. Over 90 percent of the villagers have adult family members working overseas, and twenty-five out of thirty households reported that they received help. James believes the fulfilment of kinship obligations is being constantly reformulated to accommodate the pulls between the increasing need for cash and the desire to honour relationships.
531
Migration, employment and development in the South Pacific: country report no. 18, Tonga John Connell. Noumea: South Pacific Commission, 1983. 65pp. map. bibliog.
Connell gives a general overview of the Tongan economy and then examines in more detail employment and incomes, population data and migration between the island groups and overseas. He considers the reasons for emigration, principally the opportunity for education, wage employment and a wider social life, and the impact of remittances on the Tongan economy, though noting the inadequacy of available data on which to base such studies. He sees migration as important to Tonga’s economic and development strategy.
532 Migration, metascience and development in island Polynesia Geoffrey Hayes. The Contemporary Pacific, vol. 3, no. 1 (1991), pp.1–58 Emigration from Pacific island states has increased rapidly in recent decades. Figures extracted by Hayes from official censuses, and thus probably understated, give an emigrant population of 26,664 Tongans in Australia, New Zealand and the United States in 1986, compared with 94,500 at home. The number of Tongans in New Zealand increased from 917 in 1956 to 11,692 in 1986. Two major studies in the 1980s came to different conclusions as to the effects of this migration. One saw the impact on economic development as negative, with a decline in agricultural produc-
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tion, a drain of the younger, better-educated and more highly skilled, and a dependence on remittances largely spent on imported foods, to the detriment of diet, and on consumer durables. The other saw a positive side in maintaining a satisfactory standard of living in the islands, with remittances benefiting community projects as much as individual needs. The main purpose of Hayes’ technical and specialist paper is to attempt a theoretical synthesis of these two approaches, but in the process he offers much information on the causes and effects of migration from Tonga.
533
Motivations for contemporary Tongan migration Wendy E. Cowling. In Tongan culture and history. Edited by Phyllis Herda, Jennifer Terrell, Niel Gunson. Canberra: The Journal of Pacific History, 1990, pp.187–205
Cowling offers an insight into Tongan perceptions of the factors motivating migration, based on fieldwork in Tonga and Sydney. She identifies the underlying paradox of the difficulty in finding land suitable for subsistence agriculture while at the same time land is underused because of uncertainty over ownership and use rights. Many Tongans migrated first to New Zealand but problems there over status led many to seek better opportunities in Australia. Yet there too, migrant labour is seen as meeting seasonal or market fluctuations. She traces the growth of migrants from 1970. By 1986 there were about 8,000 Tongans in Australia, most firmly based in church and kin networks that link them to Tonga. The reason most commonly given for migration was the desire ‘to help the family’—improving its standard of living, upgrading its status and gaining more respect; yet the decision to migrate was also influenced by the other important Tongan principle of pleasing oneself. Many had no jobs or land in Tonga. Some resented the domination of society by nobles and the elite. Cowling describes how migration is arranged, often through family estates, and examines the attitudes of those who stay, and the effect of remittances. She observes the hardship faced by many family members who stay in Tonga, with separation of husbands and wives, and sometimes desertion. Yet many see little alternative. She concludes that sending cash remittances is replacing the traditional Tongan values of the sharing of food and resources.
534
New behaviours and migration since World War II Siosiua F. Pouvalu Lafitani. In Echoes of Pacific war. Edited by Deryck Scarr, Niel Gunson, Jennifer Terrell. Canberra: Target Oceania, 1998, pp.76–86
Through its experience in World War II Tonga was both urbanised and conspicuously modernised, claims Lafitani. Tongans realized for the first time that there was a massively wealthy world within their reach. The American presence brought advancement in business life, food and material resources, and an openness to sex life culminating in the institutionalizing of prostitution and homosexuality. Tongans at that time saw American material resources as the best, even changing diet as new foods became available. Cash became more important than gift exchange. Lafitani
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examines sexual behaviour during the war, the attraction of sex for cash, and subsequent developments in this area. From experience of Americans also came aspirations to emigrate, for reasons mainly economic, but also for some to escape the obligations of traditional values such as generosity, respect and obedience. Yet migrants are expected to continue these by sending remittances to relatives in Tonga. He sees these as a disaster for migrants’ struggle to adapt, not only economically but also socially and morally. He identifies the paradox of Tongan migrants complaining about traditional obligations, in some respects suffering because of them, and yet observing them.
535
The north east passage: a study of Pacific islander migration to American Samoa and the United States Dennis Ahlburg, Michael J. Levin. Canberra: National Centre for Development Studies, The Australian National University, 1990. 94pp. bibliog. (Pacific Research Monograph, no. 23)
On the basis of the 1980 US census this study examines the emigration of islanders from Fiji, Tonga and Samoa to the United States. Population growth in Tonga, as elsewhere in the Pacific, has been mitigated by emigration. In 1980–81, 13.9 percent of Tonga’s population was resident in Australia, New Zealand and the United States and Canada, the United States having the largest share, with 5,619 migrants and 9,661 Tongans by race or ancestry. In most categories they were the second largest group after Samoans. Tongan migration dates from the late 1960s and was facilitated by the growth of the Mormon church in Tonga. Tongans are concentrated in California, Hawai‘i and Utah. This study examines the reasons for migration; the age and sex profile of the migrants; family size; income and employment; education and ability in English. It concludes that the motivation for emigration was primarily economic but that Tongan families were twice as likely as all US families to be below the poverty line, and were more likely to be in less skilled occupations. There is a similar separate analysis of emigration to American Samoa, for which the numbers—788—were relatively small. The authors note the discussion on whether emigration is, overall, good or bad for the country of origin, but doubt that there is sufficient information for an assessment. However, they do conclude that emigration results in a permanent loss of young, educated, skilled labour, and they doubt that countries such as Tonga can continue to depend on aid and remittances rather than on productive export-oriented activities. Their analysis is supported by fifty tables.
536
Pacific diaspora: island peoples in the United States and across the Pacific Edited by Paul Spickard, Joanne L. Rondilla, Debbie Hippolite Wright. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2002. 384pp. map. bibliog.
Four of the papers in this volume relate specifically to Tongans. In ‘My life in four cultures’ (pp.31–39), Tupou Hopoate Pau‘u reflects on her own experiences in
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Tonga, New Zealand, Australia and America, both good and bad, through which she has found her identity as a Tongan. In ‘A compromise identity: Tongan Americans in the United States’ (pp.211–18), ‘Inoke F. Funaki and Lupe M. Funaki identify what they see as the principal elements of Tongan cultural identity but suggest that some of these may have to be adapted for life in America. Tongans there may have to become more aware of the pressures of time and be less ‘easygoing,’ they should consider more carefully the custom of sending remittances to family members in Tonga, and they should develop a less authoritarian style of parenting. Two papers are reprinted from previous publications: ‘Motivations for contemporary Tongan migration’ by Wendy Cowling (item 533) and ‘Creating their own culture: diasporic Tongans’ by Helen Morton (item 516).
537 Pacific 2010: challenging the future Edited by Rodney V. Cole. Canberra: National Centre for Development Studies, The Australian National University, 1993. 134pp. bibliog. Population growth in the South Pacific averages 2.2 percent, well above world levels and a threat to reasonable levels of sustainability. People expect a more affluent lifestyle, which available space and natural resources cannot support. The Pacific 2010 research project was set up to look at the effects of population growth and the outlook for resources, employment and health. Chapters on the general picture, with many tables comparing the countries of the region, are followed by chapters on each country. Kalo Funaki, writing on Tonga, notes that population growth peaked in 1966 at 3.2 percent and has declined since, with a negative figure of -1.3 percent between 1986 and 1989, though that figure is largely due to the high level of emigration. Infant mortality halved between 1956 and 1986, life expectancy is increasing, and emigration may taper off. Depending on assumptions of fertility, mortality and emigration, projections vary from 141,000 to the then 90,000. Funaki’s own conclusion is that, provided some emigration continues, the population is unlikely to grow significantly but that emigration might deskill the work force and limit economic development. Tonga is the only country in the region to project a fall in the schoolage population to 2010. However the 2006 census (item 545) shows a 3 percent increase.
538 Population changes in Tonga: an historical overview and modern commentary A. C. Walsh. Pacific Viewpoint, vol. 11, no. 1 (1970), pp.27–46 Populations have always been on the move in Tonga, even beyond its present boundaries into parts of Samoa and Fiji. Walsh analyses patterns of dispersed and nucleated settlement through the Tongan islands, the role of civil wars and of the 1875 Constitution in bringing people together. He estimates population distribution from precontact times to the 1966 census, noting changes overall and within each island group, patterns of internal migration within Tonga, and especially the increasing urbanization of Nuku‘alofa. He wonders how long internal migrants will
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observe traditional social obligations and observes that, in a society where initiative belongs to the chiefs, government is the only significant innovator. It alone can reduce migration to a rate where it more closely approximates economic development. Better shipping and investment are more urgently needed than an increase in aid.
539 Population, fertility and mortality in Tonga Noor A. Khalidi. Pacific Health Dialog, vol. 2, no. 1 (1995), pp.25–34 Working from the 1976 and 1986 censuses Khalidi identifies trends in the Tongan population, analyses particular groups within the whole, and discusses the role of migration in limiting population growth. He lists key population concerns and priorities.
540
Reading the leaves: the role of Tongan women’s traditional wealth and other ‘contraflows’ in the process of modern migration and remittance Kerry James. Pacific Studies, vol. 20, no. 1 (1997), pp.1–27
For Tongans the exchange of mats and barkcloth, traditional wealth items produced by women, is pivotal to the process of remittances from Tongan migrant communities overseas. The process reinforces kinship relations that are dominant within the Tongan community. For overseas Tongan communities the increasingly numerous and abundant exchanges of these items signal the ability of migrant families to prosper, and may help to secure or improve economic class position and social status for givers. Presentation of these goods to kin overseas represents attempts to bind them in webs of personal obligation that may widen their support networks and help their financial status. In developing this thesis, James surveys the value and use of remittances in both their economic and social contexts within the hierarchical structure of Tongan kinship. She quotes an estimate of T$2 million as the annual value of traditional goods sent overseas, and examines the uses to which they are put, with conspicuous amounts of these items presented at ceremonies overseas. She wonders, however, to what extent second-generation Tongans overseas will retain the traditional community values of their parents.
541
Remittances and their impact: a study of Tonga and Western Samoa Dennis A. Ahlburg. Canberra: National Centre for Development Studies, The Australian National University, 1991. 70pp. bibliog. (Pacific Policy Paper, no. 7)
Developments since the 1986 figure (item 533) give about 40,000 Tongans resident overseas for 1989, 40 percent of the home population, with remittances at 45 percent of GDP. Of 580 households in Tongatapu in the 1984 household income and expenditure survey, 90 percent received remittances, totalling 28 percent of household income. Remittances amounted to three times the value of exports. However, they are spent largely on consumption rather than on investment, stimulating a
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demand for imports rather than the development of local businesses, and probably pushing up local wage costs. Ahlburg examines the social context of remittances, provides estimates of their magnitude and source, considers their impact on the local economy and the likely future level of emigration and remittances, and suggests policy options for the government. He concludes that levels of emigration are likely to fall as policies in host countries change, and that remittances per emigrant are unlikely to grow as ties between them and those at home weaken.
542
Some common fallacies about migrants’ remittances in the South Pacific: lessons from Tongan and Western Samoan research Richard P. C. Brown, John Foster. Pacific Viewpoint, vol. 36, no. 1 (1995), pp.29–45
From their collection and analysis of primary and secondary data, the authors present findings they claim are significant in several respects. They demonstrate that conclusions drawn from national accounts data on savings and remittances should be treated with extreme caution and that previous conclusions about the negative relationship between foreign resource transfers and savings have been drawn from fallacious interpretations of national income-accounting identities. Unrecorded remittances make a significant contribution to savings and investment. Remittances in kind suggest that for many of the migrant community, business investment is a stronger motivation than altruistic family support. They find little evidence to support the orthodox view that investment in Tonga is constrained by lack of savings, and suggest that the savings element of remittances could be raised by policies that encourage the accumulation of secure financial wealth in home countries.
543 Tauhi va: nurturing Tongan sociospatial ties in Maui and beyond Tevita O. Ka‘ili. The Contemporary Pacific, vol. 17, no. 1 (2005), pp.83–114 The Tongan concept of va, social space, is for Tongans organized through genealogy and sociospatial ties. Through reciprocal exchanges, tauhi va, Tongans maintain sociospatial ties. Ka‘ili notes the similarity between ‘aina, the Hawaiian term for land, and kâinga, the Tongan term for relatives or kin, both based on a root meaning to feed or nourish. People are fed, both physically and spiritually, by their land and their kin. He explores the concept of va and the practice of tauhi va through research among Tongans in Maui, Hawai‘i, and in Seattle. He finds that they provide new spatial concepts with which to understand Tongan transnationality, and shows what they mean to him as he meets Tongans there.
544 Temporary labour migration between Tonga and New Zealand J. de Bres and R. J. Campbell. International Labour Review, vol. 112, no. 6 (1975), pp.445–57 Temporary migration from Tonga to New Zealand increased greatly in the decade before this paper, from 39 in 1964–65 to 3,668 in 1973–74, many overstaying their
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permits. The authors relate this to the vulnerable state of the Tongan economy and the increasing value of remittances. A new temporary migration scheme was set up in 1974, with more formal obligations for both employers and workers. The authors doubted both its effectiveness and its justice.
545 Tongan population census 2006: preliminary result Nuku‘alofa: Statistics Department, Government of Tonga, 2006. 6pp. This is the first publication of the 2006 census. It presents preliminary counts of local population and their distribution by division, district and village, classified by sex and household. Comparative figures for 1996 and 1986 are provided, so that trends over twenty years can be observed. A brief preliminary analysis shows an increase of a little over 3 percent over 1996, from 97,784 to 101,134, with increases in Tongatapu and in ‘Eua, a very small fall in Vava‘u, and declines in Ha‘apai, Niuatoputapu and Niuafo‘ou. The document is available on the South Pacific Commission Web site at www.spc.int/prism/Country/TO/stats/Releases-New/census06/draft_PR.pdf.
546
Tongans in New Zealand—a brief study Edgar Tu‘inukuafe. In Tongan culture and history. Edited by Phyllis Herda, Jennifer Terrell, Niel Gunson. Canberra: The Journal of Pacific History, 1990, pp.206–14
The author, who has lived in Auckland for ten years and worked for the education of Pacific islanders there, provides a broad picture of the 10,000 or so Tongans living in New Zealand at that time. Most keep their own company and are in semiskilled work. Leadership comes from church, chiefs and government. Education is the reason most commonly given for leaving Tonga, though other reasons, economic and social, may in fact be as important. Tu‘inukuafe traces the development of education for Tongans in New Zealand and efforts to maintain Tongan language and culture. An appendix includes four interviews with Tongan migrants talking about the difficulties of integration and identity.
547 Tongans overseas: between two shores Helen Morton Lee. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2003. 326pp. 7 tables. bibliog. From a survey conducted among the Tongan community in Melbourne and among Tongan users of Internet discussion forums, the author considers what it means to be Tongan in another country. What are the motives for migration? How far do Tongans overseas feel that they need to retain knowledge of the Tongan language and social and cultural values? How closely do they maintain links with Tonga? She presents a picture of great variety, as ethnic and cultural identity are put under pressure in the host country. Case studies of individual migrants bring to life the statistics and analysis, showing how some adapt to the Australian way of life and some try to fully retain their Tongan identity.
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548 Tonga’s prehistoric population R. C. Green. Pacific Viewpoint, vol. 14, no. 1 (1973), pp.61–74 Acknowledging the difficulty in estimating prehistoric populations, Green reviews earlier estimates of the population of Tonga before the coming of the Europeans, including those of Walsh (item 538). He concludes that in the period 1643–1799 the population of Tongatapu and probably of Ha‘apai was larger than previously believed. He supports a sharp decline in the period 1799–1852, perhaps by as much as 50 percent. From 1852 to the first census in 1891 data appears to support a steady state. His focus is primarily on Tongatapu, containing perhaps half the population of the whole group. His figures are derived from archaeological records, the writings of the early explorers and settlers, and estimates of the percentage of land cultivated and the number of persons that could support themselves per acre. He concludes that the population of Tongatapu in the 18th century was between 15,000 and 17,000, using about half of the arable land, probably declining from an earlier peak of over 19,000.
549 Voyages: from Tongan villages to American suburbs Cathy A. Small. Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 1997. 252pp. map. bibliog. This book tells the story of migration from Tonga to the United States. Small first examines life in a Tongan village, identifying why Tongans would choose to leave a place where there is virtually no starvation and homelessness, and where tradition and family are strong. She then follows the first migrants from one family in the 1960s to their new home in northern California, their lives there over twenty-five years, and the parallel lives of a branch of the family that stayed in Tonga but left for the United States in the 1990s. She then relates her own return to the village in Tonga with the American children of the first migrants. As she examines what happened to the Tongan migrants and their American children and to the villages and relations they left behind, she finds clues to the forces shaping the future, a world in which families are cross-cultural and transnational.
550
A world perspective on Pacific islander migration: Australia, New Zealand and the USA Edited by Grant McCall, John Connell. Kensington, Australia: Centre for Pacific Studies, The University of New South Wales, 1993. 386pp. bibliog. (Pacific Studies Monograph, no. 6)
The volume outlines how migration is an integral part of Pacific islander culture and social organization, provides the contexts of these movements, and summarizes the contributions of over thirty authors to a conference on the subject. Migrations to Australia, North America and New Zealand are examined in turn, with many references specifically to Tongans. Also studied are the effects of migration, both negative and positive, on the countries from which migrants came. This section concludes with a case study on a fishing village in Vava‘u by K. E. James. There is a
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paper on the role of the Mormon church in migration, which is particularly important in the case of Tonga.
PhD theses 551 Population, agriculture and urbanization in the Kingdom of Tonga W. F. Clark. Michigan State University, 1975 552 Population, land and livelihood in Tonga A. Maude. Australian National University, 1965 553 Tongan movement in action: an ethnography of movement in Oceania S. Francis. University of Melbourne, 2003
Industry, Commerce and Agriculture 554 Agricultural productivity change in Pacific island countries Euan Fleming. Pacific Economic Bulletin, vol. 22, no. 3 (2007), pp.32–47 Agricultural productivity growth in Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu is estimated for 1970–2002, using several indices. None of the countries achieved significant growth over the period; Tonga showed a small fall. For Tonga, Fleming notes that intensive farming activities such as squash production have become more important than tree crops such as coconuts. Gains were also made for a while in the small but high value-adding crops of vanilla, kava and watermelon. He reviews ways of raising farm-level productivity.
555
Brown gold: official expectations and local assessment of the Tongan vanilla production Paul van der Grijp. Journal de la Société des Océanistes, no. 104 (1997), pp.93–103
The author traces the history of vanilla in Tonga, from its introduction in Vava‘u in the early 19th century by a French adventurer, to its reintroduction in the 1950s. He compares the official government viewpoint on vanilla and the actual impact at village level, based on case studies of growers. He describes its cultivation and gives figures on the scale of production, prices and exports. He also compares its export with that of squash—in 1968, T$1.4 million for vanilla and T$0.4 million for squash, in 1992, T$2.1 million for vanilla and T$8.7 million for squash. He feels that government optimism over vanilla is waning. Vanilla is still important in Vava‘u but it is bringing in less income, and more government support will be necessary to develop its production and marketing.
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Changes in social orientation: threats to a cultural institution in marine resource exploitation in Tonga Andrea Bender. Human Organization, vol. 66, no. 1 (2007), pp.11–21
A fishing catch and a meal are commonly shared in Tonga. Giving, sharing and helping are the Tongan way. Bender reviews the context and significance of fishing in two islands in Ha‘apai. Access to fishing grounds is open to all and, though fish stocks are declining, sharing has supported sustainability. Fishing grounds may be held as property, though a village may regard them as theirs by tradition, but fish may not. Fishermen do not normally compete. If they do, it is for social rather than financial reasons. They fish for subsistence, for social obligations and cash income. But on one island, cooperation in fishing is now giving way to competition, leading to increased exploitation. Bender describes both the cooperative and the competitive aspects of fishing. Better transport and refrigeration encourage greater individualization in an increasingly cash-oriented society, particularly where the noble estate-holders’ demands are pressing. Fishing clubs, less inclined to share, are developing. Yet Bender believes that it may not be necessary to adopt a territorial approach if the strong Tongan social orientation can be preserved.
557 Comments on Tongan commerce with reference to tourism and traditional life C. F. Urbanowicz. Pacific Viewpoint, vol. 20, no. 2 (1979), pp.179–86 Urbanowicz considers questions raised by the paper by Bollard on dualism (item 560). What is the economic impact of tourism to which Bollard alludes and what connection might there be, if any, between contemporary economic dualism and traditional Tongan society? Urbanowicz sees overlapping rather than separate spheres, and notes that the tremendous impact of tourism-generated revenue is steadily increasing. He believes that Bollard’s view of the separation of economic functions in traditional Tongan society is misleading. It was, he maintains, not as rigid as Bollard implies. The ‘dual economy’ is not a valid interpretation of contemporary Tongan life.
558
Co-operative yam gardens: adapting a traditional agricultural system to the needs of the developing Tongan market economy R. R. Thaman. In The adaptation of traditional agriculture: socioeconomic problems of urbanization. Edited by E. K. Fisk. Canberra: The Development Studies Centre, The Australian National University, 1978, pp.116–28 (Development Studies Centre Monograph, no.11)
Thaman suggests that the cooperative yam garden in Tonga is an excellent example of a traditional agricultural activity that has considerable potential for adaptation to serving the needs of developing market economies, in Tonga and elsewhere. It is a system that has evolved over a long period, requires few modern imported inputs, provides an excellent supply of nutritious and socially acceptable foodstuffs, and
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may have good commercial potential. New cash crops may not be the answer to Tonga’s own needs. Thaman describes the operation of the yam gardens, crop types planted in the first year, economic potential in the local and export market, and the crop’s social benefits and importance.
559
Cutting the ground from under them? Commercialization, cultivation and conservation in Tonga Kerry James. The Contemporary Pacific, vol. 5, no. 2 (1993), pp.215–42
James draws together social and environmental factors involved in the increasing commercialization of cultivation in Tonga. In theory, each adult male is entitled to a town and rural allotment, but with population pressure land is now scarce and leases often difficult and expensive to obtain, though much land held by Tongans who have emigrated remains unused. Traditional farming systems with fallow periods and intercropping are giving way to the monoculture of crops for export, particularly squash. Trees are cut down, wood for fuel becomes more difficult to find and soil fertility decreases, while chemicals and fertilizers are overused. James sees the land tenure system as the heart of the problem, and doubts that government monitoring can lead to the sustainable commercial production of squash, vanilla and other export crops, given pressure from those with the strongest interests in land. She believes that the most harmful practices are not likely to be recognized or remedial measures taken until it is much too late.
560 Dualism in Tongan commerce A. E. Bollard. Pacific Viewpoint, vol. 17, no. 1 (1976), pp.78–81 In this brief research note Bollard, writing at a time when Tongans were looking to an alternative to farming as the commercial sector was expanding, notes the wide gulf between modern and traditional spheres of activity, which he defines as dualism. He examines the different sectors at the time: for industry he contrasts the highly capitalized firms in Nuku‘alofa and the tiny backyard units in small villages, and tabulates the different industries and their locations. For services he contrasts the large modern stores and small village shops, as well as the marketing of handicrafts. He relates this dualism not to the arrival of European traders, but to the traditional Tongan stratified social structure. However he concludes that a ‘new economic nobility’ is developing, supporting but distinct from the old. For a critique of this paper by Urbanowicz see item 557.
561 The ethnoscience of the frail kahokaho ‘I. F. Helu. In Critical essays: cultural perspectives from the South Seas. Canberra: The Journal of Pacific History, 1999, pp.300–08 The kahokaho is a species of yam that requires particular skill in cultivation. So difficult is it to produce a good yield that farmers refer to it as ‘ufi mahaki, sickly yam. It almost seems to have a personality that is frail and hard to please. Helu describes
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the stages in its life cycle and gives sexual analogies with a young woman, different species of yam and the cultivation process, with illustrations showing the subdivision of the tubers and how it is best planted.
562 Farmers of the Pacific islands T. F. Kennedy. Wellington; Auckland; Sydney: A. H. & A. W. Reed, 1968. rev. ed. 48pp. 6 maps One chapter in this brightly illustrated school textbook is on ‘An “Api” in Tonga’ (an ‘api is a homestead) and the daily life of Sione Afu, his wife and children in his village on Tongatapu. The life of the villagers is almost totally agricultural. We read of the way the village and farm are laid out, the crops he grows—yams and other root crops, kava, bananas and coconuts—his working and family life and his yearly routines. His is a lifestyle less common now on Tongatapu but still to be found on some of the outer islands. Life in a Tongan village is presented as ‘easy and carefree’, which is only a partial view, taking no account of many difficulties and pressures.
563 Food and national development in the South Pacific Edited by R. R. Thaman, W. C. Clarke. Suva: The University of the South Pacific, 1983. 144pp. bibliog. This series of lectures comprises an examination of diet and nutrition in the South Pacific, often of poor quality, and of obstacles to the development of healthy and nutritious food. The lectures outline some of the more important historical, social and economic factors in the situation, the nature of agricultural systems and marketing, and the nutritional factors in disease associated with the high intake of calories, sugar, salt and fat. The authors consider what governments can do to stimulate the production of nutritionally superior local foods, and suggest potential steps towards improving the production, marketing and processing of local foods. Much of this relates to Tonga, from which many examples are taken.
564
Food crop production in Tonga: characteristics and activity budgets J. C. Delforce. Armidale, Australia: South Pacific Smallholder Project, University of New England, 1988. 116pp. bibliog. (South Pacific Smallholder Project, Research Note no. 4)
The focus of this report is on the production of five major crops on Tongan smallholdings. These are yam (early and late varieties), taro (dryland, swamp and giant), cassava, sweet potato and banana (for export and domestic use). For each crop, the species grown are listed and their economic and cultural importance indicated. The soil and climatic requirements of the crop, its susceptibility to pests and diseases and its storage potential are then discussed. Data from the project concerning the extent of production, cropping patterns, plant densities and farmer attitudes are summarized for each crop and compared with reports by previous researchers. The distribution of output between home consumption, domestic market sales
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and export sales is then considered. At the end of each chapter the estimation of crop activity budgets is described. The author emphasizes that all estimates are ‘best guesses’ rather than confirmed facts.
565 Land, food and population in the Kingdom of Tonga T. F. Kennedy. Economic Geography, vol. 37, no. 1 (1961), pp.61–71 Kennedy sees a future for Tonga in which sustaining the population may be limited by the availability of land where it is most needed. He charts the growth in population from under 20,000 in 1840 to 60,000 in 1959, and reviews the resources of Tonga. He believes that its land would support a population of about 117,000 if evenly distributed, though this was unlikely in practice, and that this point might be reached by about 1980. He describes the agricultural methods of the time, crops grown, climate and soil, and the main features of the different island groups. (Overall 96 percent of Tongans were then directly dependent on agriculture.) Copra is of key importance, and there must be new planting though the price is erratic. He sees diversification to other crops as essential but, of those suggested, only vanilla has subsequently been successful. Tourism, handicrafts and commercial fishing might provide some further income. Tonga, he concludes, has no resources other than the soil, the sea and her people, and must rely on a wise and farsighted agrarian policy to meet the needs of a growing population. He could not foresee then that urbanization and emigration would later to some extent alter the picture.
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Land tenure and rural productivity in the Pacific islands Edited by Ben Acquaye, Ron Crocombe. Rome: United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization; Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific; Noumea: South Pacific Regional Environmental Programme, 1984. 218pp. map. bibliog.
The registration of land by a government on a legal basis is a form of infrastructure for rural development. The contributors to this book examine the different forms of land registration in use in the countries of the Pacific in the early 1980s. Yet a survey of six Pacific countries where land registration was introduced showed only one where rural productivity significantly increased and several where it decreased: in Tonga it remained about the same. Tonga’s system of individual farming correlates with relatively high productivity despite serious land shortage. After three general chapters surveying land registration in the region there are surveys of individual countries. That on Tonga, by T. A. Puniani, a senior officer of the Ministry of Lands, describes the law of Tonga on land tenure and registration, and how the system operates. He reports that the arrival of commercial banks in Tonga has made it possible for farmers to mortgage their lands for credit, while farmers who are emigrants or absentees and are not really interested in their land can now lease it to farmers who can use it.
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567 Leaders in squash export: entrepreneurship and the introduction of a new cash crop in Tonga Paul van der Grijp. Pacific Studies, vol. 20, no. 1 (1997), pp.29–62 Squash became Tonga’s prime cash crop in 1991, more successful than coconuts, bananas or vanilla. The whole crop is exported to Japan. The impact of squash has been unprecedented in Tonga’s economy. The emphasis of this survey is on the role of the exporters, all local Tongan entrepreneurs, whose very existence shows how far the Tongan economy has been penetrated by the capitalist system, while remaining a Polynesian society. The paper draws on interviews with exporters and reports in the Tongan press. Van der Grijp describes the progress of the crop from its introduction in 1987 and the first shipments to Japan in 1989, and the imposition of the government’s quota system. He tabulates exports in quantity and value until 1995. He notes the development of entrepreneurship in the royal family and their crucial role in the development of the crop. He concludes by profiling five exporters, noting their common qualities of education, overseas experience, entrepreneurial spirit and access to land.
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Pacific 2010: strategies for Polynesian agricultural development Euan M. Fleming, J. Brian Hardaker. Canberra: National Centre for Development Studies, The Australian National University, 1995. 283pp. 6 maps. bibliog. (Pacific Policy Paper, no. 15)
Recent indicators suggest that the contribution of agriculture to economic development is weak and possibly declining. The authors explore the uncertain future and recommend how agricultural resources might best be used. A general survey examines broad macro-level strategies: of the five countries surveyed, the authors believe that only in Tonga and Western Samoa can agriculture play a leading role, provided it is released from its current economic constraints. Each country is then surveyed in detail. The section on Tonga describes the position of agriculture within the wider economy. It notes the recent success in exporting squash and vanilla, and the dangers of excessive reliance on these two crops. It analyses modes of production, physical and other resources, and the policies of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, which seem to favour centralized decision making while officially promoting private sector development. The authors see the need to redefine the proper roles of government and the private sector, and conclude that continued success depends on how long the Japanese market for squash remains open and on the success of efforts to diversify both markets and products via a partnership between government and the private sector. They summarize the strengths and weaknesses, the opportunities and threats, to give an overall view of Tongan agriculture in 1995, and its prospects.
569 Property, propriety and ecology in contemporary Tonga Mike Evans. Human Organization, vol. 66, no. 1 (2007), pp.22–27
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Among the agro-forestry crops of Tonga is the ‘ahi (sandalwood tree). In the early 1980s the people of the island of Ha‘ano (Ha‘apai) sold almost all their ‘ahi to a visiting Chinese trader. Few are left. Evans examines the complex reasons for this sale, and sees the key to it in fahu, the relationship of a person to their father’s sister, sisters having a superior status to brothers. Superordinate kin were harvesting trees without permission, so, many farmers harvested their trees too before others could take them. The traditional Tongan kinship system may not have assisted the preservation of the ‘ahi. However, as shown in mutual assistance in a later severe drought, it continues to ensure biodiversity and sustainability.
570 Shifting cultivation and population growth in Tonga Alaric Maude. The Journal of Tropical Geography, vol. 31, pt. 2 (1970), pp.57–64 This study of the effects of population growth on the agricultural system of Tonga also examines the thesis that the intensification of traditional agricultural systems from long fallow to short fallow to multi-cropping only occurs when forced by population pressure. Maude provides a general introduction to the agricultural environment of Tonga and the bush fallow system for the cultivation of tubers that was at the time of writing the basis of Tongan agriculture, along with coconuts as a longterm crop. Examining data from Tongatapu and Ha‘apai, he notes that in areas of high population density fallow periods are shorter and cropping periods tend to be longer than elsewhere, and that there are significant differences in food crop patterns. In areas of high population density cassava becomes the staple food crop and yams are less frequently grown, while land shortage in some areas has led to many allotments being completely planted with coconuts. The maintenance of soil fertility was becoming a problem; yields seemed to be declining, though there was as yet no indication of serious stress in the agricultural system. He concludes that population growth is only one factor influencing agricultural change. The increasing commercialization of Tongan life has affected the whole agricultural system.
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Smallholder agriculture in Tonga. Report of the South Pacific Smallholder Project in Tonga, 1984–85 J. B. Hardaker, J. C. Delforce, E. M. Fleming, S. Sefanaia. Armidale, Australia: South Pacific Smallholder Project, University of New England, 1987. 90pp. bibliog.
Smallholder agricultural production is the main source of employment and income for the people of Tonga, but agriculture in the mid-1980s was not doing as well as it might and the ratio of imported to locally-produced foodstuffs was rising. This report of a survey of thirty households in each of four villages in Tongatapu, Ha‘apai and Vava‘u presents a wealth of information on the way in which households use their land, on patterns of income, production and expenditure. and on the use of time and access to capital. This information is set out in seventeen tables and sixteen figures. It identifies the problem that some households are unable to ob-
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tain access to land with secure tenure because it has not been allocated, while at the same time some allocated land is unused, often because the owner has gone overseas. Furthermore, remittances from overseas form a large part of the income of many households. The report concludes with policy recommendations on better agricultural planning, allocation of resources and access to capital.
572 Taking over what belongs to God: the historical ecology of Tonga since European contact Charles J. Stevens. Pacific Studies, vol. 22, nos. 3/4 (1999), pp.189–219 In pre-European times Polynesian farmers secured sustainable agricultural production without industrial inputs. Stevens describes the traditional Tongan agricultural system, and lists the plants introduced by the original Polynesian colonizers, to which Captain Cook added pineapple and watermelon. In the nineteenth century other food staples such as cassava and cocoyams were introduced, as well as vegetables favoured by Europeans such as tomatoes, lettuce and coffee. These were more intensively cultivated, but production remained within known limits. He contrasts this with the intensive cultivation of bananas and, more recently, squash for export, requiring extensive tillage, monocrop production and much use of pesticides and fertilizers. These crops can produce significant financial returns, but are associated with decreasing yields and loss of soil fertility. The banana export scheme of the 1970s and 1980s for the New Zealand market required intensive land preparation, the use of pesticides and fertilizers, and the use of land normally held fallow. Many trees were also cut to make boxes. Soil fertility began to decline. The coconut replanting scheme in the same period involved much ploughing, and the compressing of the soil further reduced fertility. The Sixth Development Plan (1991–96) called for the improved management of natural resources that should not be harmed by farming, while calling for accelerated growth in agricultural production and diversified export markets. But the introduction of squash for the Japanese market in 1987 became the latest and most damaging of Tonga’s export schemes, and probably the most significant disruption of the environment in Tongatapu since initial colonization. There was overproduction, quality declined, and chemical input may affect soil fertility and contaminate groundwater. Stevens wonders how long Tonga can continue to base its export agriculture on this type of production. Only a few Tongan farmers resist this trend and farm in the traditional way, but they may turn out to be right.
573
Tonga In South Pacific agriculture, choices and constraints—South Pacific agricultural survey 1979. Edited by R. Gerard White, Andrew Proctor. Manila: Asian Development Bank in association with Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1980, pp.381–94
This report was written at a time when the Tongan economy could be described as at an early stage of development, primarily agricultural, with copra and dessicated coconut accounting for 80 percent of exports in 1978. Tourism and remittances
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were seen as too unreliable to meet persistent and growing trade deficits. The authors note fertile soils and adequate rainfall in Tongatapu, though the other island groups enjoy less favourable conditions. They consider copra and coconuts likely to remain significant exports, along with fruit and vegetables. They suggest that there is little alternative to the status quo for Ha‘apai, but that Vava‘u might do better by turning to cacao, coffee and cattle grazing, and that vanilla might have potential. Tongatapu should have a mosaic of large- and small-scale producers growing on contract for a central marketing and processing organization, and with the Ministry of Agriculture providing extension services, aiming at the New Zealand market for fruit and vegetables. In actuality, central marketing did not develop in this way, the New Zealand market proved difficult to access for technical reasons, and new crops appeared, but the report provides background for the present position.
574 Tonga agricultural census 1985 Nuku‘alofa: Statistics Department, Government of Tonga, 1988. 162pp. map The first agricultural census of Tonga presents data on land tenure and use, area and production of principal crops, livestock, agricultural implements and equipment, use of fertilizers and the like, and the households involved in various agricultural activities. An introduction covers the scope, methodology and processing of the census. All results are tabulated by each island group and by district within each. The results are described and analysed, and the figures are then presented in considerable detail in seventy-nine tables grouped in twenty sections. For example, area planted and harvested and other production information is given for each of eleven major crops. There was a further agricultural census in 2001. This can be viewed at www.spc.int/prism/tongatest/Publication/ publication.htm.
575 Tonga: development through agricultural exports Mark Sturton. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: East-West Center, 1992. 48pp. map. (Pacific Islands Development Program, Economic Report, no. 4) The economy of Tonga depends on a limited range of primary commodity exports, remittances from Tongans living and working overseas, and development assistance. Copra was for several years the main export, but its price fell by half between 1970 and 1990. The impact of this was partly offset during the late 1980s by diversification in agriculture, first into vanilla and then into squash for the Japanese market. Tourism also developed, though not perhaps as much as some had hoped. Sturton sets these developments in their broader economic context, and analyses them in light of the level of inflation, fiscal policy and external factors. He sees hope in the success of private entrepreneurship, but problems of imbalance in the economy have continued in the years since he wrote.
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576 Tonga: rural employment and development Piyasiri Wickramasekara. New Delhi: Asian Regional Team for Employment Promotion and International Labour Organisation, 1993. 58pp. bibliog. This report considers the prospects for rural development against the background of the land tenure system and the high level of migration to urban areas within Tonga and overseas. It sees no immediate pressing problems, but there could be a longer-term problem of high unemployment and stagnation. It summarizes the performance of individual crops—root crops, vanilla, bananas, coconuts, watermelons and squash (then a new crop)—as well as livestock and fisheries. It considers the need for mechanization and more capital, and notes a trend from food crops to cash crops, inequalities in rural income and asset distribution, and changing food consumption habits. It considers the role of women and handicrafts in rural development and outlines the institutional machinery of government, banks and churches in rural development and reviews existing programmes. Wickramasekara concludes by making proposals for an employment-oriented rural development strategy with a clearer policy, better planning and a review of land tenure. There are twenty-five tables of detailed statistics.
577
The Tongan construction industry: infrastructure provision in a small economy Gayford George Candler. Pacific Economic Bulletin, vol. 12, no. 1 (1997), pp.97–107
The importance of the construction industry is implicit in Tonga’s development plans. Candler provides a profile of the industry in Tonga, based on his own employment there, charting its rapid growth from 1965, with a peak in 1982 through rebuilding after the hurricane that year, and giving sector breakdowns. Information about small-scale local building work is hard to find. The figures are dominated by the Ministry of Works and a few large contractors. He notes the lack of adequate building codes and land-use regulations, resulting in some work of very low quality. Candler ends by analysing the sources of finance for construction, the role of foreign aid and of the banks, and environmental damage.
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Tongatapu island, Tonga R. R. Thaman. In Agroforestry in the Pacific islands: systems of sustainability. Edited by W. C. Clarke, R. R. Thaman. Tokyo; New York; Paris: United Nations University Press, 1993, pp.89–95
In the course of a general survey of agroforestry in the region, this short section on Tongatapu describes the present bush-fallow agroforestry system, the pattern of cycles in food crops, whether subsistence or commercial, the range of species planted, the growing of plants for handicrafts and other nonfood uses, and the more than twentyfive species of fruit-bearing trees and more than sixty-seven non-fruit tree species with other uses, as well as the fallow and natural vegetation. Thaman notes that many species are rapidly disappearing from the majority of Tongatapu’s bush allotments.
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Women’s work and development in Tonga Sue Fleming with Monalisa Tukuafu. Armidale, Australia: South Pacific Smallholder Project, University of New England, 1986. 92pp. bibliog. (Occasional Paper, no. 10)
The discrepancies between the role women play and predominant development practice highlight the fact that essential information on rural women is not reaching policy makers and planners: census data is inadequate. Younger women in Tonga spend considerable time on work in the house: women over thirty-five spend more on crop production and on handicrafts, for sale to supplement household income, as well as for traditional purposes. Yet the 1976 census shows only 11.5 percent of women in the labour force. In this report, despite deficiencies in the information available, women’s work activities are detailed and information on women’s control over income and other resources is examined. The information is presented in seventeen tables and six figures. From the figures and analysis, a picture of the varied and vital work of women at that time emerges.
PhD theses 580 Agriculture and development in the Kingdom of Tonga J. B. Hardaker. University of New England, Armidale, 1975 581 Contemporary uses of limu (marine algae) in the Vava‘u island group, Kingdom of Tonga Melinda Ostroff. University of Victoria, Canada, 2004 582
Sometimes the ‘native’ knows best. A discourse on contextualization, indigenous knowledge and the implications of culture in sustainable commercial farm development for the Kingdom of Tonga S. Deacon Ritterbush. University of Hawai‘i, 1993
583 The Tongan agricultural system with special emphasis on plant assemblages R. R. Thaman. University of California, Los Angeles, 1978 584 Tourism as conflict in Polynesia: status degradation among Tongan handicraft sellers Debra Connolly-Kirch. University of Hawai‘i, 1984 585 Transfer costs in the overseas and internal shipping services of Fiji and Tonga John Richard Baker. Australian National University, 1974
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Fisheries 586 Fish and fishing in Niuatoputapu Tom Dye. Oceania, vol. 53, no. 3 (1983), pp.242–71 Dye studied fishing in Niuatoputapu in 1976–77. He describes the fishing environments of the island (reef, lagoon and open ocean), marine flora and fauna, and thirty-seven named fishing methods using rod, net, spear, traps, diving and groping. He records catch sizes and lists the names of 210 folk fish taxa.
587 The fish of Tonga: prey or social partners? Marie-Claire Bataille-Benguigui. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 97, no. 2 (1988), pp.185–98 The prevalence of fish in Tongan religion and myth led the author to examine possible ritual aspects that might coexist with fishing techniques today, Tongans’ relationships with their sea environment and possible privileged relationships between man and fish. She examines the relationship between the men who fish and the women who stay at home, and the conditions necessary for successful fishing, including ceremonial sequences and rituals, and taboos governing distribution of caught fish. These she interprets in terms of the belief that the gods were incarnate in certain fish. She finds that Christian influence is absent in fishing, in contrast to the strong hold on those who work on the land, though she admits that much of the information she gathered from older people is no longer current practice.
588 Fishermen of Tonga: their means of survival Sitiveni Halapua. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, The University of the South Pacific, 1982. 100pp. 3 maps. bibliog. Halapua studies the organization and technical base of production in the smallscale fisheries of Tonga (dealing in fact only with Nuku‘alofa). He describes the techniques of different types of fishing—spear, net and handline—and calculates investment and return in each. He then examines the social relationships of production and distribution, which he believes constitute a fundamental barrier to the transition from a noncapitalist to a capitalist production process. The work combines observation of the daily lives of the fishermen (with many photographs) and economic analysis of their activity.
589 A fishy romance: chiefly power and the geopolitics of desire Heather E. Young Leslie. The Contemporary Pacific, vol. 19, no. 2 (2007), pp.365–408 The core of this paper is the telling by an elder on the island of Ha‘ano in the Ha‘apai group of the tâ‘atu, the ritual harvesting of the ‘atu (skipjack tuna) that once were abundant there. The technique, and the reason why the fish came to Ha‘ano, is explained in the legend of a Samoan beauty and her Tongan
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lover. Young Leslie explores its deeper meaning, in respect to the position of the chief of Ha‘ano and of relationships within society generally, in a rich and complex explanation, which sets Tonga in a once wider geopolitical ecology. The irony is that the ‘atu are now scarce in Ha‘ano, overexploited by overseas fishing fleets. Tongan chiefs today will have to find other ways to provide bounty and merit love, in a time of environmental change and of increasing desires for resources.
590 Harpoon in my hand Olaf Ruhen. New York: Tower Publications, 1966. 185pp. Once Tongans hunted whales as necessary protein to supplement their diet. Now whale watching is a major tourist attraction in Vava‘u. Ruhen describes how he joined a group of Tongans, hunting whales from small boats with handheld harpoons, and also gives a picture of life in Tonga fifty years ago. For today’s tastes, he glories too much in the hunt, though he did not himself kill a whale, but whaling was important at that time.
591 The politics of Pacific island fisheries George Kent. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1980. 191pp. 2 maps. bibliog. This study is based on research initially undertaken with the support of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN. The author believes that fisheries should be understood and managed as a comprehensive system that includes not only production but also processing, marketing and consumption. He outlines the overall situation in the Pacific and then surveys each country. In Tonga, he sees fishing as undeveloped, with about 1,700 full- and part-time fishermen, most working on a subsistence basis, and meeting less than half of local demand. Imports of canned fish are far greater than the value of local production and export. He notes the plan, in the late 1970s, to develop deep-water longline fishing with foreign aid. Kent then describes more generally the international organizations concerned with fishing in the Pacific, and the international law of fisheries. He considers problems concerning production, conservation and information, trade, employment and nutrition. He proceeds to outline the comparative disadvantage of the smaller Pacific countries, and notes a developing common approach among them. Tables throughout the book provide statistics to show Tonga’s position in relation to its neighbours at that time.
592 Preliminary report on a fisheries survey of Tonga Hon. Vaea, W. Straatmans. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 63, nos. 3 and 4 (1954), pp.199–215 The authors describe traditional methods of community fishing: enclosing the fish and trapping them on a falling tide, setting traps, netting, spearing, line fishing and poisoning, as well as the particular techniques for catching sharks, octopus, whales and other seafood. They list fifty-four varieties of Tongan fish, tabulating
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their type, habitat, habits and method of fishing for each. Most fish is consumed at once. Preservation where necessary is by salting, sun-drying or smoking. They urge an improvement in fishing methods and processing in order to improve the diet of the population.
593 Tonga fisheries bibliography: 1st revised edition Robert Gillett. Suva: Pacific Islands Marine Resources Information Systems, The University of the South Pacific Library, 1994. 115pp. This bibliography lists 619 items located at the Fisheries Division and other offices in Tonga, at the University of the South Pacific and elsewhere in the region. Each item is listed in a first section by author and in a second section by one of forty subject headings, from aquaculture to whales. Some are in published books or in journals, but many are technical reports by government departments, regional organizations, aid agencies and the like.
PhD thesis 594 Shell age economics: marine gathering in the Kingdom of Tonga, Polynesia Thomas Malm. Lunds University, Sweden, 1999
Education 595
‘Atenisi Institute and University ‘I. Futa Helu. In Pacific universities: achievements, problems, prospects. Edited by Ron Crocombe, Malama Meleisea. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific, 1988, pp.203–09
Helu describes the establishment of his own private ‘Atenisi (Athens) University, inspired by the Greek classical model. An original class of eleven men began in 1963 with him as the only teacher. By 1966 it had expanded into high-school education and was recognized by the government as a private educational institution. A small pilot university class was established in 1971 and this became ‘Atenisi University in 1978, providing core studies for more advanced work and recognized by Australian and New Zealand universities. Despite financial difficulties, it continues, the unique embodiment of the vision of one individual, still aiming, as Helu states, ‘to polish its image of academism, classicism and criticism, and also to struggle against ignorance, subjectivism and interestedness in Tonga and the Pacific.’
596 Education for economic development in the South Pacific Edited by K. G. Gannicott. Canberra: National Centre for Development Studies, The Australian National University, 1990. 120pp. bibliog.
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In recent years rates of economic growth have been low in the South Pacific island nations. Shortages of skilled labour are an important contributor to poor economic performance. This volume brings together a series of studies of educational development in the region. In a general overview Gannicott examines the cost, quality and relevance of the education provided. His own paper on the similarities and contrasts between educational systems in Western Samoa and Tonga notes that despite near-universal literacy in Tonga the country is short of people with technical and managerial skills. However, in contrast to Western Samoa, whose policy is to strengthen the vocational aspect of education, a policy which appears to be unsuccessful, Tonga is working to strengthen the general and academic curriculum in primary and secondary schools. This is at a time when up to 40 percent of Tongan children in some schools seem to find it difficult to keep up with the curriculum and where buildings, equipment and supplies are all inadequate. The author believes that Tonga’s policy is the better. He also considers that vocational training is better done on the job, and schools should emphasize mathematics and science. He describes the fourteen post-secondary institutions, most very small, independent of each other and uncoordinated. At the time of writing it was planned that postsecondary education should be provided through a community development and training centre. To date this has not happened. The volume concludes with a paper on Australian aid for education in the region, with ten tables setting out what it has provided. The conclusion is that Australia’s aid, largely aimed at the tertiary sector, would be better directed to the lower levels of education.
597
The inside story: handling research on language practices in Tonga Siosi‘ana ‘Ungatea Fonua. In Researching Pacific and indigenous peoples: issues and perspectives. Edited by T. Baba, ‘O. Mâhina, N. Williams, U. Nabobo-Baba. Auckland: Centre for Pacific Studies, The University of Auckland, 2004, pp.170–78
Arising from her research on language-learning practices among young children in Tongan schools, Fonua sets out some of the ethical and practical issues involved in relating to the Ministry of Education, the school and the family, juggling one’s cultural knowledge and sensitivity with the systematic investigation learnt at university. This is difficult but necessary.
598
The nature of education in pre-European to modern Tonga Kalapoli Pâongo. In Tongan culture and history. Edited by Phyllis Herda, Jennifer Terrell, Niel Gunson. Canberra: The Journal of Pacific History, 1990, pp.134–44
Pâongo, principal of a college in Vava‘u, traces the nature of education in Tonga from earliest times to the present. Traditional education was concerned with establishing how one coped with one’s environment and established one’s identity, and was informal, flexible and based on the family. Boys and girls learnt their different skills. The years from first European contact in 1616 to 1866 Pâongo defines
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as ‘the thawing period’, with stupendous changes, the coming of literacy and the enlightening and broadening of minds. He describes the foundation of schools by missionaries, with rules and discipline to assist formal education. He calls 1866–82 ‘the golden age’ with the foundation of Tonga and Tupou colleges, and students ‘perhaps the best in the South Pacific islands at that time.’ He sees 1882–1945 as a time of crisis and challenge, with moves to a greater independence in church and state and a lowering of standards. From 1945 he sees a renaissance, with a greater concern for education and more money spent on it. However, he notes an overemphasis on academic education and the need to broaden the curriculum to include more practical subjects.
599
Overview of vocational training in Tonga Melino Kupu. In Vocational training and the labour market: South Pacific. Edited by A. M. A. H. Siddiqui. Bangkok: International Labour Organisation, Asian and Pacific Skill Development Programme, 1992, pp.65–80
Kupu outlines the legislation and government policy on vocational training in Tonga, recommending a clearer definition of policy. The government’s vocational training activities are described: teacher training, a marine polytechnic institute and centres for trade testing and development and for community relations. Those run by the churches, largely for agriculture, are also listed. Priorities for Tonga are set out, in the mechanical, electrical and construction trades and in agriculture and fishing. Recommendations are set out on goals, curricula development, standards and validation and for the development of apprenticeships. Kupu concludes that a training board should be set up to improve the effectiveness of training and the development of teachers.
600
Paradise postponed: essays on research and development in the South Pacific Edited by Alexander Mamak, Grant McCall. Rushcutters Bay, Australia: Pergamon Press, 1978. 277pp.
This volume contains papers given at a conference of young Pacific islanders held at the University of New South Wales in 1978. It contains four papers by Tongans. In ‘Some preliminary remarks on the nature of research and development’ (pp.13–18) Patelisio P. Finau, then Roman Catholic Bishop of Tonga, sounds a note of caution over the old development model: ‘The rich who give do not just look with compassion. They also work for their own self-expansion.’ Development, he adds, must free people from domination but avoid cultural romanticism. In ‘Research for development in Tonga’ (pp.176–79), Penisimani Topi Tapuelulu states that unless the core problem of economic development is faced, all research for development will be like ‘collecting shellfish in an open-bottomed basket.’ More research is needed on both political and religious structure, and more research should be undertaken by Tongans rather than by Europeans. Research must promote development as total
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liberation. In ‘Concluding remarks on the nature of research and development’ (pp.234–40), Sione Lâtûkefu hopes that the views expressed will help Pacific islanders to decide for themselves what is relevant to their needs and aspirations. In a brief report, ‘Session on case studies and current research trends’ (pp.245–46), Epeli Hau‘ofa suggests the need for research on emigration, the activities of multinational corporations, increasing dependence on imported foodstuffs, foreign aid and the role of Pacific elites. Thirty years later many of these research needs remain, and more research still needs to be done by Tongans.
601
Science and technology in Australasia, Antarctica and the Pacific islands Jarlath Ronayne, Campbell Boag. Harlow, England: Longman, 1989. 335pp. 4 maps (Longman Guide to World Science and Technology, no. 11)
This guide to the organization of science and technology, and to facilities for scientific and technological research, provides information regionally and by country. There is not much to report on Tonga: the experimental farm, research and fisheries divisions of the Ministry of Agriculture, Marine Fisheries and Forests, some activities of the Ministry of Lands, Survey and Natural Resources, the Ministry of Education, and the Rural Development Centre of the University of the South Pacific. Covered in a general introduction to the region are the South Pacific Forum, the University of the South Pacific and other bodies serving all the countries of the region including Tonga.
602
Ta Kupesi: emerging themes and methodologies from educational research in Tonga Edited by Lia Maka, Seu‘ula Johansson Fua, Frances Pene. Suva: Institute of Education, University of the South Pacific and Wellington: Institute of Research and Development, Victoria University, 2006. 117pp. bibliog.
A group of Tongan educators present findings from research on issues of current concern within the context of their own work. Their topics cover teaching and assessment methodologies, student learning, administration and leadership, and vocational training. They aim to equip educators to become reflective practitioners.
603
Thinking in Tongan society ‘I. Futa Helu. In Thinking: the expanding frontier. Edited by William Maxwell. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: The Franklin Institute Press, 1983, pp.43–56
Helu begins by considering aspects of thinking, the difference between what we think and how we think. He then relates this to the ways in which Tongans think, under the influence of what he calls ‘the powerful indoctrinating forces of church organization, socio-economic grouping, traditional customs etc.’ He does this by considering two Tongan myths. He believes that myths are tools for maintaining a static society and are inimical to a dynamic and liberal society. Helu describes some
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of his own work at ‘Atenisi University (item 595) to determine Tongans’ concepts of their own identity, and detects a new materialist and individualist trend in Tongan society.
604
Tonga R. Murray Thomas. In Schooling in the Pacific islands: colonies in transition. Edited by R. Murray Thomas, T. Neville Postlethwaite. Oxford; New York; Toronto; Sydney; Paris; Frankfurt: Pergamon Press, 1984, pp.236–61
Thomas sketches the history of education in Tonga from the time of European contact, noting the key role of education in achieving economic self-sufficiency and a compatible integration of Polynesian and Western cultures. He then describes the schooling ladder at that time, extending from a six-year primary school education to four years at middle or lower secondary school to three years at upper secondary school. Primary education is largely provided by the government but secondary education is primarily private, provided by the churches. Among the few post-secondary educational institutions are a nursing school, a theological college and a police training school. Thomas describes the roles of the government and the churches in the administration of education, curricula and examinations with their emphasis on academic intelligence, and the recruitment and training of teachers. To face the issue of the compromise culture, he sees the need for social analysis and goal definition, and he wonders whether Tonga has either the will or the resources to do this. In a final table he compares aspects of schooling in 1882 and 1982.
605
Tongan astronomy and calendar E. E. V. Collocott. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: Bishop Museum Press, 1922, 19pp. (Occasional Papers of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum of Polynesian Ethnology and Natural History, vol. VIII, no. 4)
Collocott sets out information he obtained from Tongan informants on astronomy and the recording of time. Most Tongan star lore was embodied in sailing directions. Collocott gives the three areas or zones of the heavens, the southern, the midsky and the northern, and the Tongan names for the main stars in each, identifying them where possible with the Western names. He explains the Tongan concept of time, with a year usually having twelve months with agricultural names. Tongans count by nights rather than by days, and he gives names for different phases of the moon and divisions of night and day, as well as miscellaneous terms for stars, comets, etc.
606
The Tongan studies programme Konai Helu Thaman. In Pacific languages in education. Edited by France Mugler and John Lynch. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies and Department of Language and Literature, and Vanuatu: Pacific Languages Unit, 1996, pp. 120–36
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In the format of a transcribed interview, Thaman describes her work with the Ministry of Education in Tonga to develop a new Tongan studies curriculum, taught in Tongan, in light of a feeling that Tongan school leavers did not know anything about Tongan culture and that they performed better in the English language than in Tongan. She considers questions of language and its place in the study of traditional culture, the training of teachers and the production of materials, and the place of Tongan rather than English in the study of other subjects at secondary level, which seems to be more effective in science and mathematics than in the social sciences. Students seem to welcome the Tongan studies curriculum and are getting good examination results. There is also a revival in the manufacture of traditional arts and crafts. But it is doubtful that behaviour has become more traditionally Tongan, while some parents feel that their children will do better in the world with an early emphasis on English. ‘What we need to do is show parents that if their children learn to read and write in Tongan maybe they’ll have a better chance with English later. But they won’t believe you.’
607 Training the majority: guidelines for the rural Pacific G. N. Bamford. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies of the University of the South Pacific, 1986. 133pp. map In the 1960s and 1970s increasing attention was being paid in the Pacific to the improvement of rural living, but little information was available to compare rural training programmes in different countries. This book arises out of a 1984 ILO/UNDP study of some of the most effective rural training programmes. Comparative tables in the introduction show that in the 1976 census 77.7 percent of Tonga’s population was rural—one of the highest figures in the Pacific— and 76.2 percent of exports were agricultural. After some general guidelines on rural training, Bamford provides ten case studies, one of which concerns the Fualu Rural Training Centre on Tongatapu, established by the Roman Catholic Church. Its innovative and effective programmes are designed to train young men for a farming career, introducing skills that can take some of the drudgery out of farming. Course content combines work in both classroom and field and involves work on the trainee’s own land. Money to help with running costs and trainees’ expenses is generated from the sale of crops grown during the course. Bamford suggests some of the common features contributing towards effective rural training and concludes that training for rural living cannot of itself solve the problem of urban drift and unemployment, but that it can make an important contribution.
PhD theses 608 Ako and faiako: cultural values, educational ideas and the teachers’ role perceptions in Tonga K. H. Thaman. University of the South Pacific, 1988
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609 Education and national development in Tonga: a critical policy review ‘Asinate Samata. University of Queensland, 1995 610 Educational reorganization for national development in Tonga S. L. Kavaliku. Victoria University, Wellington, 1966 611 Perspectives on scientific and technological literacy in Tonga: moving forward in the 21st century T. H. Palefau. University of Toronto, 2005 612 Problems in educational development in the Kingdom of Tonga Carol Joy McRae. Institute of Education, University of London, 1986 613 Pule aku: educational leadership in Tonga Seu‘ula Falealava Johansson-Fua. University of Toronto, 2003 614 The relationship between self concept and academic achievement of Tongan students at Liahona High School, Tonga Inoke Fakatene. Brigham Young University, 1975 615 A survey of native education in Fiji, Tonga and Western Samoa, with special attention to Fiji Arthur Cyril Cato. University of Melbourne, 1951 616 Trodden paths and untrodden lanes: Tongan students reading across texts Lia L. Maka. University of Nottingham, 1996 617 Tuli ke ma‘u hono ngaahi malie: pedagogical possibilities for Tongan students in New Zealand secondary schooling L. Manu‘atu. University of Auckland, 2001
Literature 618 Fananga: fables from Tonga in Tongan and English Collected and edited by Richard Moyle. Nuku‘alofa: Friendly Islands Bookshop, 1995. 121pp. Moyle prints eight fananga, tales told by women not only as a family settles to sleep (item 625) but also when weaving or during night-long vigils beside a corpse. Each is in both Tongan and English, with musical notation for passages that are sung. In
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an introduction Moyle analyses vocabulary and content, and discusses the difficulty of translation.
619 Kakala Konai Helu Thaman. Suva: Mana Publications, 1993. 94pp. Konai Helu Thaman’s mother is Tongan and her father American. Educated in New Zealand and California, she now works at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji. Kakala are sacred fragrant Tongan plants used in garlands and to scent coconut oil. They are commonly referred to in Tongan legends, songs, dance and poetry as a symbol of respect and love. This collection of poems, in English with a glossary of Tongan terms, conveys in a vivid and imaginative manner something of the tensions and pressures facing Tongans and other Pacific islanders in the modern world, trying to hold together cultural conservatism and modern liberalism.
620 ‘Ko e fakalângilângi: the eulogistic function of the Tongan poet Eric B. Shumway. Pacific Studies. vol. 1, no. 1 (1977), pp.25–34 The performing arts in Tonga are more than high entertainment. Besides fulfilling a psychic need in giving emotional release to performer and spectator through musical harmony and rhythmic movement, they are a ritual reinforcement of the fundamental values that bind Tongan society together. Shumway identifies those as worshipful respect to the royal house, the maintenance of the sovereign prerogative of the nobility, the love of country and church more than self, and the insistence that Tonga is the best of all possible worlds. The function of the poet is to proclaim and restate the most urgent social and political imperatives of both past and present. He composes as a public duty, and for personal acclaim within that duty. Shumway describes, provides extracts from and analyses the work of some modern Tongan poets within this context. Though there are signs that poets may become social critics or work to please foreign audiences, it is unlikely that the poet will forget his responsibility to remind Tongans of their heritage, and their duty to sustain and enrich it.
621 Lali—a Pacific anthology Edited and with an introduction by Albert Wendt. Auckland, New Zealand: Longman Paul, 1980. 303pp. map Writing in 1980, the Samoan author Albert Wendt looked back at colonialism’s rejection of much of traditional Pacific culture but also at the beginnings of recovery. Since the 1960s a Pacific literature in English has emerged, arguing for the speeding up of decolonization and the development of identity based on Pacific ways, values and visions, helping the people of the Pacific to understand who and where they were and where they were going. This was the first anthology of such writing, and the pieces from Tonga reflect the theme of the troubled relationship between the traditional and the modern, with two short stories by Epeli Hau‘ofa, one by Vili Vete, and three poems by Konai Helu Thaman, all either richly sardonic or quietly
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tragic. The lali is a wooden gong with a deep booming sound, ‘commanding, definite, yet capable of many subtle nuances’.
622 Laumatanga, pride of locality, in Tongan poetry ‘I. F. Helu. In Critical essays: cultural perspectives from the South Seas. Canberra: The Journal of Pacific History, 1999, pp.270–87 Helu divides Tongan poetry into four periods—ancient, middle, transitional and modern—based on broad considerations of theme and form, and describes the characteristics of each. He examines in particular Tongan nature poetry, printing the texts of four Tongan poems with English translation. These demonstrate its two principal features, that it is specific and local. He sees the antecedents of modern Tongan poetry in earlier periods and explains the references in the poems printed, showing how Tongan poets vied with each other in praising the distinctive qualities of their localities.
623 Lisitala: a bibliography of Pacific writers Edited by Esther Wininamaori Williams. Suva: Pacific Information Centre in association with the 4th Festival of Pacific Arts Committee, 1984. 344pp. This bibliography sets out to list known Pacific writers with biographical details, and to list and describe their creative and scholarly works under broad subject headings. It is based on information compiled at the University of the South Pacific. A general introduction dates the beginning of creative writing in English by Pacific writers to 1960, though scholarly writing began much earlier. The section on Tonga lists about 250 works by 32 authors. The largest sections are on education (18), literature (136, though the same piece if published more than once in different places is listed for each appearance) and social science (52). Some of the items listed are unpublished, are brief pieces in magazines or are ephemeral, such as course guides for the university.
624 Nuanua—Pacific writing in English since 1980 Selected with an introduction by Albert Wendt. Auckland, New Zealand: Auckland University Press, 1995, 405pp. This successor to Lali (item 621) published fifteen years earlier, contains a rich diversity of writing from ten countries, symbolized by the book’s title, which means rainbow in many Polynesian languages (though not in Tongan). In his general introduction Wendt states his belief that, though colonialism has changed the Pacific radically, the cultures of the islands have survived and adapted. Western art forms, including the novel, have been indigenized. Two of the Tongan authors were also contributors to Lali, Epeli Hau‘ofa with an extract from his novel Kisses in the Nederends and a poem, and Konai Helu Thaman with three poems. Pesi Fonua contributes a short story. Wendt notes in his introduction that much has changed in the Pacific in fifteen years, but some themes recur, still powerfully expressed.
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625 Po fananga—folk tales of Tonga Tupou Posesi Fanua. San Diego, California: Tofua Press, 1975. 96pp. Fananga are described by the author as ‘stories used to lull me to sleep’. This is the first book of folktales of Tonga to be written and published in Tongan and English, set in parallel columns. Tupou Posesi Fanua retells eleven of the stories told by her grandmother and adds one story of her own. The ancient stories relate to structures and rituals that are still part of Tonga today: bygone gods and mortals, kings and people, and their loves, lives and deaths. (For details of the author’s own early life, and on the grandmother who told her these stories, see item 222.)
626
Proverbial sayings of the Tongans E. E. V. Collocott, John Havea. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: Bishop Museum Press, 1922. 115pp. (Occasional Papers of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum of Polynesian Ethnology and Natural History, vol. VIII, no. 3)
Collocott’s aim was to collect as wide a range as possible of genuine Tongan expressions. Each of his 632 proverbs has a literal English translation and a few lines of explanation. They are grouped in main subject sections: garden and farm, plants and trees, food, doing of tasks and criticism, manufactures, land creatures, birds, fish and shellfish, ships and sailing, climate and seasons, sea and coast, land features, places, distinguished people, legendary deities, religion, the person, home and compound, domestic relations, courtship and marriage, speech, disease and medicine, death and burial, wrong-doing and retribution, common people, chiefs, the Tu‘i lines, kava, war, sports and games, dancing, and unclassified.
627 Tales and poems of Tonga E. E. V. Collocott. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: Bernice P. Bishop Museum, 1928. 169pp. bibliog. (Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin 46) The aim of Collocott, a missionary and teacher in Tonga, was to allow Tongans to interpret themselves through their storytelling and bards, and his collection concentrates on what he calls ‘more homely pieces’ that had not already been published. These he took from manuscript sources, though he does not provide specific references. He classifies the pieces that he prints under the headings of stories, poetry and songs, grouping them by such themes as places, people, work, and stages of life and death. Extensive examples are printed both in Tongan and in English translation, with explanatory notes to identify places and clarify meanings. The music of the songs is also printed.
628 Tales from the South Pacific islands Anne Gittings. Owings Mill, Maryland: Stemmer House Publishers, 1977. 89pp. This simple and attractively illustrated collection of Pacific folktales retold for young people includes four from Tonga: the fishing up of the islands by Maui, how fire
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came to Tonga, the love story of Toeumu and Lifotu in Vava‘u, and the story of the sun-child.
629 Tales of the Tikongs Epeli Hau‘ofa. Auckland, New Zealand: Penguin Books, 1988. 93pp. Service in the Tongan government and at the University of the South Pacific has given Hau‘ofa the background for this collection of short tales. Some display wry humour, some hilarious satire, as they gently ridicule the doings of those in political and religious power, foreign advisers and aid donors, and the conventions of society generally, in the imaginary country of Tiko. Beneath the surface they say a lot that is revealing and authentic about a Tonga that is all too recognizable.
630 Tongan myths and tales Edward Winslow Gifford. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: Bernice P. Bishop Museum, 1924. 207pp. (Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin 8) Gifford draws the Tongan myths and tales that he presents from the Tongan language magazines of both the Methodist and Roman Catholic churches, which printed ‘many stories from raconteurs now long dead’, and also from stories he took down from narrators when he was in Tonga in 1920–21. In an introduction he sets out the many parallels between the myths of Tonga and Indonesia, and the evidence of close links with Samoa. He recounts and examines myths of creation, of the exploits of Maui, of the sun and moon, of gods and Pulotu (the land of the departed). There are also tales of many of the Tu‘i Tongas. He provides a corpus of material from which many scholars have since worked.
631
Tongan poetry Futa Helu. Part 1. Faikava, no. 1 (1978), pp.21–25; Part 2. Faikava, no. 2 (1978), pp.31–33; Part 3. Faikava, no. 3 (1979), pp.18–20; Part 4. Faikava, no. 4 (1979), pp.28–31; Part 5. Faikava, no. 5 (1980), pp.27–31
This is really one paper spread over five issues of Faikava. In the first part Helu identifies the various styles of Tongan poetry. Of the ancient there are the fakatangi, an ancient form of ballad that can be regarded as a proto-epic; the tangi, an elegy that is usually a lament on the death of a loved one; the lave, which is both epic and ode; the laulau, a delicate propitiatory harangue; and ta‘anga, the texts of dance songs. Of the modern there are the sipi, a wooing madrigal; the lakalaka dance song; the hiva kakala, a love lyric; the ma‘ulu‘ulu and tau‘olunga dance songs. There is little spoken poetry as such. Most poems were either sung or chanted to accompany dance. Tongan poetry, Helu notes, is essentially social poetry or collective lyricism. Only recently have individualism and sentimentality begun to appear. He identifies a growth of romanticism that found its highest expression in the works of Queen Sâlote. In the subsequent parts Helu describes in detail some of the different types, their origin, form and use, provides examples, and comments on historical refer-
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ences. The fifth article states at the end ‘to be continued’ but no further parts were published.
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Airplanes and saxophones: post-war images in the visual and performing arts Adrienne L. Kaeppler. In Echoes of Pacific war. Edited by Deryck Scarr, Niel Gunson, Jennifer Terrell. Canberra: Target Oceania, 1998, pp.38–63
Kaeppler tells how World War II and its aftermath brought new images to the visual and performing arts in Tonga, focusing on designs on barkcloth and the music of brass bands. Following the introduction of four-part tonal harmony by the missionaries, brass bands became very popular in Tonga from the late 19th century, but the brass bands that came with the American troops in 1942 produced a different, more mellow sound because they included saxophones. These now form part of most Tongan brass bands, transforming them from concert to dance bands. The visual counterpart was the introduction of airplanes into barkcloth design. Original designs were purely geometric. Kaeppler describes and illustrates the subsequent introduction of motifs such as trees, coats of arms, and then the Spitfire fighter plane, of which Tonga raised funds for four, and other planes such as the Lightning seen in Tonga during the war. Queen Sâlote played an important part in these developments, responsible for raising funds for the Spitfires and for allowing access to Tonga by American troops who brought their planes and their music. Her hope was to bring only superficial change to Tonga, making fundamental change unnecessary. Kaeppler offers no judgement as to whether she was successful.
633
Animal designs on Samoan siapo and other thoughts on West Polynesian barkcloth design Adrienne L. Kaeppler. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 114, no. 3 (2005), pp.197–225
Discovering a piece of barkcloth with fish designs, which she thought was from Tonga but turned out to be from Samoa, Kaeppler examines the use of fish designs also found on barkcloth from Tonga, Niue, and also Fiji. She considers why animal designs, introduced in the late 19th century, did not persist, and why Tongan and Samoan design concepts differ.
634
Art, aesthetics and social structure Adrienne Kaeppler. In Tongan culture and history. Edited by Phyllis Herda, Jennifer Terrell, Niel Gunson. Canberra: The Journal of Pacific History, 1990, pp.59–71
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The traditional arts of Tonga reveal much about Tongan society, and a study of artistic products and aesthetic concepts can make it easier to understand the history, philosophy and traditional cultural values of Tonga. The creation and presentation of valuables are embedded in Tongan conceptualizations about the reproduction of society and culture. Here Kaeppler examines the traditional arts of Tonga: poetry with its attendant music and dance; the making of scent; barkcloth; mats, basketry and ornaments; tattooing; and woodworking. Art in the Tongan context she defines as the cultural forms that result from creative processes that use or manipulate words, sounds, movements, materials or space in order to formalize or intensify the formalizations of the nonformal. The arts can best be understood as cultural forms embedded in social action. To this end she analyses the layout of space that people move in, gift giving and exchange, and how people are attached to each other. She examines Tongan concepts of skill and respect, relates them to the verbal and material arts, and sets them in their social context.
635 Art and life in Polynesia T. Barrow. London: Pall Mall Press, 1972. 191pp. map. bibliog. Barrow believes that the art of Polynesia is best understood and interpreted in terms of custom, religion and ethnic temperament. In Part I he provides a comprehensive background on Polynesian origins; European discovery and settlement; social structure; daily life; food and drink; religion and symbol; the role of the craftsman; and the craftsman’s tools and materials. In Part II he examines each island group. The section on Tonga concentrates on art in wood and ivory, exquisite carved figures, few of which survived destruction by the missionaries, and war clubs with their remarkable surface decoration of figures, animals and textured patterns. He presents these through illustrations, both colour and black-and-white, with detailed captions. All these objects are now in museums and private collections, and the survey is thus totally historical. There is nothing here of the art of Tonga today, for which one must refer to the more recent book by St. Cartmail, The art of Tonga (item 636).
636 The art of Tonga—Ko e ngaahi‘aati ‘o Tonga Keith St. Cartmail. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1997. 152pp. 3 maps. bibliog. St. Cartmail defines art broadly in this attractively presented introduction to the art of Tonga. This is appropriate because there is no Tongan word for ‘art’ in the Western sense. Form and texture are governed by tradition, function and material. Thus, after a historical introduction, St. Cartmail describes and illustrates not only figures and war clubs, which are perhaps the finest and best-known achievements of Tongan art, but also headrests, containers such as kava bowls, food hooks and pounders, adzes, baskets, mats, ngatu (decorated barkcloth), necklaces and other articles of adornment, fishhooks and canoes. He even extends his survey to include tattooing, music, dance and poetry, and the art of grave decoration today, in which articles that may seem inappropriate to the outsider, such as beer bottles,
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are used (item 658). This he sees as a unique and innovative way for Tongans to express their own sense of what is aesthetically appropriate. In a conclusion on Tongan art today and tomorrow, he notes that men carving in wood and bone are still active in Tonga, but largely produce pieces for the tourist market that bear little relation to traditional styles. It is women who continue to produce traditional tapa cloth, mats, necklaces, baskets and other items that still form part of the reciprocal pattern of gift and exchange within Tongan society. Appendix I lists all extant Tongan human figures and Appendix II all Tongan material in New Zealand museums.
637
“Artificial curiosities” being an exposition of native manufactures collected on the three Pacific voyages of Captain James Cook, R.N. at the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum January 18, 1978– August 31, 1978 on the occasion of the bicentennial of the European discovery of the Hawaiian islands by Captain Cook— January 18, 1778 Adrienne L. Kaeppler. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: Bishop Museum Press, 1978. 293pp. bibliog. (Bernice P. Bishop Museum Special Publication 65)
More than 2,000 artifacts (artificial curiosities as they were called in the 18th century) were collected on the three voyages of Captain Cook. Kaeppler has sought to trace and record them all, establishing the history of their ownership. This book is a complete record, indicating those items shown at the 1978 exhibition. For Tonga she records about five hundred items including decorations, clothing, mats, baskets, musical instruments, fishing equipment, games and weapons. For each she gives current ownership, size, evidence of authenticity and references to the literature. Many are illustrated, both in black-and-white and in colour. The Tongan section is one of the fullest and richest and Kaeppler’s catalogue, in bringing these objects together, many of them remarkably well preserved, shows the changes that European contact brought to Tonga. Some items of these types are no longer made; others are still made in very similar style.
638 Aspects of Tongan material culture In Critical essays: perspectives from the South Seas. By ‘I. F. Helu. Canberra: The Journal of Pacific History, 1999, pp.309–27 Helu offers what he calls ‘a rambling tour of a very few features of Tongan material culture, buttressing all with very general comments on the technics and aesthetics of our design systems’. He first considers tapa (barkcloth), the evolution of its design patterns from the simply geometric to the realistic, and the way in which they are set out on the piece of tapa. He illustrates some of the most common design motifs. He then considers the traditional architecture of the Tongan fale (house), particularly the development of the roof structure to be strong enough to resist cyclones, showing the great skill of Tongan builders. Plans and diagrams accompany the text.
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639 Baskets in Polynesia Wendy Arbeit. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1990. 116pp. 2 maps. bibliog. This book examines baskets throughout central Polynesia, from the time of early European contact to the present, observing and comparing the work of the different countries, to each of which she devotes a chapter. Once baskets played a central part in everyday life in Polynesia. They are still made today but their use has changed with modern lifestyles and materials. Arbeit travelled throughout the region and found Tonga to be one of the most flourishing centres of basket making, which nearly died out in the 1920s and 1930s, but was revived by Queen Sâlote, who rightly saw the potential of making baskets for tourists as a source of income for villages. Her descriptions are accompanied by handsome photographs, fourteen of Tonga, showing the variety of attractive styles made today, and detailed diagrams showing exactly how they are made. She also shows how the raw materials, mostly coconut and pandanus, are prepared.
640
Canoes of Oceania—Volume I. The Canoes of Polynesia, Fiji and Micronesia A. C. Haddon, James Hornell. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: Bernice P. Bishop Museum, 1936. 454pp. 3 maps. bibliog. (Bernice P. Bishop Museum Special Publication 27)
Hornell observes that, without the large double canoe, Polynesian migration across the Pacific would never have attained the dimensions that it did. In this comprehensive survey of the canoes of Oceania, based on his own research in the Pacific in 1924–25, he focuses attention particularly on the comparative study of the outrigger attachment and the design of the double canoe. He examines the descriptions of canoes by European explorers, noting that the artists seldom portrayed them accurately. He attempted to collect, correlate and arrange all known and available details of canoe construction. In Tonga he found that only two types of smaller canoes survived. He describes five types of outrigger canoe and two principal types of double canoe, providing photographs where available and drawings showing details of construction. He gives a list of technical terms, noting that many are common to Fiji and Tonga.
641 The changing texture of textiles in Tonga Phyllis S. Herda. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 108, no. 2 (1999), pp.149–67 Herda provides a general survey of the production of ngatu or tapa (cloth made from the bark of the paper mulberry tree) and fala and kie (mats woven from pandanus leaves), both continuing at a great rate in Tonga with no sign of a decline in production. She also notes that Tongan women living abroad have expanded their repertoire to include machine-sewn patchwork and appliqué quilts. She examines historical accounts of the production of each, and describes the traditional process
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with some modern adaptations, and the communal groups in which women work. She considers the way in which modern quilts relate to traditional forms of Tongan textile wealth, in a creative adaptation of tradition by the Tongan diaspora, retaining a sense of Tongan values in new circumstances.
642 Cook voyage artifacts in Leningrad, Berne and Florence museums Edited by Adrienne Kaeppler. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: Bishop Museum Press, 1978. 186pp. bibliog. (Bernice P. Bishop Museum Special Publication 66) Three lesser-known collections of artifacts collected on Cook’s voyages are catalogued here for the first time in English. Kaeppler introduces each collection, suggesting how the objects reached them, and gives a complete description of each piece, as compared to the summary listing in her complete catalogue of all Cook artifacts (item 637). Leningrad has only a few pieces from Tonga. Berne and Florence each have larger collections of over forty pieces that include barkcloth, mats, baskets, garments, ornaments, combs, musical instruments and weapons. There are photographs of many of the pieces. These collections are important for the study of Tongan artifacts at the time of European contact, and this catalogue makes them accessible and establishes their authenticity.
643 Eighteenth century Tonga: new interpretations of Tongan society and material culture at the time of Captain Cook Adrienne L. Kaeppler. Man, new series, vol. 6, no. 2 (1971), pp.204–20 Kaeppler examines the ethnographic significance of articles collected from Tonga by Captain Cook and illustrations made by his artists, to demonstrate the relationship between social organization and material culture. She concludes that much can be learnt about the 18th-century rank-oriented social system from these specimens and illustrations, and provides examples using objects now to be seen in museums, explaining their significance in the Tongan context.
644 Kato tu‘aniu, baskets of Tonga Annagrethe Ottovar. Suva: Tourism Council of the South Pacific, 1994. 36pp. map. The author describes the many types of fine and attractive baskets made in Tonga, from small lidded boxes, bowls and trays to large laundry baskets. She covers the growing, gathering and treatment of the raw materials, weaving techniques and the styles of decoration and pattern. She also advises shoppers where in Tonga to find the best baskets and provides many informative photographs.
645 Kie hingoa: mats of power, rank, prestige and history Adrienne Kaeppler. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 108, no. 2 (1999), pp.168–232 The most important and powerful objects in Tonga, Kaeppler observes, are kie hingoa, named fine mats made long ago by unknown hands, heirlooms passed from
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generation to generation as treasures, and worn or presented at weddings, funerals and other major events by members of the royal family and the aristocracy. They contain the reproductive power of Tongan society. Their life as ritual objects validates Tongan concepts of rank and prestige. Kaeppler’s paper deals primarily with oral tradition and the use of mats in the present and traditional past, tracing their histories from her personal research in Tonga. She sets them in the context of rank in Tongan society, describes their symbolism and use as ritual garments, and attempts to ascertain how both Samoan and Tongan fine mats are named, and their histories. She examines particularly the fine mats of the Tu‘i Tonga and their use at the wedding of Princess (later Queen) Sâlote in 1917, and at the double wedding of her two sons in 1947, symbols of the continued reproduction of the Tu‘i Tonga line. Today they appear only rarely, mostly at weddings, where they both grace the occasion and give it dignity, and also ensure the fertility of the wearer and the continuance of the line. Popular opinion is that all kie hingoa are of Samoan origin, but Kaeppler believes that this is not so. She goes into considerable detail on the mats worn at royal weddings, from that of Princess Sâlote to that of the king’s youngest son to Nanasipau‘u Vaea. She also considers their use in ritual investitures (of Queen Sâlote, of King Taufa‘âhau Tupou IV, and of his youngest son to the title of ‘Ulukalala), in commemorative events and at funerals. Finally she considers kie hingoa in the hierarchy of traditional wealth (koloa), of which they are the top layer, and their meaning and symbolism. In an appendix she lists all those presently known.
646
Koloa tukufakaholo: some research issues and challenges involving the management of Tonga’s cultural heritage Kolokesa U. Mâhina. In Researching Pacific and indigenous peoples: issues and perspectives. Edited by Tupeni Baba, ‘Okusitino Mâhina, Nuhisifa Williams, Unaisi Nabobo-Baba. Auckland: Centre for Pacific Studies, University of Auckland, 2004, pp.33–40
Mâhina examines Tongan attitudes to the Heteka historic site containing the great Ha‘amonga trilithon and to the Tonga National Museum established in 1998. The Heteka site she found not well cared for, and the museum little visited by Tongans. This leads her to consider the relationship between Tongan cultural values and western institutionalization of culture.
647
Made in Tonga: manufacture of art objects from leaves, bark and wood Paul van der Grijp. In Pacific material culture: essays in honour of Dr. Simon Kooijman on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Edited by Dirk A. M. Smidt, Pieter ter Keurs, Albert Trouwborst. Leiden, the Netherlands: Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, 1985, pp.200–18
The author examines the manufacture of tapa, mats and baskets in Tongatapu, Ha‘apai and Vava‘u, and the role of the tourist market in affecting styles and methods. He concludes that the older inequalities that such objects indicated between
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commoners and chiefs have been replaced by a new inequality between the sexes. The mostly male producers of wood carvings are seen by many as artists, while the female producers of tapa, baskets and mats are not. This is ironic, given that what the men produce is ‘airport art’, while the women still make tapa and mats for traditional purposes.
648 Oceanic art Adrienne L. Kaeppler, Christian Kaufmann, Douglas Newton. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1997. 633pp. bibliog. This large and sumptuous volume, with many colour plates, is the most recent general treatment of the art of Oceania. The section on Polynesia and Melanesia by Kaeppler treats the subjects by theme: mythology, sculptural representations of the mythological chanter, fibres, feathers and barks, and the presentation and aesthetic of the body. Within this, many Tongan objects are described and illustrated. A documentation section illustrates many objects in black-and-white. In a final section by country or principal Oceanic cultural group, the work of craftsmen is described, with further illustrations. The bibliography covers many hundreds of publications.
649 Pacific encounters: art and divinity in Polynesia 1760–1860 Steven Hooper. London: The British Museum Press, 2006. 288pp. 10 maps. bibliog. This catalogue of a major exhibition of Polynesian art at the University of East Anglia in 2006 describes and illustrates twenty-eight works from Tonga: carved wooden and ivory figures, whalebone breastplates, baskets, a kava bowl, headrests, fishhooks and clubs. Most come from museums in Britain and were collected on Captain Cook’s voyages or by missionaries. In general introductory essays Hooper examines European encounters with Polynesia, the indigenous context of the objects and the history of collecting from Polynesia.
650 Pacific island style Glenn Jowitt and Peter Shaw. London: Thames & Hudson, 1999. 190pp. map. The colour photographs in the book convey something of the style of buildings and their furnishings across the Pacific, the way in which traditional indigenous styles and materials are used today with a modern touch. The forty photographs of Tonga convey evocatively the visual impact of Tonga on a visitor. They show interiors and exteriors of homes, churches, even the Royal Palace, and some of the materials and artifacts used in them, illustrating the way they have evolved and the combination of old and new, sometimes harmonious, sometimes curious, but never dull.
651 Pacific pattern Susanne Küchler, Graeme Were. London: Thames & Hudson, 2005. 208pp. map. bibliog.
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Pattern is everywhere in the Pacific, created using natural fibres from local plants such as the coconut palm and the pandanus. The authors explore the art of pattern across the Pacific. The many colour photographs vividly illustrate patterns on the body, in clothing and in mats and other items for the home, both traditional and modern. Tongan barkcloth, dance and ceremonial costumes, churches and houses are featured, set within their social structure.
652
Poetics and politics of Tongan barkcloth Adrienne L. Kaeppler. In Pacific material culture: essays in honour of Dr. Simon Kooijman on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Edited by Dirk A. M. Smidt, Pieter ter Keurs, Albert Trouwborst. Leiden, the Netherlands: Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, 1985, pp.101–21
Kaeppler was drawn to study tapa in Tonga not just as an artifact but in its ubiquitous social aspect. She had noted how drastically designs had changed from those on specimens collected by Captain Cook and, in this paper, she examines events, pieces of tapa, design concepts and poetry to explore an aesthetic construction of society based on a conjunction of place, genealogy and event. Understanding an aesthetic, she points out, depends on understanding an entire way of life. She shows how designs have been adapted to incorporate such motifs as the Tongan coat of arms, the lion and the eagle. She describes the tapa produced for particular special events. Pieces of tapa are about national identity, genealogical associations and the social construction of the self.
653 String figures from Fiji and western Polynesia James Hornell. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: Bernice P. Bishop Museum Press, 1927. 88pp. bibliog. (Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin 39) Hornell collected and here describes string figures and string games from the Pacific southwest. Second only to Fiji was the number collected in Tonga, ten distinct figures, though he felt that many more remained to be found and recorded. Each is given its Tongan name, with a description and illustration of how it is made. Seven are common to Fiji and Tonga.
654
The structure of Tongan barkcloth design: imagery, metaphor and allusion Adrienne L. Kaeppler. In Pacific art: persistence, change and meaning. Edited by Anita Herle, Nick Stanley, Karen Stevenson, Robert L. Welsch. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2002, pp.291–308
During the 18th and most of the 19th centuries design on Tongan barkcloth was primarily geometric. However, naturalistic designs became more popular in the 20th century and now flourish. Kaeppler explores the relationship between the imagined and the imaged in barkcloth design, how designs changed and how images from other Tongan media and from outside Tonga are transformed into Tongan concepts. Her study is based on early examples in museum collections
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as well as on barkcloth currently produced in Tonga, with many illustrations. The new designs record a visual history of important events, places and people, even including new introductions such as gramophones, bicycles and electricity. They also objectify and celebrate the monarchy, chiefly rank and prestige. They are about Tonga’s national identity and social construction within the Tongan hierarchy.
655 Tapa in Polynesia Simon Kooijman. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: Bishop Museum Press, 1972. 498pp. 12 maps. bibliog. (Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin 234) Tapa, decorated cloth made from the bark of trees, is found in one form or another throughout Polynesia. The author of this definitive work presents the subject in its broadest sense: the trees and shrubs that are its raw material, its manufacture and decoration, its function in society, and the design patterns and elements. In each section he brings together historical records and modern practice. The book is arranged by country rather than by process. Thus, in the forty-five pages on Tonga, Kooijman notes that tapa is produced from the paper mulberry tree, he describes how it is grown and harvested, how the bark is dried, peeled off the trunk, cut into strips and soaked, beaten, assembled into large sheets and decorated. He details the sources of the black, brown and red dyes used. He then examines the relief tablets made of wood or coconut husk used to apply the decoration, the motifs themselves, and the social and ceremonial as well as every-day use of the different styles of tapa. He outlines the change from the system of manufacture observed by Mariner in the early 19th century that was centered on a chief and his wife who would gather a group of women, to a more democratic system of women’s guilds, usually one in each village, alongside which went the incorporation of modern motifs in the decoration. The book is fully illustrated with diagrams and photographs. Because each country is treated in the same way it is possible to compare Tongan tapa with tapa throughout Polynesia. At the end of the book information is set out in tabular form, country by country, to facilitate comparison of sources, manufacture, decoration, dyes and dyeing, and uses.
656 Tapa in Tonga Wendy Arbeit. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1994. 24pp. This brief booklet was written to provide visitors to Tonga with something that would help them understand and appreciate the tapa they saw there. Arbeit calls tapa ‘the fabric that connects Tonga’s people to their culture’. She outlines its uses, no longer for clothing as described by Captain Cook, but for gifts, for ritual dress and for decorations. She goes through the processes for making it: the raw material, the bark of the paper mulberry tree, the preparation of the bark and the beating of it into thin strips joined to make large sheets, and its printing and decoration. Photographs show every stage. There is a glossary of the main Tongan terms.
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To beat or not to beat, that is the question: a study on acculturation and change in an artmaking process and its relation to gender structures Jehanne H. Teilhet-Fisk. In Pacific material culture: essays in honour of Dr. Simon Kooijman on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Edited by Dirk A. M. Smidt, Pieter ter Keurs, Albert Trouwborst. Leiden, the Netherlands: Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, 1985, pp.122–48
The introduction of a tapa-beating machine to Tonga allowed the author to analyse the various sociocultural actions that would be lost or radically changed if the traditional process of beating tapa with a wooden mallet were to be superseded. But the beating process is more than a mundane secular action. The arts can still have cultural, symbolic and even sacred elements embedded in the process of manufacture, and the beating of tapa aligns with gender, societal and rank-based divisions of labour. Tensions between ideologies are exemplified in the question of whether to beat or not.
658
Tongan grave art Jehanne Teilhet-Fisk. In Art and identity in Oceania. Edited by Allan Hanson, Louise Hanson. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1990, pp.222–43
Funerals are Tonga’s most important social events in that they affirm and celebrate the deceased’s role in life and clarify how the extended family is related, as well as offering comfort, love and a formal burial. But before the arrival of the missionaries, only kings and chiefs had graves, sculpted from cut coral and covered with white sand. Commoners died uncommemorated. This paper focuses on the graves of commoners, which reflect the synthesis of neotraditional forms with new materials from industrial societies, applied in an innovative manner that rarely disturbs the original meaning. The grave decorator uses bottles, cans, tinsel, fabrics, plastics or whatever is at hand in a unique way that makes statements about attitudes to death and is also an art form reflecting Tongan ethnoaesthetic values, surviving the critical comments of many foreigners. Grave art, usually undertaken by women, responds quickly to cultural change and prevailing taste, and broadcasts a new ordering of social relationships where anyone can aspire to be noble. It transgresses the Tongan system of rank. The author describes the conduct of funerals and the subsequent decoration of the grave. The art is joyful and playful, the colours bright and often gaudy. She describes and illustrates different styles of grave decoration. Recent developments include the use of fabrics printed with religious scenes, and the adding of the person’s name. Plastic flowers may now replace fresh ones. Some now prefer cement graves to sand, indicating modernity and status, and memorial stones. She sees this as part of the increased significance of the nuclear family and a rising middle class.
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659 Tongan headrests: notes on terminology and function Jeffrey Dhyne. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 108, no. 4 (1999), pp.411–16 Dhyne surveys the literature on Tongan headrests in order to correct what he believes are incorrect terminology and misinterpretation of function. His description of the different types is accompanied by illustrations. He sets out the three criteria used by Tongans to describe them—form, function and material.
660 Tongan islanders’ skin marking H. Ling Roth. Man, vol. 6 (1906), pp.6–9 Drawing primarily on references in Cook (item 77) and in Mariner (item 69) Roth describes the designs of tattoos in Tonga and the painful way in which they were applied. He then gives information that Basil Thomson obtained in Tonga about the practice. Thomson believed that the purpose of tattooing from above the hips to the middle of the thigh was for decency rather than a religious act. A body thus tattooed was seen to be clothed. Because it was discouraged by missionaries, he believed that it would soon die out. Roth also notes records of the marking of concentric circles on the arms and cheeks that seem to have been thought a remedy against disorders.
661
Tongan symmetries Donald W. Crowe. In Education, language, patterns and policy. Edited by John Morrison, Paul Geraghty, Linda Crowl. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, 1994, pp.79–106 (Science of Pacific Island Peoples, vol. IV)
Crowe, a mathematician, examines geometric symmetries in Tongan decorative arts, as they appear in ngatu, basketry trays, rafter lashings and mats, and in old carved war clubs. He compares present-day work with that shown in old prints and finds continuity particularly in rafter lashings. Those drawn by Captain Cook and other early explorers are very similar to those still done today. While he demonstrates symmetry particularly in the patterns of trays, illustrated with several photographs, he seems not to explain why symmetry is so significant, but the paper at least introduces the work to those interested in Tongan crafts generally.
662
Women’s handicrafts and men’s arts: the production of material culture in the Kingdom of Tonga Paul van der Grijp. Journal de la Société des Océanistes, no. 97 (1993), pp.159–69
This article deals with aspects of material culture that are traditionally important in Tonga. The author examines three kinds of women’s work—the production of tapa cloth, mats and baskets—and two types of men’s work—wood carving and the making of ornaments. The male producers are seen by many as artists, although their work is not traditional, while the women’s output is part of community pro-
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duction. He describes the ways in which products are made and the organization of the producers. He provides case studies from Vava‘u, Ha‘apai and Tongatapu and considers the influence of the tourist industry on what is produced. The treatment is quite brief.
663 Wrapping in images: tattooing in Polynesia Alfred Gell. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. 347pp. bibliog. Tattoo, with taboo, is one of the few Polynesian words to be taken into English. Tattooing was introduced into Tonga from Fiji, but it had less emphasis there than in Samoa and elsewhere in Polynesia. At the time of Cook’s visit most Tongan men, but not women, were tattooed between the belly and the thighs, but it seems to have been more a matter of individual enterprise than of formal initiation or political obligation. By the mid-19th century the practice had largely died out under missionary influence. Gell sets tattooing in Western Polynesia within the context of relationships between Fiji, Tonga and Samoa and describes its practice, function and social significance in each group.
PhD theses 664
Kinship, cloth and community in Auckland: New Zealand commoner Tongan women navigate transnational identity using traditionallystyled textile wealth Ping-Anne Addo. Yale University, 2004
665 Modernity and tradition: houses and material culture in the Kingdom of Tonga Anna Lisa Runarsdottir. University College London, 2004
Performance Arts 666 Aesthetics of Tongan dance: a comparativist approach In Critical essays: cultural perspectives from the South Seas. By ‘I. F. Helu. Canberra: The Journal of Pacific History, 1999, pp.261–69 In this brief outline prepared for a UNESCO conference Helu sets out a definition of Tongan dance in relation to other dance systems of the world. He sees Tongan dances as ‘half-body’ systems of stylized movements, as contrasted with full-bodied dances of Europe and Asia.
667 An annotated bibliography of Oceanic music and dance Mervyn McLean. Warren, Michigan: Harmonie Park Press, 1995. Revised and enlarged second edition. 502pp.
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The first edition of this bibliography was published by the Polynesian Society in 1977, with a supplement in 1981. The first edition contained 2,200 entries, with over 500 in the supplement. The revised second edition adds a further 1,000 entries, and covers all the islands of the Pacific with references to books, journal articles, reviews, record sleeve notes and theses in English and other European languages. Entries are arranged in one alphabetical sequence and coded for area, with an index to the area codes. There are some 160 entries for Tonga, some of them detailed, others passing references in general accounts, ranging in time from brief mentions in the journals of Captain Cook and some of those who sailed with him, up to 1992.
668
Heliaki, metaphor and allusion: the art and aesthetics of Ko e ‘Otua mo Tonga ko hoku Tofi‘a Adrienne L. Kaeppler. In Tonga and the Tongans: heritage and identity. Edited by Elizabeth Wood-Ellem. Alphington, Victoria, Australia: Tonga Research Association, 2007, pp.65–74
Kaeppler explains how the visual and verbal expression of the Tongan motto ‘God and Tonga are my inheritance’ has become an artistic and aesthetic element on a national level. Heliaki (indirectness, encoding hidden meanings) is important in Tonga. She examines this through the lakalaka, a complex verbal and visual dance performance, and through designs on ngatu, barkcloth, identifying ways in which they incorporate the motifs of the motto and the royal coat of arms and help to maintain an attachment to traditional values of hierarchy and rank.
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Imperatives and persuasion in the conservation of culture: gender constraints in Tongan dance Stephanie Reynolds. In Art and identity in Oceania. Edited by Allan Hanson, Louise Hanson. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1990, pp.211–21
This paper, Reynolds writes, ‘examines differences in men’s and women’s dance forms in . . . Tonga, in relation to the status of Tongan women and cultural norms regarding them’. Her initial analysis of rank, status and power is taken largely from Bott (item 340) and her analysis of gender variations in dance movements is based largely on the many papers by Kaeppler (e.g., item 673). Women’s movements are seen as more graceful, more representative of the Tongan aesthetic, while men’s are more vigorous, looser and freer. Men adapt the traditional style in dances for tourists, borrowing from other islands, but when women dance in the Tahitian style, moving their hips, this is not seen as polite. Reynolds seeks to relate modern Tongan dance to that of precontact times, as described by Captain Cook, and suggests that, while it is not a religious form today, it is still a hierarchical and political form, remaining for women a potent political and social factor. Their movements are more abstract than those of men. They are the carriers of tradition.
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670 Musical acculturation in Tonga R. Raven-Hart. Oceania, vol. 26, no. 2 (1955), pp.110–17 From observations made during a stay in Vava‘u the author examines the way in which Western music has been adapted to Tongan taste. He gives examples of hymn tunes and popular songs to show the characteristic way in which they were adapted, in particular the importance of the bass part in their harmonization.
671 ‘Otuhaka: a Tongan dance Kik Velt. Nuku‘alofa: ‘Atenisi University, 1991. 66pp. In the face of modern Western musical influences, the purpose of this booklet is to contribute to the preservation of one of Tonga’s traditional dances, the ‘Otuhaka. It shows step-by-step how each movement is accomplished, with illustrations taken from an accompanying computer animation available on disk. An introduction places the ‘Otuhaka among other Tongan dances. The words sung with the dance are printed in both Tongan and English.
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The paradise theme in modern Tongan music Adrienne L. Kaeppler. In The essence of singing and the substance of song: recent responses to the Aboriginal performing arts and other essays in honour of Catherine Ellis. Edited by Linda Barwick, Allan Marett, Guy Tunstill. Sydney, Australia: University of Sydney, 1995, pp.159–83 (Oceania Monograph, no. 46)
Tongan musical compositions help to construct and restructure social ideas and values, rather than simply reflecting them. Kaeppler’s paper deals with one such construction—the idea that Tonga is a paradise and that it is the best place for Tongans—and how it has shaped a cultural identity for Tonga. She examines two examples of hiva kakala, a ‘fragrant’ song of topical or endearing nature. One was composed by Queen Sâlote to capture the idea that Tongans may not realize what a paradise Tonga is until they lose it. The theme of the other is Nuku‘alofa as the modern paradise of Tonga, combining the best of old and new. She describes methods of composition and performance, with musical transcriptions, diagrams of dance movements and photographs. Such songs demonstrate Queen Sâlote’s encouragement of Tongans to appreciate their present, and what she considered the proper way to organize their future.
673 Poetry in motion: studies of Tongan dance Adrienne L. Kaeppler. Nuku‘alofa: Vava‘u Press, 1993. 150pp. map. bibliog. Dance is an integral part of Tongan culture, society and history. This volume reprints eight papers published between 1967 and 1978, with a new introduction. Together they offer a thorough and detailed account of all the major types of Tongan dance: not only their words, music and movement, but also their cultural and social significance. The many photographs, all taken by Kaeppler during her frequent visits to Tonga, vividly bring Tongan dance alive. The papers reprinted are:
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Tongan dance: a study in cultural change (Ethnomusicology, vol. 14, no. 2 (1970), pp.266–77) Aesthetics of Tongan dance (Ethnomusicology, vol. 15, no. 2 (1971), pp.175–85) Folklore as expressed in the dance in Tonga (Journal of American Folklore, no. 80 (1967), pp.160–68) Dance in Tonga: the communication of social values through an artistic medium (Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement, vol. 2, no. 3 (1976), pp.122–28) Dance and the interpretation of Pacific traditional literature (In Directions in Pacific traditional literature: essays in honor of Katherine Luomala. Edited by A. L. Kaeppler, H. A. Nimmo. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: Bishop Museum Special Publication 62, 1976, pp.195–216) Preservation and evolution of form and function in two types of Tongan dance (In Polynesian culture history: essays in honor of Kenneth P. Emory. Edited by G. A. Highland. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: Bishop Museum Press, 1967, pp.503–536. [Bishop Museum Special Publication 56]) Melody, drone and decoration: underlying structures and surface manifestations in Tongan art and society (In Art in society: studies in styles, cultures and aesthetics. Edited by Michael Greenhalgh, Vincent Megaw. London: Duckworth, 1978, pp.261–74) Method and theory in analyzing dance structure with an analysis of Tongan dance (Ethnomusicology, vol. 16, no. 2 (1972), pp.173–217)
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The production and reproduction of social and cultural values in the compositions of Queen Sâlote of Tonga Adrienne L. Kaeppler. In Music, gender and culture. Edited by Marcia Herndon, Susanne Ziegler. Wilhelmshaven, Germany: Florian Noetzel Verlag, 1990, pp.191–219. (Intercultural Music Studies, vol. 1)
The interrelationship of verbal, musical and visual modes of expression is an important feature of the cultural forms of Tonga, and Queen Sâlote had the ability to combine poetry, musical setting and movement in such a way that the old becomes part of the new. She was the most famous composer of 20th-century Tonga, and many of her compositions are still performed. Kaeppler notes the importance of hierarchy and gender in all Tongan cultural forms. She describes the different sorts of composers, the motifs of compositions and the way in which they can make a social statement. She outlines the main structures of poetry and polyphony, and sets some of Queen Sâlote’s compositions within their general categories, reproducing words, music scores and photographs. She draws out their social significance and explains their imagery. The queen’s compositions were important because they embody the essence of the Tongan aesthetic of indirectness, which she helped to evolve in its present form, and they pass on her values to the next generation of performers and audiences.
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675 Songs and poems of Queen Sâlote Edited by Elizabeth Wood-Ellem. Nuku‘alofa: Vava‘u Press, 2004. 421pp. 3 maps. bibliog. As the then crown prince writes in his foreword, Queen Sâlote was ‘Tonga’s greatest poet, who also happened to have been its Queen for nearly 48 years.’ The four contributors have collected 114 of Queen Sâlote’s songs and poems, each presented in Tongan with parallel English translation and, in some cases, musical notation. In their introductory essays H.R.H. Princess Nanasipau‘u Tuku‘aho writes on ‘Queen Sâlote’s enduring gift to Tonga,’ the setting of the compositions within her life, her family and her kingdom. Adrienne L. Kaeppler writes on ‘Queen Sâlote’s poetry as works of art, history, politics and culture,’ providing a detailed analysis of the different styles and types. Elizabeth Wood-Ellem writes on ‘Living in history through Queen Sâlote’s poetry,’ the historical background of music in Tonga and the way in which she developed the tradition she inherited. Melenaite Taumoefolau, who translated all the songs and poems into English, writes on ‘Queen Sâlote’s use of heliaki,’ explaining some of the cultural symbolism that could not be brought out in translation. The book is illustrated with many photographs, both historical and contemporary.
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Sounds of change in Tonga: dance, music and cultural dynamics in a Polynesian kingdom Ad Linkels. Nuku‘alofa: Friendly Islands Book Shop, 1992. 128pp. 2 maps. bibliog.
Linkels sees adaptation as the key to the ability of Tongans to recover from the hardest times without losing their own identity. A Dutch musicologist, he spent several periods in Tonga exploring Tongan dance and music and the way in which it is adapting to social change today. In the process he toured all the island groups to see performances. He describes, and illustrates with many of his own photographs, all the main types of Tongan dance and music, including the more recent developments of the brass band and pop groups. For a more scholarly treatment he refers readers to Kaeppler (item 673) and Moyle (item 680). This is a more general and personal introduction.
677
Structured movement systems in Tonga Adrienne L. Kaeppler. In Society and the dance: the social anthropology of process and performance. Edited by Paul Spencer. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1985, pp.92–118
Broader in scope than her papers on dance published as Poetry in motion: studies of Tongan dance (item 673), this paper describes the structured movements involved in various formal activities: the ceremonial presentation of pigs, the enumeration of foodstuffs and the mixing of kava at a kava ceremony, group speeches with choreographed movements, and the movements associated with the tau‘olunga dance and its accompanying songs. All these movements visually emphasize the importance
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of rank and social solidarity. They are an extension of speech and gesture that add further levels of meaning to formal occasions.
678 A study of Tongan panpipes with a speculative interpretation Adrienne L. Kaeppler. Ethnos, vol. 39 (1974), pp.102–28 Research leads Kaeppler to believe that panpipes came to Tonga from Fiji, and that they died out because they played no essential part in Tongan music. She considers accounts of them by European explorers, mainly Cook and Labillardière. She examines the attribution of some specimens now in museums to Cook’s voyages and suggests which are authentic. She explains the tonal systems of Tongan panpipes, their musical and aesthetic properties, and suggests that their melodic contours were in some ways similar to those of Tongan noseflutes. But, while noseflutes were used by chiefs, panpipes may have been the commoners’ functional replacement. She provides seventeen photographs of specimens.
679 The Tongan lakalaka: music composition and style Larry V. Shumway. Ethnomusicology, vol. 25, no. 3 (1981), pp.466–79 The lakalaka is a standing dance combining poetry, dancing and choral singing. It is the best expression of what it means to be Tongan, writes Shumway, a presentation by a whole village to commemorate a national event or to honour royalty or nobility, not only a thing of beauty but an affirmation of loyalty and the goodness of the Tongan way of life. Shumway describes its composition and structure and analyses its music with diagrams and music examples, relating its music to a pre-Christian polyphonic tradition found in some old hymns.
680 Tongan music Richard Moyle. Auckland, New Zealand: Auckland University Press, 1987. 256pp. 5 maps. bibliog. In the first ethnomusicological study of Tongan music, Moyle analyses the accounts of Tongan music and dance provided by the early explorers and the effect of missionaries who suppressed some forms and encouraged others. He describes how songs are composed and performed, four main categories of musical instruments, the dances of the old and the new tradition, nine categories of songs and twenty-two of game songs. He also gives space for Tongan musicians to speak for themselves. This is accompanied by detailed technical musicological analysis and 125 musical examples. It must be noted that this work has been criticised by Kaeppler for being excessively based on tapes of radio broadcasts rather than on observation of actual performances, for some inaccuracy, for lack of social context, and for being more concerned with the past than the present. An ethnomusicologist and a cultural anthropologist may have different approaches and seek the answers to different questions. Moyle’s concern seems to be what the music actually consists of, set down in proper musical notation; Kaeppler’s seems to be what it signifies of the nature of Tongan society. The full picture may require both approaches.
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Wry comments from the outback: songs of protest from the Niua islands, Tonga Wendy Pond. In South Pacific oral traditions. Edited by Ruth Finnegan, Margaret Orbell. Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1995, pp.49–63
In Tonga, a song can convey multiple levels of meaning. Pond analyses songs from the far northern Niua islands in which, behind the obvious meaning, poets indirectly and in metaphor speak ruefully about the hardships of their lives and assert their independence of thought in the face of political and economic rule from the south. They lack leadership, while the better educated young people go to seek work and status in Tongatapu; they pay their taxes but the government does not reciprocate with aid for development. Songs, Pond concludes, give a voice to the poor and those who have no political power.
PhD theses 682 Faiva, trials of skill: the song and dance of Tongan politics, 1773–1993 Wendy Pond. Victoria University, Wellington, 1995 683 The structure of Tongan dance Adrienne Lois Kaeppler. University of Hawai‘i, 1967
Books, Media and Communications 684
‘Another agency in this great work’: the beginnings of missionary printing in Tonga Martin Daly. The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 43, no. 2 (2008)
The first printing press was brought to Tonga by the Methodist missionaries in 1831. This paper traces the early use of the press in evangelistic and educational work, and describes the large volume of work printed. It examines some of the personalities and problems that lay behind the official reports, particularly the lack of paper and clashes of temperament among the missionaries. Despite problems, the printing press contributed greatly to the success of the mission and the development of literacy in Tonga.
685 Book Mart Nicky Harmer. Lali, March 1994, pp.7–9 This magazine article surveys the bookselling scene in Tonga, noting the increasing demand for reading materials, both magazines and books. It describes the three
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major booksellers at the time and examines library provision in Tonga, listing the few significant libraries that exist and deploring the lack of a national library.
686
Debating language and identity online: Tongans on the net Helen Lee. In Natives on the net: indigenous and diasporic peoples in a virtual age. Edited by Kyra Landzelius. London; New York: Routledge, 2006, pp.152–68
The maintenance of cultural identity among Tongans overseas has been the theme of much research by Helen Lee (item 547). Here she examines the way in which Tongans use Internet discussion forums such as Kava Bowl (now defunct) and Planet Tonga (item 734), and in particular the way in which the use of the English or Tongan language expresses their cultural identity and aspirations. Users are mostly young and male. Some assert the use of Tongan, some would wish to but regret their poor command of it, and some see English as the inevitable way to communicate with a wider world. Some use what she calls ‘Tonglish’, mixing Tongan and the varieties of English that many young Tongans overseas have adopted, incorporating elements of rap, gang and street talk and ‘black English’, which she sees as an important statement of hybridized identity. She sees a growing division among diasporic Tongans between those who speak Tongan and those who do not, and notes how through the Internet it is possible to discuss sensitive issues on the nature of Tongan society.
687
Foreign correspondent’s report Bruce Hill. In Tonga and the Tongans: heritage and identity. Edited by Elizabeth Wood-Ellem. Alphington, Victoria, Australia: Tonga Research Association, 2007, pp.219–33
Hill covers the South Pacific for Radio Australia. From his personal experience he describes the attitude of the Tongan government to the media, once uncooperative, which in itself produced bad publicity, and now much more open, for instance over the riots of 16 November 2006. He sees that Tonga is changing, becoming more Western, as Tongans themselves increasingly experience democracy, freedom and capitalism.
688
Island kingdom strikes back: the story of an independent island newspaper, Taimi ‘o Tonga Kalafi Moala. Auckland, New Zealand: Pacmedia Publishers, 2002. 303pp.
Moala founded Tonga’s first independent newspaper, Taimi ‘o Tonga, in 1989. From the beginning he took a critical and outspoken view of the government, reporting what he saw as corruption and abuse of power. This culminated in 1996 in a charge of contempt of Parliament, for publishing libelous material against it, and a prison sentence of thirty days. This was overturned by the Supreme Court on the grounds that the procedures followed were not in accordance with the Constitution and
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therefore unlawful. An appeal against the judicial decision was dismissed. Moala draws general conclusions from this extraordinary episode, concerning the freedom of the press as set out in the Constitution and the roles of the royal family and the Legislative Assembly. He sees (in 2002) the government using spin and disinformation to defend the regime, failing to nurture democracy, human rights and good governance, and not being accountable to the people. He urges a fully democratic system of government, with the monarch as a social force without political power, and the nobility abolished. Not all would agree with his combative analysis or with his radical proposals, but his vivid personal account is a contribution to the debate on the problems facing Tonga as it moves into the 21st century.
689
Islanders in space: Tongans online Helen Morton. In Small worlds, global lives: islands and migration. Edited by Russell King, John Connell. London and New York: Pinter, 1999, pp.235–53
Pacific islanders now navigate cyberspace rather than the Pacific ocean. Morton (writing seven years before her later paper on the subject, as Helen Lee, item 686) reviews Internet use by Tongans on Web sites such as Kalianet and the Kava Bowl (since closed), the issues discussed and the impact on the relationship between Tongan migrants and their homeland. Most participants in the Kava Bowl forums were tertiary students and young adults from the USA, using it for personal greetings, news, requests for information, and even for jokes. Some used Tongan and some English. Its anonymity enables participants to express opinions and discuss topics that might be forbidden elsewhere. Many discuss the relationship between Tongan and Western lifestyles for migrants and how to maintain a Tongan cultural identity. Morton wonders whether such sites will strengthen links between migrants and Tonga, or might encourage criticism and cynicism and weaken them. Discussion forums continue on the site Planet Tonga (item 734).
690 Islands business Suva: Islands Business International, 1990–, monthly This is a monthly news journal for the South Pacific, with an emphasis on politics, economics, business and trade and associated topics such as transport, energy and telecommunications, but also more personal stories.
691 Kalonikali Tonga/Tonga Chronicle Nuku‘alofa: The Government of Tonga. 1963–, weekly Tonga’s official newspaper is published weekly. At one time there were two separate editions, Tongan and English. Now there is one bilingual edition, with the main stories printed in both languages. It prints local, royal, political, economic, social and sports news. While it has an official status, it can express independent views. Special events, for instance involving the royal family, are sometimes illustrated in colour. Some international news and features are reprinted from overseas media.
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Mass communication and journalism in the Pacific islands: a bibliography Compiled by Jim Richstad, Michael McMillan. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: The University of Hawai‘i Press for the East-West Center, 1978. 299pp.
This bibliography covers the period 1854–1975, and for each country the items are listed under broad subject headings. The seventy-eight items listed for Tonga are mainly concerned with newspapers and periodicals (twelve), the press (seventeen) and radio (twenty-four). Other topics covered include cinema and the freedom of the press. Most of the items cited are news reports and articles from The Tonga Chronicle and Pacific Islands Monthly, brief indications of issues of interest at the time but not substantial.
693
Media—a tool for national development Kalafi Moala. In Tonga and the Tongans: heritage and identity. Edited by Elizabeth Wood-Ellem. Alphington, Victoria, Australia: Tonga Research Association, 2007, pp.235–48
Moala, once a stern critic of the government (item 688), now advises it on its media strategy. He writes of Tonga’s image problem in the media and what he calls ‘the reckless reaction of an insecure government’ in trying to limit criticism over excessive expenses for members of Parliament, and over questionable business activities, unsuccessful in some cases such as Royal Tongan Airlines. Finally the government attempted to control the media by amending the Constitution. Moala believes that major reform, including the media, is now necessary. He reviews recent political reforms, the work of the National Committee for Political Reform, and subsequent moves that culminated in the disastrous riots of 16 November 2006 in Nuku‘alofa. In considering what will happen next, he sees a crucial role for the media in contributing to national development, serving the interests of all Tongans.
694
Moving images of the Pacific islands: a guide to films and videos. Edited by Diane Aoki, compiled by Diane Aoki, Norman Douglas. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: Center for Pacific Islands Studies, University of Hawai‘i at Mânoa, 1994. 347pp. bibliog. (Occasional Paper 38)
This guide to over 1,000 films and videos on the islands of the Pacific and their peoples is in alphabetical order of title. Each entry gives the country or region covered, the length and technical details of format, and indicates how it may be found through a distributor, the producer or a library. There is also a brief description. The catalogue is preceded by two general essays on film in the Pacific islands. Twenty-one films on Tonga in whole or in part are listed, covering many aspects of life, crafts, dance, marriages, funerals and social life, as well as general travelogues.
695 Print and broadcast media in the South Pacific Romeo B. Abundo. Singapore: The Asian Mass Communication Research and Information Centre, 1985. 78pp. 5 maps
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This is the report of a study commissioned by UNESCO to examine ‘methods of establishing community newspapers in remote islands in the Pacific, in conjunction with other community media, notably radio’. It concludes that overall the printed media plays a lesser role and is given a lesser priority than radio. Only Papua New Guinea and Fiji have daily newspapers, though the difficulty of printing and distributing newspapers around a group of small scattered islands such as Tonga is noted. In both press and radio, training and resources are inadequate. A general overview is followed by a section on each country. The few pages on Tonga outline the status and operation of the Tonga Broadcasting Commission and The Tonga Chronicle. The report suggests that Tonga should have a daily newspaper. This has not happened and does not seem practical. News Web sites accessible through the Internet are now seen by many Tongans.
696 Publishing in Tonga Pesi Fonua. Pacific Islands Communication Journal, vol. 14, no. 1 (1985), pp.30–40 In Tonga, as elsewhere in the Pacific, the printed word was introduced by missionaries in the early 19th century as part of their work of evangelization and education. However Fonua begins his brief account with kupesi, the woodblock printing used to decorate tapa cloth. Printing and publishing as we know it today began on 14 April 1831 with the production of a four-page book of Bible instruction on a printing press brought by the missionaries. Most printing in the 19th century was by church and government. Fonua outlines the position as in the early 1980s, with the largest printer being the government printing department, and the development of publishing, largely educational, in the 1970s. He describes the printing techniques then available: spirit duplicators, photocopiers, screen printing (for cards, posters and textiles), letterpress and litho. Works locally printed and published are mostly short pamphlets and booklets, with about four books a year. Fonua identifies problems and constraints in local manufacture and distribution. There have been considerable developments since the time of writing, not least Fonua’s own Vava‘u Press, much assisted by the arrival of computers, initially making in-house low-cost typesetting available, and subsequently enabling Web sites to replace some printed matter.
697 Radio happy isles: media and politics at play in the Pacific Robert Seward. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1999. 234pp. map ‘Radio happy isles’ is the call sign of Solomon Islands radio. From A3Z in Tonga you hear, ‘This is the call of the Friendly Islands’. Radio, Seward notes, is the natural medium of the small, scattered island states of the Pacific, where print media are few and television largely undeveloped. Its function is more to inform and to educate, to meet national and community needs, rather that to entertain. Most Pacific radio stations are public service broadcasters. Seward travelled widely in
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the Pacific to see local radio at work. He considers the provision and exchange of news between Pacific island states, and the leading role played by Tonga in establishing the PACNEWS network. From Radio Tonga he draws examples of a radio newsroom at work, facing pressures with limited resources, and a study of attempts by government to control news and to limit criticism in the case of ‘Akilisi Pohiva and the pro-democracy movement (item 435). ‘The Pacific is a sea of sound where people are tuned to radio,’ as Seward puts it. He demonstrates the crucial role of radio in Tonga, as in other Pacific states, and he describes its organization, relationship to governments, financial basis, equipment and programme planning.
698 Radio in Tonga Tavake Fusimalohi. Pacific Islands Communications Journal, vol. 15, no. 1 (1987), pp.63–75 Radio Tonga began broadcasting in 1961 and immediately showed its practical value by providing warnings and instructions during a devastating hurricane. Initially a department of government, it was established as the independent Tonga Broadcasting Commission in 1975. The author describes the studios, the equipment, staffing and programming schedules, which consist both of the relaying of overseas broadcasts, such as news from the BBC World Service, and locally produced material—news, religion, education, agriculture, public health and official announcements. Personal messages are also an important item. Programmes are usually financed by sponsorship and are in both Tongan and English. Programming expanded from two hours a day in 1961 to sixteen in 1987. There is probably at least one radio in every household and 80 percent of the population listens at least once a day. Radio Tonga has had considerable impact in bringing the islands of the kingdom closer, and in encouraging development activities. Television, now with several channels, did not arrive until after this paper was published.
699
Who manipulates Pacific media? Influences on newspapers and television Makareta Waqavonovono. Pacific Perspective, vol. 10, no. 1 (1981), pp.13–36
Tonga features briefly in this general survey of Western influences on Pacific media at the time of publication. The author quotes the former editor of The Tonga Chronicle on the prime importance of the Tongan rather than the English version in a discussion on the use of vernacular languages in addition to English. She identifies the kava club as an important source of communication alongside the press and radio. Discussions on foreign ownership do not relate to Tonga. Waqavonovono analyses the percentage of national, Pacific, non-Pacific and sports news in The Tonga Chronicle and in comparable papers in Western Samoa, Fiji and Niue, finding that they do not differ greatly.
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PhD thesis 700 The communication of Tongan tradition: mass media and culture in the Kingdom of Tonga, Polynesia Elizabeth Parks Hahn. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1992
Academic Journals 701 Archaeology in Oceania Sydney: University of Sydney, 1966–, three issues annually This journal publishes papers and book reviews in the fields of archaeology and physical anthropology. Archaeology is considered to include both prehistoric and historic periods as well as studies of modern material behaviour. The journal covers all the islands of the Pacific, including Australia and New Zealand. Many reports on Lapita pottery, some relating to Tonga, were first published here.
702 Asia Pacific viewpoint Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1960–, three issues annually Edited by the Department of Geography, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, this journal publishes the research of geographers and scholars of other disciplines on the economic and social development of countries in the Asia Pacific region, paying particular attention to the interplay between development and the environment. Until 1966 it was published as Pacific Viewpoint, and there are more papers on Tonga and other Pacific island countries in earlier years than recently.
703 The contemporary Pacific: a journal of island affairs Honolulu, Hawai‘i: Center for Pacific Islands Studies and University of Hawai‘i Press, 1989–, biannual In its first issue the journal defined its purpose as ‘to provide a scholarly vehicle for a broad-ranging exchange of ideas on contemporary developments in the Pacific islands, expressed in the ordinary language of intelligent discourse’. Its articles, within the humanities and social sciences, include both broad surveys and detailed studies. It reviews the most significant new books. A political reviews section comments on the most important news from each country in the region, and sections on Tonga every few issues usefully summarize key events. Regular articles on resources give details of archives and records.
704 Faikava: a Tongan literary journal Nuku‘alofa: University of the South Pacific Centre, 1978–83, biannual The editors established Faikava as an outlet for creative writing in both Tongan and English, and as a forum for the exchange of ideas about literature. ‘The title Faikava
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evokes the image of a group of people gathered round the kava bowl, speaking and dreaming, stretching their minds and trading old ideas and new gossip, facts and fiction.’ It ceased publication after its tenth number.
705 Journal de la Société des Océanistes Paris: Musée de l’Homme, 1945–, biannual This journal covers the archaeology, history, anthropology, economics and overall way of life of the Pacific. While it particularly reflects French interest in its own territories, it publishes papers concerning the whole of the Pacific, both in French and in English.
706 The Journal of Pacific history Basingstoke, England: Carfax Publishing, 1966–, three issues annually This journal serves historians, prehistorians, anthropologists and others interested in the study of mankind in the Pacific islands, and is concerned generally with political, economic, religious and cultural factors affecting human presence there. Many important articles on Tonga have been published there. In addition to articles, short notes and book reviews, it publishes notes on source materials, comments on current affairs and a bibliography, in the third issue of each year, of theses, articles and books on the region published in the previous year.
707 The Journal of the Polynesian Society Auckland, New Zealand: The Polynesian Society, 1892–, quarterly This is the longest-established journal in its field. It is a forum for scholarly discussion of the history, ethnology, physical anthropology, sociology, archaeology and linguistics of the peoples of the Pacific, and has published many studies of Tongan society.
708 Oceania Sydney: University of Sydney, 1930–, three issues annually Oceania is devoted to the study of the countries of the Oceanic region, and publishes original contributions in the fields of social and cultural anthropology that are the product of sustained ethnographic research. Its primary regional orientation is to the indigenous peoples of Australia, Melanesia, Polynesia, Micronesia and Southeast Asia. It includes reviews of books on these areas.
709 Oceanic linguistics Honolulu, Hawai‘i: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1961–, biannual This journal publishes current research on the languages of the Oceanic area in their protohistorical and current forms. In the second part of each volume is an index of the languages covered in that volume.
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710 Pacific economic bulletin Canberra: The Australian National University, 1986–, three issues annually Produced in association with the Australian government’s AusAID programme, this journal covers issues relating to economics, governance and policy making in the Pacific islands and Papua New Guinea. Each issue carries at least one survey of one of the regional economies. Papers from its annual conference are also printed.
711 The Pacific journal of theology Suva: South Pacific Association of Theological Schools, Series II, 1989–, biannual This journal seeks to stimulate theological thinking and writing by Christians living in or familiar with the South Pacific. It publishes papers on theology from a Pacific perspective and relating to Pacific cultures, as well as practical material for pastors and church workers. It also lists master’s and bachelor’s theses in progress at the Pacific Theological College.
712 Pacific studies Lâ‘ie, Hawai‘i: The Institute for Polynesian Studies, Brigham Young University, 1977–, quarterly This multidisciplinary journal is devoted to the study of the peoples of the Pacific islands. It publishes papers on anthropology, archaeology, art history, economics, ethnomusicology, folklore, geography, history, political science, sociolinguistics and sociology. In addition to book reviews, some issues list recent publications on and from the Pacific islands received by a number of major academic libraries in Australia, New Zealand and other Pacific nations.
Encyclopaedias and Reference Works 713 The cyclopedia of Samoa, Tonga, Tahiti and the Cook Islands Sydney: McCarron, Stewart & Co., 1907. 208pp. The Cyclopedia describes itself as ‘a complete review of the history and traditions and the commercial development of the Islands, with statistics and data never before compiled in a single publication’. The sixty-six-page section on Tonga describes the islands and provides statistics on population and trade, government finances, lists of people prominent in state and church, a history of Tonga, some documents relating to the fall of Shirley Baker, the address from the throne at the opening of Parliament in 1906 and the reply, and information about the churches. Biographical notices follow of the most important people in Tonga, both Tongan (starting with King George Tupou II) and European—traders, church leaders, government officials and teachers. There are many photographs of people and places. The work was reprinted in facsimile in New Zealand in 1983.
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714 Historical dictionary of Oceania Edited by Robert D. Craig, Frank P. King. Westport, Connecticut; London: Greenwood Press, 1981. 392pp. 20 maps. bibliog. The purpose of this work is to provide basic factual information on the history of the countries of the Pacific in a uniform style. Articles specifically on Tonga include: ‘Atenisi Institute and University, Shirley Baker, Joel Bulu, ‘Eua, William Mariner, Queen Sâlote, King George Tupou I, John Thomas, Tonga, Tonga code of 1862, Tongan Constitution, Tongan oral culture, Tu‘i Ha‘atakalaua, Tu‘i Kanokupolu, Tu‘i Tonga, William Tupoulahi Tungi, Finau ‘Ulukâlala and George Vason. Entries are introductory rather than comprehensive; each is followed by a list of sources for further study. Many other articles have references to Tonga. Appendixes list rulers, explorers, chronologies, etc. There is a select general bibliography.
715
Oceania—a regional study Edited by Frederica M. Bunge, Melinda W. Cooke. Washington, DC: Foreign Area Studies, The American University, 1984. 2nd ed. 572pp. 22 maps. bibliog.
This is one of a series of volumes devoted to the major regions of the world. The aim of the series is to describe and analyse economic, national security, political and social systems and institutions in each region and to examine the interrelationship of these systems and institutions and the way they are shaped by cultural factors. Attention is paid to origin and tradition, dominant beliefs and values, the community of interests in the regions and issues on which regional players are divided. The eighteen-page section on Tonga by Stephen B. Wickman uses this brief for factual information on Tonga in the mid-1980s, though rather less for any analysis of beliefs and attitudes. The book also provides a general overview of the area and information on regional organizations.
716 The Pacific islands: an encyclopedia Edited by Brij V. Lal, Kate Fortune. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2000. 664pp. 33 maps This major encyclopaedia is arranged by thematic sections rather than in straight alphabetical order, each colour coded for ease of identification. They are: physical environment, peoples, history, politics, economy, society, culture, and island profiles. There is a detailed and comprehensive subject index. Accompanying the book is a CD-ROM with text-searchable files, a map library and a photo library. Each of the seven general sections presents a broad survey of its topic in a series of specialist articles. Thus, for example, the section on peoples has articles on settlement, language (further subdivided into specific national languages), voyaging, demography, living in cities (with entries on specific cities, including Nuku‘alofa), and diaspora. Other specific entries and subsections on Tonga (in addition to the three-page survey in the section on island profiles) are on Tongan chiefly status and the Tu‘i Tonga,
General Bibliographies
259
King George Tupou I, Shirley Baker, land tenure, Tonga in the war, Queen Sâlote Tupou III, King Taufa‘âhau Tupou IV, the pro-democracy movement, constitutional developments, education, music and dance, Epeli Hau‘ofa and Konaiholeva Helu Thaman. Key bibliographical references follow each specific article, but there is no list of general books, encyclopaedias or bibliographies.
General Bibliographies 717 Australasia and South Pacific islands bibliography John Thawley. Lanham, Maryland; London: The Scarecrow Press, 1997. 587pp. (Scarecrow Area Bibliographies, no. 12) This is a selective bibliography of a region about which it has been estimated that one new book has been published daily since 1965. The majority of the 5,933 works cited are in English and published in the previous fifty years; 610 items on the South Pacific generally are followed by sections on each country, 63 for Tonga under broad subject headings, mostly books rather than journal articles. Bibliographical details only, with no annotations or descriptions, are given for the works listed. Authors only are indexed.
718 Bibliography of Captain James Cook R.N., F.R.S., circumnavigator Edited by M. K. Beddie. Sydney: The Library of New South Wales, 1970. 2nd ed. 894pp. The journals and printed editions of the voyages of Captain Cook are central to the study of Tonga (items 72, 73 and 77). This bibliography, based on holdings in the Library of New South Wales (including the Mitchell Library) and other libraries in Australia, provides the most complete listing of materials by and on Cook and his associates. In a general section, and then for each of the three voyages, it lists manuscripts, printed accounts (including translations into other European languages), books and articles about the voyages, charts, films, illustrations, and information about the ships. There are also sections on works by Cook not relating to the three voyages, personal materials including portraits and monuments, imaginative literature on the life of Cook, and material relating to his associates. The volume of work listed demonstrates the enormous interest in Cook and his voyages, both in his own lifetime and since.
719 A bibliography of Fiji, Tonga and Rotuma Philip A. Snow. Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1969. 418pp. 4 maps Snow’s book, the fruit of thirty years’ work largely compiled when he was in the colonial administrative service in Fiji, is the foundation of Tongan bibliography, with 1,196 entries on the three groups generally and 1,535 specific to Tonga, and nearly
260
General Bibliographies
400 periodicals cited. The entries are arranged under sixty-three subject headings and there is one combined alphabetical author index. It covers papers in academic journals, articles in popular magazines, books, pieces in newspapers and even some letters and manuscript material. Full bibliographical references are provided, but there is no annotation and the significant needs to be sorted from the ephemeral. The work was completed in the mid-1960s, and thus must be supplemented for the ever-expanding output of work on Tonga in the forty years since. H. E. Maude in his foreword describes it as ‘a remarkably comprehensive and useful work which satisfies the primary practical demands made of a bibliography: the listing of published material in a form which enables its identification and therefore its eventual location.’
720 A bibliography of Pacific island theses and dissertations W. G. Coppell, S. Stratigos. Canberra: Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, 1983. 520pp. This bibliography lists all theses and dissertations on the Pacific islands (excluding New Zealand and Hawai‘i) to the end of 1980, and includes those at bachelor’s and diploma level as well as master’s and doctoral. The author index contains the full record. A subject and country index cross-references every entry. Under Tonga there are over one hundred entries, though some are listed under more than one subject heading if appropriate.
721
Dictionary catalog of the library, Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawai‘i Boston, Massachusetts: G. K. Hall, 1964. 9 volumes (first supplement 1967, second supplement 1969)
The Bishop Museum is the only American museum that confines its efforts entirely to the peoples and natural areas of the Pacific, and its library has comprehensive collections on the region. Library catalogue cards have been photographed to produce this printed catalogue. There are almost three hundred entries on Tonga in the main catalogue and the two supplements, including journal and magazine articles as well as books.
722 Dictionary catalog of printed books: The Mitchell Library Boston, Massachusetts: G. K. Hall, 1968. 38 volumes (first supplement 1970) The massive catalogue of this major Pacific collection in Australia records over a quarter of a million items. Each entry is reproduced directly from the index card, though it is noted that many of the early entries are inadequate. Under the headings Tonga, Tongans and Tongan language are recorded almost six hundred items, many early and scarce. A search under other related headings, such as Tongatapu or Vava‘u, will reveal more.
General Bibliographies
723
261
Indigenous navigation and voyaging in the Pacific: a reference guide Compiled by Nicholas J. Goetzfridt. New York; Westport, Connecticut; London: Greenwood Press, 1992. 294pp. map (Bibliographies and Indexes in Anthropology, no. 6)
This bibliography of 694 items primarily covers journal articles and books in English, other European languages and Japanese, which concentrate on the main aspects of indigenous navigation and voyaging. Every entry is annotated, some at considerable length. Following a section of 115 entries on the Pacific in general, there are a further 398 on Polynesia. Fifty-seven entries contain references to Tonga, some central and some peripheral. Indexes are provided by author, geographical area and subject.
724
Pacific basin and Oceania Gerald W. Fry, Rufino Mauricio. Oxford; Santa Barbara, California; Denver, Colorado: Clio Press, 1987. 468pp. map (World Bibliographical Series, volume 70)
This bibliography follows the general style of the series, selective rather than complete, and with entries annotated. There are 524 items relating to the Pacific in general listed by subject. Sections follow on Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, with general works on each, and then a section on each individual country. In the inevitably brief and highly selective section on Tonga there are thirty-four entries, The comprehensive indexes direct the reader to books in other sections that have some reference to Tonga, increasing the coverage.
725 A Pacific bibliography: printed matter relating to the native peoples of Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia C. R. H. Taylor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965. 2nd ed. 692pp. map The first edition of Taylor’s bibliography was published in 1951. This, the second, is as complete as possible up to 1960. The work is in four sections covering Oceania, Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia, and each entry consists of bibliographical details without comment or annotation. General works that include reference to Tonga may be found in the Oceania section. Entries in the three regional sections are set out by country, with about two hundred for Tonga under the headings of general ethnology, physical and mental characteristics, culture contact, social organization and custom, religion, music, arts, science and medicine, language, folklore and material culture. The lack of sections on economy, trade, politics, etc., is noticeable. References cover books and journals, both general and academic. This is a useful and now classic bibliography, but in those sections that can be compared directly with Snow (item 719) it is less comprehensive.
726 Pacific island studies: a survey of the literature Editor-in-chief Miles M. Jackson. New York; Westport, Connecticut; London: Greenwood Press, 1986. 244pp.
262
General Bibliographies
This work was planned for newcomers to Pacific studies needing a basic guide to the key social science literature, a concise synthesis of the significant literature rather than a broad-based bibliography. It is in the form of a series of bibliographical essays, allowing the writer to put into perspective a body of literature. Each group of essays is followed by an alphabetical bibliographical listing. The two-page essay on Tonga provides a very selective introduction to the most basic works on Tongan history and society.
727
Pacific islands: a basic annotated bibliography for students, librarians and general readers Roger Hughes. London: Commonwealth Institute, 1989. 62pp. (Commonwealth Bibliographies Series)
This booklet lists, in summary form, some of the basic literature on the Pacific islands of the British Commonwealth. Entries are under the headings of general background, arts and crafts, economy, education, environment and health, history and settlement, language, literature, media, nature, people and society, politics, religion and cults. For Tonga nineteen works are listed, one or two of the key general works in most sections. A list of major libraries in London with Pacific collections omits the School of Oriental and African Studies, which has one of the major academic collections.
728
Pacific islands dissertations and theses from the University of Hawai‘i, 1923–1996 Compiled by Lynette Furuhashi. Honolulu, Hawai‘i: Center for Pacific Islands Studies, University of Hawai‘i at Mânoa, 1996. 116pp. (Occasional Paper, no. 39)
Theses, both master’s and doctoral, are recorded under geographical headings, by region and country. Entries give author, length, title of degree and location number in the Hamilton Library of the University of Hawai‘i. There are indexes by author, title, chronological order, degree and field of study. For Tonga, ten theses are listed. The four doctoral theses are listed in the present bibliography.
729 South Pacific bibliography Suva: Pacific Information Centre, The University of the South Pacific Library, 1981–1999, biennial This bibliography continues from the Pacific collection accession list of the University of the South Pacific, which was published from 1975–82. It was published annually, with a few exceptions, from 1981, and then biennially. It lists as comprehensively as possible works published in the region and works published overseas relating wholly or in part to the countries of the region. It covers published and unpublished monographs, theses, government publications, serials on first appearance, maps, and other appropriate material. Monographs are listed by Dewey Decimal classification and there are indexes for author, title, series and subject. Publication
Web Sites
263
in printed form ceased with the issue for 1998–99. Items are now listed in the USP online catalogue.
730 South Pacific periodicals index, volumes 14–15, 1987–88 Suva: Pacific Information Centre, The University of the South Pacific, 1995. 245pp. This index began life as the Bibliography of periodical articles relating to the South Pacific, changing to the present title in 1984, and is based on journals held in the University of the South Pacific library. The alphabetical listing is by country and subject, followed by an author index. The work needs to be used with care and carefully scanned. There are many entries under Tonga, with such subheadings as antiquities, foreign relations and politics. However, entries for Tonga may also be found under subject headings such as airlines or computers. Further, almost all the entries on Tonga are from general periodicals, in particular Matangi Tonga (item 733). While it is useful to have references to these, the articles are often brief. Little solid academic writing on Tonga seems to have been recorded for the period. No further issues were printed. It is now continued on the USP library’s online catalogue.
731 World catalogue of theses on the Pacific islands Compiled by Diane Dickson, Carol Dossor. Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1970. 123pp. This catalogue is based on the microfilm library of theses held at the Australian National University, supplemented by the examination of other thesis catalogues. Besides doctoral theses, it selectively covers some at master’s level. For Tonga it lists twenty-two theses, the most recent dated 1968. The six doctoral theses in English (there are also two in German) are listed in the present bibliography.
Web Sites 732 Bibliography of Tonga www.coombs.anu.edu.au/biblio_tonga1.html This online bibliography, maintained by Helen Lee at La Trobe University, Australia, provides a straight listing in alphabetical order of author, books, journal and magazine articles, reports and other items on Tonga, currently over 1,000 items, including some not in English. Supplementing the main listing are separate sections on theses (master’s as well as doctoral), manuscripts and Internet resources. At the time of writing it was last updated in June 2003, but it will be further updated shortly.
733 Matangi Tonga www.matangitonga.to
264
Web Sites
Matangi Tonga began life as a quarterly news magazine in 1985. In 2003 the government of Tonga suspended its license to publish as part of its policy of requiring majority Tongan ownership of all media. The printed magazine never resumed publication. Its issues over eighteen years remain a thorough and well-informed source of information on all aspects of government and life at that time. It was replaced with a Web site that is now perhaps the most important and immediate source of news on Tonga, posted daily, with vivid photographs, reaching a far wider audience. It attracted nineteen million hits from 125 countries during the troubles in November 2006. There is a lively correspondence section. For the premium content section, allowing unlimited access, registered members pay a subscription but there is free access to much of the site.
734 Planet Tonga www.planet-tonga.com This long-established site calls itself ‘the largest online community for the Tongan people’. Based in the USA, its emphasis is on announcements and news of cultural, social and sporting events among the Tongan community there. It also carries news from Tonga. There is an extensive and lively discussion forum in which views are shared and information sought about a wide range of issues affecting expatriate Tongans, mostly young, seeking to combine the best of the Tongan and the Western in their daily lives.
735 Prime minister’s office www.pmo.gov.to This is ‘the official website of the Government of the Kingdom of Tonga’. It carries official news, reports of speeches by government ministers, press releases and ‘corrections, clarifications and explanations’ in response to media confusion and misinformation about the government’s policy and actions. It includes news from Tongan communities abroad and a search facility. Most of the material is in English; some is in Tongan.
736 Radio Australia www.radioaustralia.net.au The ‘Pacific Beat’ section (/pacbeat) of Radio Australia’s main Web site covers the main news stories from the Pacific and background interviews, with an audio link to listen to items.
737 Radio New Zealand international www.rnzi.com The international service of Radio New Zealand provides daily Pacific news headlines and news stories. Items can be heard on an audio stream.
Addendum: Recently Published
265
738 Tonga Broadcasting Commission www.tonga-broadcasting.com This site provides daily news from Tonga, with some photographs, and letters to the editor. Some items are in Tongan. Items in English may be searched under the broad headings of politics, health, business, crime, world, life and press releases. TV Tonga’s daily news in both Tongan and English can be viewed through a video link.
739 Tonga-Now www.tonga-now.to This site provides a comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of the main news from Tonga, and even the day’s weather. Most items are illustrated, some are in Tongan. There are letters and comments. Recently the site closed for a while and was replaced by a new related site, Tonga Review (www.tongareview.com), but it now appears to be open again.
Addendum: Recently Published 740
Across the threshold: regime change and uncertainty in Tonga 2005-2007 I. C. Campbell, The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 43, no. 1 (2008), pp.95–109
In the latest of his series of papers on politics and elections in Tonga (most recently item 440), Campbell considers the challenges facing the country in the last few years, and progress in discussions on political reform. He follows in detail the events which culminated in the riots of 16 November 2006, analysing the different accounts of what actually happened that day. He concludes that democracy lost credibility after 16 November and that the government is now, paradoxically, more progressive than its critics as it works for democratic reform.
741
Tongan figures: from goddesses to missionary trophies to masterpieces Roger Neich. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 116, no. 2 (2007), pp.213–78
Six wooden so-called ‘goddess’ figures from Tonga survive in museums. Neich describes and illustrates each. He reviews early records of wooden figures in the writings of explorers and missionaries from Cook onwards, matching records with surviving figures, and considers their pre-Christian use and status, and their later use by the missionaries as trophies of their success, subsequently valued as examples of traditional Tongan art.
266
742
Addendum: Recently Published
Tongan club iconography: an attempt to unravel visual metaphors through myth Frans-Karel Weener. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 116, no. 4 (2007), pp.451–61
Many Tongan clubs are covered with incised geometrical patterns and carvings of animals, plants and human beings, but the meaning of the designs as signs and symbols remains obscure. Weener describes and illustrates the most common motifs and considers possible relationships between some figures and certain images and elements of Tongan mythology.
743
Making sense of Tonga: a visitor’s guide to the Kingdom’s rich Polynesian culture Mary M. McCoy, Siotame Drew Havea. Nuku‘alofa: Training Group of the Pacific, 2006. 44pp.
‘Meet Tongans on their own terms’ is the first chapter of this perceptive booklet, something that visitors do not always find easy. It outlines basic facts about Tonga, and the perhaps unfamiliar ways in which Tongans consider time, posssessions, the family, society and traditions, and suggests appropriate behaviour with many colour photographs. Visitors seeking to understand and respect Tongan culture would find it a valuable introduction.
PhD thesis 744 The state and the church, the state of the church in Tonga Heneli T. Niumeitolu. University of Edinburgh, 2007
Index of Authors
Numerical references are to item numbers. Abundo, R., 695 Acquaye, B., 566 Addo, P., 312, 664 Adsett, N. J., 460 Afeaki, E., 448 Ahlburg, D., 535, 541 Akihisa, T., 267 Ali, A., 448 Amosa, D. V., 441 Anderson, G., 77 Anderson, V., 246 Aoki, D., 694 Aoyagi, M., 323 Arbeit, W., 639, 656 Armstrong, J., 292, 296, 350 Aswani, S., 157 ‘Atiola, ‘A., 183 Baba, T., 597, 646 Bach, F., 406 Badcock, J., 406 Bain, K., 11 Baker, B. S., 206 Baker, J. R., 585 Baker, L. S., 206 Baker, R. W., 13 Ball, O., 100 Bamford, G. N., 607 Barazangi, M., 60 Barclay, G., 133 Barker, J., 275 Barnes, S. S., 155 Barney, R. D., 193 Barrow, T., 635 Barton, A., 110
Barwick, L., 672 Bataille-Benguigui, M., 587 Beaglehole, E., 336 Beaglehole, J. C., 72, 73 Beaglehole, P., 336 Beddie, M. K., 718 Bender, A., 556 Benguigui, G., 330 Bennardo, G., 239, 264 Bernstein, L. M., 365 Besnier, N., 346, 357 Biersack, A., 154, 295, 358, 379 Bleakley, C., 34 Bloomfield, S. F., 399 Blust, R., 261 Boag, C., 601 Bollard, A. E., 560 Borofsky, R., 305 Bott, E., 340, 356, 374 Boutilier, J. A., 270 Brady, I., 352 Brenneis, D. L., 345 Brook, C., 476 Brookfield, H., 527 Brown, D., 208, 318 Brown, R. P. C., 518, 520 Browne, C., 484 Bryan, W. B., 43 Bunge, F. M., 715 Burkill, I. H., 90 Burley, D. V., 107, 110, 118, 120, 121, 122, 125, 188, 205 Calder, A., 149 Campbell, I. C., 134, 147, 187, 191, 199,
268
213, 433, 434, 435, 440, 442, 444, 449, 489, 740 Campbell, R. J., 544 Candler, G. G., 577 Cargill, D., 173 Carlson, A. K., 107 Carmichael, P., 35 Cato, A. C., 615 Cheetham, A. H., 45 Chesher, R. H., 49 Chung, M., 503 Churchward, C. M., 259, 260 Claessen, H. J. M., 159, 210, 299 Clark, R., 243 Clark, W. F., 551 Clarke, W. C., 563, 578 Clement, R. T., 175 Cohen, C. B., 331 Colagiuri, R., 409 Colagiuri, S., 409 Colchester, C., 312 Cole, R. V., 537 Cole, W. S., 45 Collocott, E. E. V., 142, 254, 256, 278, 282, 327, 376, 410, 605, 626, 627 Condax, I. D., 258 Connell, J., 48, 531, 550, 689 Connolly-Kirch, D., 584 Cook, D., 86 Cook, J., 72, 73 Cooper, G. A., 45 Coppell, W. G., 720 Counts, D. A., 204 Cowell, R., 164 Cowling, W. E., 367, 386, 533, 536 Craig, R. D., 714 Crane, E. A., 40 Crane, W., 38 Crawford, C. G., 54 Crocombe, R., 62, 432, 448, 467, 566, 595 Crowe, D. W., 661 Crowl, L., 661 Crozier, D. F., 222 Cummins, H. G., 185, 198 Curino, B. V., 514 Cutress, T. W., 408
Index of Authors
Daly, M. J., 146, 684 David, A., 74 Davidson, A. K., 179 Davidson, J., 208, 318 Davidson, J. H. C. S., 236 Davidson, J. M., 119 Davidson, J. W., 202 Deakes, C., 22 De Bres, J., 544 Delforce, J. C., 564, 571 Denoon, D., 130 De Vita, P. R., 15 Dhont, H., 253 Dhyne, J., 659 Dickinson, W. R., 103, 107, 110, 120 Dickson, D., 731 Donald, S. L., 170 Dossor, C., 731 Douaire-Marsaudon, F., 332 Douglas, N., 694 Duffels, J. P., 83 Dukes, M. P., 268 Düring, K., 151 Dutton, T., 203 Dye, T., 109, 120, 128, 240, 586 Eckert, F. J., 28 Ellem, E. W. See Wood-Ellem, E. Elliott, J. D., 463 Emberson-Bain, A., 33 Engelbrecht, G., 248 Englberger, L., 416 Ernst, M., 287 Erskine, J. E., 71 Etienne, M., 342 Eustis, N., 27, 221 Evans, M., 337, 508, 525, 569 Ewart, A., 43 Ewins, R., 430, 454 Faeamani, S. ‘U., 524 Fairbairn, T. I. J., 13, 488, 506, 507 Fakatene, I., 614 Faletau, M., 300 Fanua, T. P., 222, 625 Farfor, S., 63 Farmer, S., 182
Index of Authors
Fawcett, J. T., 514 Fein, C. D., 59 Feldman, H., 251, 373 Felszer, M., 397 Ferdon, E. N., 194 Fernandez-Armesto, F., 74 Filihia, M., 280, 289, 329, 371 Finau, ‘E., 393, 413 Finau, M., 272 Finau, S. A., 375, 388, 393, 401, 411, 413, 420, 421, 422 Finnegan, R., 681 Firth, S., 130 Fisher, R. L., 53 Fisk, E. K., 558 Fisk, S. J., 32 Fitch, J. E., 45 Fleming, E. M., 554, 568, 571 Fleming, S., 579 Flinn, J., 292, 296, 350 Foliaki, S., 528, 529 Fonua, M., 68 Fonua, P., 68, 317, 696 Fonua, S., 304 Fonua, S. ‘U., 597 Forbes, V. L., 444 Ford, J., 468 Forman, C. W., 272, 276, 285 Fortune, K., 716 Foster, J., 542 Fox, E., 12 Fox, J. L., 154 Francis, S., 553 Franco, R. W., 322 Fry, G. W., 724 Fua, S. J., 602 Fuka, L. M., 274 Funaki, ‘I. F., 536 Funaki, K., 537 Funaki, L. M., 536 Fungalei, L., 317 Furuhashi, L., 728 Fusimalohi, C., 425 Fusimalohi, T., 452, 698 Gailey, C. W., 324, 342, 348, 368, 521 Gannicott, K. G., 596
269
Garrett, J., 181, 271 Gell, A., 663 Geraghty, P., 203, 661 Gerstle, D., 7, 26 Gibson, J., 523 Gifford, E. W., 3, 30, 355, 630 Gillett, R., 593 Gittings, A., 628 Goetzfridt, N. J., 723 Gordon, T., 275, 283, 288, 296 Grainger, G., 168, 479 Graves, M. W., 157 Green, R., 1 Green, R. C., 548 Greenall, L., 5 Greenhalgh, M., 673 Griffin, C., 444 Grijp, P. van der, 165, 211, 286, 315, 316, 321, 455, 555, 567, 647, 662 Gross, C., 204 Groube, L. M., 123 Groves, S. A., 13 Gubler, D. J., 387 Gunson, N., 9, 106, 113, 144, 156, 169, 174, 184, 196, 212, 217, 218, 271, 291, 295, 310, 328, 371, 386, 400, 458, 479, 533, 534, 546, 598, 632, 634 Guthrie, B. E., 382 Haddon, A. C., 640 Hahn, E. P., 15, 700 Halapua, S., 504, 588 Halapua, W., 273 Halatuituia, S. N. K., 472 Halavatau, V., 416 Hampton, N., 468 Hanson, A., 658, 669 Hanson, L., 658, 669 Hardaker, J. B., 568, 571, 580 Hardon, M., 674 Harkness, L., 501 Harmer, N., 685 Hau‘ofa, E., 445, 482, 498, 600, 621, 624, 629 Havea, J., 626 Hayes, G., 532
270
Hazel, J. E., 45 Helu, H., 462 Helu, ‘I. F., 25, 138, 207, 218, 242, 297, 314, 347, 415, 432, 561, 595, 603, 622, 632, 638, 666 Hempenstall, P., 201 Hemsley, W. B., 89 Henningham, S., 475 Herda, P. S., 113, 115, 144, 156, 163, 184, 196, 204, 295, 310, 351, 386, 458, 533, 546, 598, 634, 641 Hereniko, P., 317 Herle, A., 654 Herndon, M., 674 Herr, R., 476 Hess, M., 492 Hiery, H. J., 459 Hill, B., 687 Hilliard, D., 115 Hills, R. C., 436, 438 Hiroa, T. R., 269, 277 Hitchcock, J. C., 98, 387 Hixon, M., 226 Hoadley, S., 477 Hoffmeister, J. E., 42 Holden, J. C., 45 Hooper, S., 649 Horan, J. C., 490 Hornell. J., 640, 653 Hotta, M., 84, 93, 94 Howard, A., 283, 305 Howe, K. R., 137 Huang, Y., 98 Hughes, D. T., 270 Hughes, R., 727 Hughes, S., 195 Hunt, T. L., 155 Hunter, D. B., 468 Huntsman, J., 351 Hussain. Z., 409 Ikahihifo, T., 391 Irwin, G., 208, 318 Ivarature, H., 390, 400 Jackson, M. M., 726 James, K. E., 291, 302, 306, 309, 310,
Index of Authors
311, 320, 335, 343, 351, 354, 380, 443, 450, 464, 530, 540, 550, 559 Jamieson, S., 74 Jennings, J. D., 119 Jilek, W. G., 403 Johansson-Fua, S. F., 613 Jolly, M., 394 Jowitt, G., 650 Kaeppler, A. L., 141, 305, 318, 328, 344, 632, 633, 634, 637, 642, 643, 645, 648, 652, 654, 668, 672, 673, 674, 675, 677, 678, 683 Ka‘ili, T. O., 543 Kaufmann, C., 648 Kavaliku, S. L., 334, 504, 610 Kavapalu, H. See Morton, H. Kennedy, P. M., 139 Kennedy, T. F., 39, 56, 562, 565 Kent, G., 591 Kern, R. A., 263 Keurs, P. ter, 647, 652, 657 Khalidi, N. A., 539 King, F. P., 714 King, R., 689 Kingdon, E., 464 Kioa, S. N., 512 Kirch, P. V., 109, 111, 112, 116, 117, 132, 189, 305 Kirkpatrick, J., 305 Kiste, R. C., 137 Kleineberger, H. R., 235 Knapp, V., 465 Knox-Mawer, J., 35 Koch, K., 461 Kolo, F. O., 144 Koloamatangi, M., 431 Koojiman, S., 655 Kooptzoff, O., 383 Korn, S. R. D., 270, 313, 353, 369 Küchler, S., 651 Kupu, M., 599 Kupu, S., 393, 404 La Fontaine, J. S., 374 Labillardière, J. J., 78 Ladd, H. S., 45
Index of Authors
Lafitani, S. F. P., 534 Lal, B. V., 137, 148, 201, 229, 716 Lamb, J., 149 Landzelius, K., 686 Langi, P., 317 Larmour, P., 447 Latu, R., 407 Lâtûkefu, S., 2, 148, 150, 160, 177, 190, 202, 214, 229, 439, 470, 600 Laukau, S. H., 423 Lavaka, P. A., 231, 233 Lawson, S., 451 Laycock, D. C., 247 Lea, J. P., 48 Leach, E. R., 374 Leach, F., 208, 318 Leacock, E., 342 Lebot, V., 378 Ledyard, P., 6, 31, 158 Lee, H. M., 529, 686, 732. See also Morton, H Leslie, H. Y., 292, 417, 427, 589 Levin, M. J., 535 Lewis, J., 52 Liava‘a, C., 161 Lim, C. H., 505 Lindstrom, L., 322, 343, 378 Linkels, A., 676 Linnekin, J., 130 Liu, O., 505 Lua, K., 317 Luckcock, J. L., 180, 186 Lukere, V., 394 Lutui, T., 393, 422 Lynch, J., 244, 245, 606 Lyons, H. D., 204 MacKenzie, J. M., 459 Maclean, E., 406 Mafi, G. H., 402 Mageo, J. M., 153, 283 Mâhina, K. U., 646 Mâhina, ‘O., 113, 149, 152, 162, 392, 597, 646 Maka, L., 602, 616 Malm, T., 594 Mamak, A., 600
271
Manu, T., 462 Manu‘atu, L., 617 Marcus, G. E., 290, 305, 307, 333, 341, 345, 349, 359, 461 Marett, A., 672 Mariner, W., 69 Marshall, H. H., 465 Marshall, L., 292, 296, 350 Martin, J., 69 Mason, L., 317 Mason, R. G., 53 Matavalea, C., 87 Maude, A., 467, 527, 552, 570 Mauricio, R., 724 Maxwell, W., 608 Maywald, B., 184 McArthur, N., 526 McCall, G., 550 McGrath, B. B., 18, 350, 396, 414, 428 McGrew, A., 476 McKenzie, D. J., 523 McKern, W. C., 104 McLean, M., 667 McMillan, M., 692 McRae, C. J., 612 Mediansky, F. A., 478 Megaw, V., 673 Meleisea, M., 130 Merlin, M., 378 Miller, J. Y., 82 Miller, L. D., 82 Milne, S., 485 Moala, K., 688, 693 Moata‘ane, L., 382 Moengangongo, M., 469 Morgan, C., 361 Morrison, C. E., 13 Morrison, J., 661 Morton, E. J., 265 Morton, H., 9, 153, 294, 303, 339, 360, 394, 516, 519, 536, 547, 689 Morton, K. L., 293, 352, 495, 509 Moyle, R., 618, 680 Mugler, F., 606 Muimuiheata, S., 409 Mullins, D. W., 172 Myers, F. R., 345
272
Index of Authors
Na‘ati, S., 409 Nabobo-Baba, U., 597, 646 Nagai, S., 505 Naisoro, B. S., 24 Nau, S., 179 Naudain, B., 504 Nayacakalou, R. R., 325 Needs, A. P., 496 Neich, R., 741 Nelson, D. E., 107, 118 Nelson, H., 229 Nero, K., 130 Newbury, C., 446 Newell, W. H., 377 Newton, D., 648 Nimmo, H. A., 673 Niu, L. M., 456 Novi, C., 74 Ntumy, M. A., 466 Nunn, P. D., 47
Pietrusewsky, M., 128 Pifeleti, F., 395 Plumb, C. P., 21 Pollock, N. J., 208 Poltorak, M., 405, 426 Pond, W., 681, 682 Postlethwaite, T. N., 604 Potter, L. M., 55 Poulsen, J., 108, 127 Powles, G., 457, 458, 462, 466, 471 Powles, Maureen, 166 Powles, Michael, 431 Prescott, N., 44 Price, C. A., 514 Prior, I. A. M., 375 Proctor, A., 573 Pulea, M., 462 Puloka, M. H., 381, 384 Pulu, T. L., 10, 19 Puniani, T. A., 566
‘Ofa, S. V., 486 ‘Ofanoa, M., 422 Ogashiwa, Y. S., 474 Olson, E. G., 362 Orbell, G. E., 51 Orbell, M., 681 Orr, B., 149 Ortiz, L., 248 Ostroff, M., 581 Otsuka, Y., 241, 246, 266 Ottovar, A., 644
Qalo, R., 447
Palefau, T. H., 611 Palu, T., 409 Panove, M., 391 Pâongo, K., 598 Papa, K., 124 Parsons, C. D. F., 385, 398, 418, 429 Paterson, D., 468 Pau‘u, T. H., 536 Pawley, A., 208, 318 Pene, F., 602 Perminow, A. A., 298, 326, 366, 480 Perry, L. J., 493 Peterson, G., 200 Philips, S. U., 261, 437
Raitt, H., 26 Raitt, R. W., 53 Rajotte, F., 62 Ralston, C., 196 Ramalingam, S., 80, 102 Ramanlal, S., 500 Ramsay, C. S., 21 Raven-Hart, R., 670 Reed, D., 387 Reilly, M., 115 Rensch, K. H., 88 Renwick, W., 160 Reynolds, S., 669 Richstad, J., 692 Rinke, D. R., 92, 99 Ritchie, James, 305 Ritchie, Jane, 305 Ritterbush, S. D., 487, 488, 582 Roberts, H. S., 468 Robillard, A. B., 348 Rogers, G., 103, 220, 308, 363 Rohorua, H., 523 Ronayne, J., 601 Rondilla, J. L., 536
Index of Authors
Rosen, L., 387 Roth, H. L., 660 Ruhen, O., 590 Rumley, D., 444 Runarsdottir, A. L., 665 Rutherford, N., 143, 209, 216, 230 Samata, ‘A., 16, 609 Samson, J., 135 Sather, C., 154 Scarr, D., 9, 202, 217, 218, 271, 291, 371, 400, 479, 534, 632 Schmerzler, S. M., 57 Schober, E., 228 Scholl, D. W., 41 Schütz, A. J., 167, 247, 257 Scott, D. A., 37, 484 Seaton, S. L., 299 Sefanaia, S., 571 Sevele, F., 467, 510 Seward, R., 697 Sharp, A., 79 Shaw, P., 650 Sheppard, D., 44 Shineberg, D., 169 Shore, B., 305 Shortland, R., 120 Shumway, E. B., 237, 620 Shumway, L. V., 679 Shutler, R., 107, 110, 118, 120 Siddiqui, A. M. A. H., 599 Siers, J., 23 Siikala, J., 358 Simpson, M., 253 Singh, Y. N., 391 Siuhengalu, T. M., 284 Slatter, C., 391 Small, C. A., 481, 513, 549 Smidt, D. A. M., 647, 652, 657 Smith, B., 131 Smith, V. L., 67 Smitz, P., 63 Snow, P. A., 136, 719 Soakai, L. H., 92 Spencer, P., 677 Spennemann, D. H. R., 95, 105, 106, 126
273
Spickard, P., 536 Spolsky, B., 248 Spurway, J., 197, 201, 215 St. Cartmail, K., 636 Stanhope, J. M., 375 Stanley, D., 65 Stanley, N., 654 Steen, T. M., 515 Stevens, C. J., 453, 572 Stevenson, K., 654 Stewart, P. J., 18 Stice, G. D., 43 Stoeltje, B., 331 Straatmans, W., 592 Strathern, A., 18 Stratigos, S., 720 Sturton, M., 494, 575 Sykes, W. R., 101 Taifu‘i, S. L., 511 Takau, L., 317 Talbot-Kelly, C., 81 Taliai, S., 171 Tapealaua, N. M., 408 Tapuelulu, P. T., 600 Taumoefolau, M., 319, 675 Taumoepeau, ‘A. A., 462 Tavi, 356 Taylor, C. R. H., 725 Taylor, F. W., 58 Taylor, P. W., 114 Tchekhoff, C., 236, 249, 252, 262 Teaiwa, T., 431 Teilhet-Fisk, J., 301, 331, 657, 658 Terrell, J., 9, 106, 113, 144, 156, 184, 196, 217, 218, 271, 291, 295, 310, 371, 386, 400, 458, 479, 533, 534, 546, 598, 632 Thaman, K. H., 606, 608, 619, 621, 624, 634 Thaman, R. R., 558, 563, 578, 583 Thawley, J., 717 Theroux, P., 8 Thirlwall, A. P., 499 Thistlethwaite, R., 44 Thomas, R. M., 604 Thompson, C. S., 36
274
Thompson, ‘O., 255 Thompson, R., 255 Thomson, B., 104, 192, 227 Thornton, I. W. B., 97 Tiffany, S. W., 270 Toafa, V. M., 382 Todd, R., 45 Tomiki, S., 408 Trouwborst, A., 647, 652, 657 Tryon, D. T., 203 Tu‘ineau, F., 279 Tu‘inukuafe, E., 238, 250, 546 Tuipelehake, H.R.H. Prince, 29 Tuita, H.R.H. Princess S. M. P., 412 Tukuafu, M., 579 Tuku‘aho, H.R.H. Princess N., 675 Tunstall, G., 672 Tupouniua, M. U., 497 Tupouniua, P., 338 Udui, E. S., 17 Urbanowicz, C. F., 67, 176, 299, 370, 373, 557 Usback, A., 92 Utoikamanu, S. T. T., 507 Vadon, B., 364 Vaea, Hon., 592 Valeri, V., 335 Vallier, T. L., 41 Vason, G., 70 Veikune, M. K., 422 Velde, P. van de, 210 Velt, K., 671 Vete, M. F., 517 Vete, V., 621 Vivili, P. S., 393, 413 Waine, S., 136 Walsh, A. C., 46, 538
Index of Authors
Walsh, R. J., 383 Waqavonovono, M., 699 Ward, G., 103 Ward, R. G., 464 Watling, D., 81 Webster, L. W., 222 Weeks, C. F., 232 Weener, F.-K., 742 Weiner, M. A., 389 Wells, J. W., 45 Welsch, R. L., 654 Wendt, A., 621, 624 Wendt, J., 50 Were, G., 651 Whistler, W. A., 85, 91, 419 White, G. M., 322, 343 White, R. G., 573 Wickman, S. B., 715 Wickramasekara, P., 576 Wilk, R., 331 Wilkes, C., 76 Wilkinson, D. S., 395, 424 Williams, E. W., 623 Williams, G., 74 Williams, N., 597, 646 Wilson, J., 75 Wood, A. H., 145, 178 Wood-Ellem, E., 16, 125, 140, 161, 166, 168, 171, 183, 204, 217, 219, 223, 224, 225, 234, 457, 515, 519, 668, 675, 687, 693 Wright, C., 281 Wright, D. H., 536 Wurm, S. A., 247 Yamazaki, R., 416 Yasuda, Y., 416 Yuncker, T. G., 96 Ziegler, S., 674
Index of Titles
Numerical references are to item numbers. Access to justice, Vol. IV, the anthropological perspective, patterns of conflict manage ment: essays in the ethnography of law, 461 Account of the natives of the Tonga islands, in the South Pacific Ocean, with an original grammar and vocabulary of their language, compiled and arranged from the extensive communications of Mr. William Mariner, several years resident in those islands, 69 Across the threshold: regime change and uncertainty in Tonga 2005–2007, 740 Adaptation of traditional agriculture: socio economic problems of urbanization, 558 Adolescent obesity in Tonga, 425 Agriculture and development in the Kingdom of Tonga, 580 Agroforestry in the Pacific islands: systems of sustainability, 578 Ako and faiako: cultural values, educa tional ideas and the teachers’ role perceptions in Tonga, 608 Ancien regime in the modern Kingdom of Tonga: conflict and change among the nobility of a Polynesian constitu tional monarchy, 359 Annotated bibliography of Oceanic music and dance, 667 Archaeology in Oceania, 701 Archaeology of Tonga, 104 Art and identity in Oceania, 658, 669 Art and life in Polynesia, 635 ‘Artificial curiosities’ being an exposition of the native manufactures collected on
the three Pacific voyages of Captain James Cook, R.N. at the Bernice Paua hi Bishop Museum January 18, 1978– August 31, 1978 on the occasion of the bicentennial of the European discovery of the Hawaiian islands by Captain Cook — January 18, 1778, 637 Art in society: studies in style, cultures and aesthetics, 673 Art of Tonga, 636 Asia-Pacific in the new world order, 476 Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 702 Aspersions of agency: tèvolo, love and sickness in Vava‘u, Tonga, 426 ‘Ata ‘a Tonga mo ‘ata ‘o Tonga: early and later prehistory of the Tongan islands, 126 Attitudes towards environmental conserva tion in the Kingdom of Tonga: observed behavior and implications of environ mental education, 57 Australasia and South Pacific islands bibliography, 717 Australia’s arc of instability: the political and cultural dynamics of regional security, 444 Authentic narrative of four years’ residence at Tongataboo, one of the Friendly Islands in the South Seas by — who went thither in the Duff, under Captain Wilson in 1796, 70 Baskets in Polynesia, 639 Beauty queens on the global stage: gender, contests and power, 331
276
Becoming Tongan: an ethnography of childhood, 294 Becoming Tongan: an ethnography of childhood in the Kingdom of Tonga, 360 Bibliography of Captain James Cook R.N., F.R.S., circumnavigator, 718 Bibliography of Fiji, Tonga and Rotuma, 719 Bibliography of Oceanic linguistics, 235 Bibliography of Pacific island theses and dissertations, 720 Bibliography of Tonga, 732 Birds of Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, 81 Birthing in the Pacific: beyond tradition and modernity?, 394 Butterflies of the Tonga islands and Niue, Cook Islands, with the descriptions of two new species, 82 Cambridge history of the Pacific islanders, 130 Canoes of Oceania - Volume I. The canoes of Polynesia, Fiji and Micronesia, 640 Changing Pacific: essays in honour of H.E. Maude, 169, 328 Changing their minds: tradition and politics in contemporary Fiji and Tonga, 430 Cheilostone bryzoa of late Eocene age from ‘Eua, Tonga, 45 Chiefs today: traditional Pacific leadership and the postcolonial state, 322, 343 Christianity in Oceania: ethnographic perspectives, 275 Church and state in Tonga: the influence of Wesleyan Methodist missionaries in the political development of Tonga, 1826–1875, 214 Church and state in Tonga: the Wesleyan Methodist missionaries and political development, 190 Cicadas of the Fiji, Samoa and Tonga islands, their taxonomy and biogeography (Homoptera and Cicadoidea), 83 Climate and weather of Tonga, 36 Clothing the Pacific, 312
Index of Titles
Commonwealth yearbook, 1 Communication of Tongan tradition: mass media and culture in the Kingdom of Tonga, 700 Competing circuits in the Vava‘u social economy, 361 Computational approach to spatial cogni tion: representing spatial relationships in Tongan language and culture, 264 Conflict management in congregation and community in Tonga, 362 Contemporary Pacific: a Journal of Island Affairs, 703 Contemporary uses of limu (marine algae) in the Vava‘u island group, 581 Contribution to the prehistory of the Tongan islands, 127 Cook voyage artifacts in Leningrad, Berne and Florence museums, 642 Corned beef and tapioca: a report on the food distribution systems in Tonga, 482 Country profile: Tonga, 483 Country report: Tonga, 483 Critical essays: cultural perspectives from the South Seas, 25 Cruising guide to the Vava‘u island group in the Kingdom of Tonga, 61 Crust of the earth, 53 Cultural memory: reconfiguring history and identity in the postcolonial Pacific, 153 Culture and democracy in the South Pacific, 482 Culture and history in the Pacific, 358 Culture-bound public administration: the value basis of public administration in Tonga, 452 Currents in Pacific linguistics: papers on Austronesian languages and ethno linguistics in honour of George W. Grace, 261 Cyclopedia of Samoa, Tonga, Tahiti and the Cook Islands, 713 Dangerous words: language and politics in the Pacific, 345 Decentralisation in the South Pacific: local,
Index of Titles
provincial and state government in twenty countries, 447 Descriptive grammar of Tongan (Polynesian), 265 Developments in Polynesian ethnology, 305 Diaries and correspondence of David Cargill, 1832–1843, 167 Dictionary catalog of the library, Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawai‘i, 721 Dictionary catalogue of printed books: The Mitchell Library, 722 Directions in Pacific traditional literature: essays in honour of Katherine Luomala, 673 Directory of wetlands in Oceania, 37 Diversions of a Prime Minister, 192 Early state economics, 210 Early Tonga as the explorers saw it, 1616– 1810, 194 Early Tongan prehistory: the Lapita period on Tongatapu and its relationships, 108 Echoes of Pacific war, 217, 218, 271, 291, 371, 400, 479, 534, 632 Economic development in seven Pacific island countries, 484 Education, language, patterns and policy, 661 Education and national development in Tonga: a critical policy review, 609 Education for economic development in the South Pacific, 596 Educational reorganization for national development in Tonga, 610 Entrepreneurship and business venture development in the Kingdom of Tonga, 487 Environment of Tonga: a geography resource, 38 Eocene brachipods from ‘Eua, Tonga, 45 Eocene corals from ‘Eua, Tonga, 45 Eocene mollusks from ‘Eua, Tonga, 45 Ergativity in Tongan, 266 Essence of singing and the substance of song: recent responses to the Aboriginal
277
performing arts and other essays in honour of Catherine Ellis, 672 Ethnobotany of Tonga: the plants, their Tongan names, and their uses, 85 European impact and Pacific influence: British and German colonial policy in the Pacific islands and the indigenous response, 459 European vision and the South Pacific, 131 Evolution of the Polynesian chiefdoms, 132 Faikava: a Tongan literary journal, 704 Faiva, trials of skill: the song and dance of Tongan politics, 1773–1993, 682 Fananga: fables from Tonga in Tongan and English, 618 Far East and Australasia, 4 Farmers of the Pacific islands, 562 Field guide to the birds of Tonga, 86 Field guide to the landbirds of Tonga, 87 Fieldwork and families: constructing new models for ethnographic research, 292, 296, 350 Finding treasure in Tonga, 5 Fire has jumped: eyewitness accounts of the eruption and evacuation of Niuafo‘ou, 220 Fishermen of Tonga: their means of survival, 588 Fish names of Western Polynesia: Futuna, Niue, Samoa, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Uvea, outliers, 88 Flowers of the Pacific island seashore - a guide to the littoral plants of Hawai‘i, Tahiti, Samoa, Tonga, Cook Islands, Fiji and Micronesia, 91 Food and national development in the South Pacific, 563 Food crop production in Tonga: characteris tics and activity budgets, 564 Friendly island, 6 Friendly Islands: a history of Tonga, 143 Gentle people: into the heart of Vava‘u, Kingdom of Tonga, 1781–1973, 7 Geography of Tonga, 39
278
Geography of Tonga: a study of environment, people and change, 40 Geology and offshore resources of Pacific island areas - Tonga region, 41 Geology of ‘Eua, Tonga, 42 Gifts and commodities on a Tongan atoll: understanding intention and action in a MIRAB economy, 508 Happy isles of Oceania: paddling the Pacific, 8 Harpoon in my hand, 590 Healing practices in the South Pacific, 418 Historical dictionary of Oceania, 714 History and geography of Tonga, 145 History of the Pacific from the Stone Age to the present day, 133 History of the Pacific islands, 134 Hosts and guests: the anthropology of tourism, 67 Humbled anthropologist: tales from the Pacific, 15 Identity and development: Tongan culture, agriculture and the perenniality of the gift, 315 Identity work: constructing Pacific lives, 18 Illness and cure in Tonga: traditional and modern medical practice, 399 Imperial benevolence: making British authority in the Pacific islands, 135 Indigenous navigation and voyaging in the Pacific: a reference guide, 723 In search of a home, 317 In some sense the work of an individual: Alfred Willis and the Tongan Anglican mission, 1902–1920, 170 Intensive course in Tongan: with numerous supplementary materials, grammatical notes and glossary, 237 International encyclopedia of comparative law, Vol. 1: national reports T, 465 Interpretation of ritual: essays in honour of A.I. Richards, 374 Introduction to the Tongan language, 238 Inventing health: tradition, textiles and
Index of Titles
maternal obligation in the Kingdom of Tonga, 427 Inventing Mormon identity in Tonga, 288 Island churches: challenge and change, 322 Island churches of the South Pacific: emergence in the twentieth century, 276 Island entrepreneurs: problems and performances in the Pacific, 488 Islanders of the south: production, kinship and ideology in the Polynesian Kingdom of Tonga, 321 Island kingdom strikes back: the story of an independent island newspaper, Taimi ‘o Tonga, 688 Island kingdom: Tonga ancient and modern, 147 Island populations of the Pacific, 526 Islands Business, 690 Journal de la Société des Océanistes, 705 Journal of a cruise among the islands of the western Pacific, including the Feejees and others inhabited by the Polynesian negro races, in Her Majesty’s Ship Havannah, 71 Journal of Pacific History, 706 Journal of the Polynesian Society, 707 Journals of Captain James Cook on his voyages of discovery: the voyage of the Resolution and Adventure 1772–1775, 72 Journals of Captain James Cook on his voyages of discovery: the voyage of the Resolution and Discovery 1776–1780, 73 Kai and kava in Niuatoputapu: social relations, ideologies and contexts in a rural Tongan community, 363 Kainga: Tongan families as agents of change, 364 Kakala, 619 Kalonakili Tonga/Tonga Chronicle, 691 Kato tu‘aniu, baskets of Tonga, 644 Kava, the Pacific elixir: the definitive guide to its ethnobotany, history and chemistry, 378
Index of Titles
Kingdom of Tonga: action strategy for managing the environment, 44 Kingdom of Tonga - annual foreign trade report, 491 King of Tonga: King Taufa‘âhau Tupou IV, 221 Kinship, cloth and community in Auckland: New Zealand commoner Tongan women navigate transnational identity using traditionally-styled textile wealth, 664 Kinship, economics and exchange in a Tongan village, 509 Kinship to kingship: gender hierarchy and state formation in the Tongan islands, 324 Ko e laupè (It’s just talk); ambiguity and informal social control in a Tongan village, 365 Koe malau: life and future of the malau, 92 Ko e me‘akai faka-Tonga/Tongan food, 10 Labour absorption in the Kingdom of Tonga: position, problems and prospects, 492 Labour markets in the South Pacific: an overview of Fiji, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Vanuatu and Western Samoa, 493 Lali - a Pacific anthology, 621 Land, custom and practice in the South Pacific, 464 Land rights of Pacific women, 469 Land tenure and rural productivity in the Pacific islands, 566 Land tenure in the Pacific, 467 Language contact and change in the Austronesian world, 203 Language of Niuafo‘ou island, 267 Lapita peoples: ancestors of the Oceanic world, 111 Larger foraminifera of late Eocene age from ‘Eua, Tonga, 45 Late Eocene fossils from ‘Eua, Tonga, 45 Laws of Tonga: comprising all laws, acts, ordinances and subsidiary legislation
279
in force on the 31st day of December 1988, 460 Limits of advice: Britain and the Kingdom of Tonga, 1900–1970, 233 Lines across the sea: colonial inheritance in the post colonial Pacific, 229 Lisitala: a bibliography of Pacific writers, 623 Long way home: dilemmas of everyday life in a Tongan village, 326 Ma‘afu: the making of the Tui Lau, 215 Macroeconomic framework of the Tongan economy, 494 Making meaning of illness, dying and death in the Kingdom of Tonga, 428 Malaspina expedition 1789–1794: Journal of the voyage by Alejandro Malaspina, 74 Malo Tupou: an oral history, 222 Man with a mission: Bishop John Rodgers S.M., Tonga 1941–1972, 172 Mass communication and journalism in the Pacific islands: a bibliography, 692 Matangi Tonga, 733 Memoirs of Mrs. Margaret Cargill, wife of the Rev. David Cargill, A.M., Wesleyan missionary, 173 Memoirs of the Reverend Dr. Shirley Walde mar Baker, D.M., LL.D., missionary and prime minister, 206 Messengers of grace: evangelical missionaries in the South Seas 1797–1860, 174 Microstates and nuclear issues: regional cooperation in the Pacific, 474 Migration, employment and development in the South Pacific: country report no. 18, Tonga, 531 Mission, church and sect in Oceania, 270 Missionary chieftain: James Egan Moulton and Tongan society, 1865–1909, 185 Missionary voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean performed in the years 1796, 1797, 1798 in the Duff, commanded by Captain James Wilson, compiled from the journals of the officers and the missionaries, 75
280
Modernity and tradition: houses and material culture in the Kingdom of Tonga, 665 Mormons in the Pacific: a bibliography, 175 Mosquito fauna of Samoa and Tonga and its relation to subperiodic Bancroftian filariasis, 102 Moving images of the Pacific islands: a guide to films and videos, 694 Moving things of love: an ethnography of constitutive motions on Kotu island in Tonga, 366 Music, gender and culture, 674 Narrative of the United States exploring expedition during the years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842. Volume III, 76 Natives on the net: indigenous and diasporic peoples in a virtual age, 686 New, authentic and complete collection of voyages round the world, undertaken and performed by royal authority. Containing an authentic, entertaining, full and complete history of Captain Cook’s first, second, third and last voyages . . ., 77 New Friendly Islanders: the Tonga of King Taufa‘ahau Tupou IV, 11 New Zealand aid and the development of class in Tonga, 496 1986 national nutrition survey of the Kingdom of Tonga, 406 Niuatoputapu: the prehistory of a Polynesian chiefdom, 116 Nobility and the chiefly tradition in the modern Kingdom of Tonga, 333 North east passage: a study of Pacific islander migration to American Samoa and the United States, 535 Nuanua - Pacific writing in English since 1980, 624 Nuku‘alofa: a study of urban life in the Pacific islands, 46 Obscure kingdoms, 12 Oceania, 708
Index of Titles
Oceania - a regional study, 715 Oceanic art, 648 Oceanic cultural history: essays in honour of Roger Green, 208, 318 Oceanic linguistics, 709 On being Tongan: responses to concepts of tradition, 367 On the nonexistence of anaphors and pronomials in Tongan, 268 On the road of the winds: an archaeological history of the Pacific islands before European contact, 117 Origins, ancestry and alliance: explorations in Austronesian ethnography, 154 Ostracoda of late Eocene age from ‘Eua, Tonga, 45 ‘Otuhaka: a Tongan dance, 671 ‘Our history is written in our mats’: state formation and the status of women in Tonga, 368 Overseas missions of the Australian Methodist church. Volume I, Tonga, Samoa, 178 Pacific art: persistence, change and meaning, 654 Pacific basin and Oceania, 724 Pacific bibliography: printed matter relating to the native peoples of Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia, 725 Pacific bridges: the new immigration from Asia and the Pacific islands, 514 Pacific courts and legal systems, 462 Pacific diaspora: island peoples in the United States and across the Pacific, 536 Pacific Economic Bulletin, 710 Pacific encounters: art and divinity in Polynesia 1760–1860, 649 Pacific futures, 431 Pacific in transition: geographical perspec tives on adaptation and change, 527 Pacific insects monograph, 97 Pacific island landscapes: landscape and geological development of southwest Pacific islands, especially Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, 47
Index of Titles
Pacific island languages: essays in honour of G.B. Milner, 236 Pacific island states: security and sovereignty in the post-Cold War world, 475 Pacific island studies: a survey of the literature, 726 Pacific island style, 650 Pacific islands: a basic annotated bibliography for students, librarians and general readers, 727 Pacific islands: an encyclopedia, 716 Pacific islands: politics, economics and international relations, 13 Pacific islands dissertations and theses from the University of Hawai‘i, 1923–1996, 728 Pacific islands history: journeys and transformations, 148 Pacific islands portraits, 202 Pacific islands yearbook, 14 Pacific Journal of Theology, 711 Pacific languages: an introduction, 244 Pacific languages in education, 606 Pacific law bibliography, 463 Pacific linguistic studies in honour of Arthur Capell, 247 Pacific lives, Pacific places: bursting boundaries in Pacific history, 201 Pacific material culture: essays in honour of Dr. Simon Kooijman on the occasion of his 80th birthday, 647, 652, 657 Pacific pattern, 651 Pacific studies, 712 Pacific tourism as islanders see it, 62 Pacific 2010: challenging the future, 537 Pacific 2010: strategies for Polynesian agricultural development, 568 Pacific 2010: urbanisation in Polynesia, 48 Pacific universities: achievements, problems, prospects, 595 Pangai - village in Tonga, 336 Paradise postponed: essays on research and development in the South Pacific, 600 Pathways to the Tongan present/‘Uuni hala ki Tonga he kuonga ni, 151 Patrons, clients and empire: chieftaincy
281
and over-rule in Asia, Africa and the Pacific, 446 People from the horizon: an illustrated history of the Europeans among the South Sea islanders, 136 Performance and prospects of the Pacific islands economies in the world economy, 499 Persistence of chiefly power and its implica tions for law and political organization in Western Polynesia, 471 Persistence of the gift: Tongan tradition in transnational context, 337 Perspectives on scientific and technological literacy in Tonga: moving forward in the 21st century, 611 Physical anthropology of early Tongan populations: a study of the bones and teeth and an assessment of their biological affinities based on cranial comparisons with eight other Pacific populations, 128 Planet Tonga, 734 Plants of Tonga, 96 Plucking the reed: chiefly death and regeneration in the Tongan ritual cycle, 289 Poetry in motion: studies of Tongan dance, 673 Po fananga - folk tales of Tonga, 625 Political anthropology: the state of the art, 299 Political ecology of a Tongan village, 453 Politics in Polynesia, 448 Politics of Pacific island fisheries, 591 Pollution sources survey of the Kingdom of Tonga, 49 Polymath anthropologist: essays in honour of Ann Chowning, 204 Polynesian culture history: essays in honour of Kenneth P. Amory, 673 Polynesian village: the process of change in the village of Hoi, Tonga, 338 Population, agriculture and urbanization in the Kingdom of Tonga, 551 Population, land and livelihood in Tonga, 552
282
Prehistory of Polynesia, 119 Prime minister’s office, 735 Print and broadcast media in the South Pacific, 695 Private sector development in the Kingdom of Tonga, 500 Problems in educational development in the Kingdom of Tonga, 612 Proverbial sayings of the Tongans, 626 ‘Pule aku: educational leadership in Tonga, 613 Quaternary tectonic and sea-level history, Tonga and Fiji, Southwest Pacific, 58 Queen Sâlote of Tonga, the story of an era 1900–1965, 223 Queen Sâlote Tupou III and Tungi Mailefihi: a study in leadership in twentieth-century Tonga (1918–1941), 234 Radio Australia, 736 Radio happy isles: media and politics at play in the Pacific, 697 Radio New Zealand international, 737 Recovering from a tropical cyclone in Tonga, 50 Regional inequalities in socio-economic development in Tonga: a preliminary study, 510 Relationship between self concept and academic achievement of Tongan students at Liahona High School, Tonga, 614 Remittances and their impact: a study of Tonga and Western Samoa, 541 Researching Pacific and indigenous peoples: issues and perspectives, 597, 646 Role of accounting in the developing economy of the Kingdom of Tonga, 511 Sâlote, queen of paradise, 226 Samoan islands and Tonga, 63 Savage Island: an account of a sojourn in Niue and Tonga, 227 Schooling in the Pacific islands: colonies in transition, 604
Index of Titles
Science and technology in Australasia, Antarctica and the Pacific islands, 601 Seeds of the Word: Tongan culture and Christian faith, 281 Semisi Nau: the story of my life, 179 Shell age economics: marine gathering in the Kingdom of Tonga, Polynesia, 594 Shirley Baker and the king of Tonga, 209 Shirley Baker and the Kingdom of Tonga, 216 Sickness experience and language: aspects of Tongan and Western accounting, 429 Simple sentences in Tongan, 249 Simplified dictionary of modern Tongan, 250 Smaller foraminifera of late Eocene age from ‘Eua, Tonga, 45 Smallholder agriculture in Tonga: report of the South Pacific Smallholder Project in Tonga, 1984–85, 571 Small worlds, global lives: islands and migration, 689 Social and cultural change in the prehistory of the ancestral Polynesian homeland, 129 Social change in the Pacific islands, 348 Society and the dance: the social anthropol ogy of process and performance, 677 Socio-economic study of the Kingdom of Tonga, 17 Soils of the Kingdom of Tonga, 51 Sometimes the ‘native’ knows best. A discourse on contextualization, indigenous knowledge and the implications of culture in sustainable commercial farm development for the Kingdom of Tonga, 582 Some trace elements in lavas from the Lau islands, Tofua, Tonga and Tutuila, American Samoa, 59 Songs and poems of Queen Sâlote, 675 Sounds of change in Tonga: dance, music and cultural dynamics in a Polynesian kingdom, 676 Sources of economic growth in South Pacific small-island economies: Fiji and Tonga, 512
Index of Titles
South Pacific: an annotated bibliography on regional development, 502 South Pacific agriculture, choices and constraints - South Pacific agricultural survey 1979, 573 South Pacific bibliography, 729 South Pacific foreign affairs handbook, 477 South Pacific islands legal systems, 466 South Pacific oral traditions, 681 South Pacific periodicals index, Volumes 14–15, 730 South Pacific phrasebook, 253 ‘South Seas reminiscences’: Mrs. Emma Schober in the Kingdom of Tonga 1902–1921, 228 Sovereignty and indigenous rights: the Treaty of Waitangi in international context, 160 Spirits in culture, history and mind, 283 Strategic cooperation and competition in the Pacific islands, 478 String figures from Fiji and western Polynesia, 653 Structure of Tongan dance, 683 Student’s English-Tongan and Tongan English dictionary, 255 Survey of native education in Fiji, Tonga and Western Samoa, with special attention to Fiji, 615 Sustainable development and population: proceedings of the fourth Pacific islands conference of leaders, June 24–26, 1993, Tahiti-Niu, French Polynesia, 504 Sustaining livelihoods: promoting informal sector growth in Pacific island countries, 503 Ta Kupesi: emerging themes and methodolo gies from educational research in Tonga, 602 Tales and poems of Tonga, 627 Tales from the South Pacific islands, 628 Tales of the Tikongs, 629 Tapa in Polynesia, 655 Tapa in Tonga, 656 Tastes of Tonga: a guide to living and cooking in Tongatapu, 20
283
Thinking: the expanding frontier, 603 Thomas of Tonga, 1797–1881: the unlikely pioneer, 180, 186 Three studies on the structure and dynamics of the upper mantle adjacent to a descending lithospheric slab, 60 Tides of history: the Pacific islands in the twentieth century, 137 Tin Can Island: a story of Tonga and the swimming mail man of the South Seas, 21 To live among the stars: Christian origins in Oceania, 181 Toloa rainforest reserve: a guidebook for visitors, 100 To please oneself: local organization in the Tongan islands, 369 Tonga, 23 Tonga: a country profile, 24 Tonga: development through agricultural exports, 575 Tonga: recent economic developments, 505 Tonga: rural employment and development, 576 Tonga: the Friendly Islands, 28 Tonga agricultural census 1985, 574 Tonga and Samoa: images of gender and polity, 351 Tonga and the Friendly Islands: with a sketch of their mission history, 182 Tonga and the Tongans: heritage and identity, 16, 125, 140, 161, 166, 168, 171, 183, 204, 457, 515, 519, 668, 687, 698 Tonga Broadcasting Commission, 738 Tonga fisheries bibliography: 1st revised edition, 593 Tonga islands, 64 Tonga law reports, 468 Tonga-now, 739 Tonga pictorial: a tapestry of pride/Kupesi ‘o Tonga: ko e makatu‘unga ‘o e Laukau, 26 Tonga population census 2006: preliminary result, 545 Tonga-Samoa handbook, 65 Tonga sketchbook, 27
284
Tongan agricultural system with special emphasis on plant assemblages, 583 Tongan astronomy and calendar, 605 Tongan club iconography: an attempt to unravel visual metaphors through myth, 742 Tongan Constitution: a brief history to celebrate its centenary, 470 Tongan culture: the methodology of an ethnographic reconstruction, 370 Tongan culture and history, 106, 113, 144, 184, 196, 295, 310, 386, 458, 533, 546, 598, 634 Tongan dictionary (Tongan-English and English-Tongan), 259 Tongan economy: setting the stage for accelerated growth, 506 Tongan figures: from goddesses to missionary trophies to masterpieces, 741 Tongan grammar, 260 Tongan herbal medicine, 419 Tongan movement in action: an ethnography of movement in Oceania, 553 Tongan music, 680 Tongan myths and tales, 630 Tongan past, 158 Tongan place names, 30 Tongan society, 355 Tongan society at the time of Captain Cook’s visits: discussions with Her Majesty Queen Sâlote Tupou, 356 Tongan soils: site characteristics and management practices, 55 Tongan traditional history Tala-e-Fonua: a vernacular ecology-centered historico cultural concept, 162 Tongans overseas: between two shores, 547 Tonga’s contemporary land tenure system: reality and rhetoric, 472 Tongatapu island tour guide, 66 Tourism as conflict in Polynesia: status degradation among Tongan handicraft sellers, 584 Tradition, politics and change in contempo rary Fiji and Tonga, 454 Tradition versus democracy in the South
Index of Titles
Pacific: Fiji, Tonga and Western Samoa, 451 Training the majority: guidelines for the rural Pacific, 607 Transactions in kinship: adoption and fostering in Oceania, 352 Transfer costs in the overseas and internal shipping services of Fiji and Tonga, 585 Transformation of the traditional Tongan polity: a genealogical consideration of Tonga’s past, 163 Transformation of traditional Tonga: the significance of local identity with particular reference to the period 1799– 1875, 164 Trodden paths and untrodden lanes: Tongan students reading across texts, 616 Tuli ke ma‘u hono ngaahi malie: pedagogi cal possibilities for Tongan students in New Zealand secondary schooling, 617 ‘Utulei, my Tongan home, 31 Vision and reality in Pacific religion: essays in honour of Niel Gunson, 115 Vocational training and the labour market: South Pacific, 599 Voyage in search of La Pérouse performed by the order of the Constituent Assembly during the years 1791, 1792, 1793 and 1794, 78 Voyages: from Tongan villages to American suburbs, 549 Voyages and beaches: Pacific encounters, 1769–1840, 149 Voyages of Abel Janszoon Tasman, 79 Walking tour of Neiafu, Vava‘u, 68 Where in the world is Tonga?, 32 Winds of change: rapidly growing religious groups in the Pacific islands, 287 Women and colonization: anthropological perspectives, 342 Women in Tonga, 33
Index of Titles
Women’s associations and the pursuit of wealth in Tonga: a study in social change, 513 Women’s work and development in Tonga, 579 World catalogue of theses on the Pacific islands, 731
285
World of islands, 35 World perspective on Pacific islander migration: Australia, New Zealand and the USA, 550 Wrapping in images: tattooing in Polynesia, 663
Index of Subjects
Numerical references are to item numbers. accent. See language accounting, 511 acculturation, 3, 670 adoption, 352 Adventure (ship), 72 aeroplanes. See aircraft; aviation aesthetics, 634, 652, 668–9, 674 agriculture, 39–40, 44, 501, 507, 527, 551, 563, 566, 583 census, 574 commercial, 25, 315, 317, 464, 480, 482, 497, 554, 558–9, 570, 582 cooperatives, 558 development, 497, 505, 525, 568, 573, 580 exports, 315, 449, 485, 496, 499, 501, 506–7, 555, 558–9, 564, 567–8, 572–3, 575, 607 foreign aid, 479 income, 313, 571 intensive, 132, 455, 525, 554, 566, 570, 572 labour, 46, 492–3 policy, 568, 571 research, 601 smallholdings, 323, 562, 564, 566, 570–1 subsistence, 54, 218, 321, 464, 480 traditional, 157, 455, 558–9, 562, 570, 572 training (see education, vocational) See also crops; individual crops by name agroforestry, 569, 578 ‘Aho‘eitu (first Tu‘i Tonga), 113, 142, 335, 379
aid. See foreign aid aircraft, 460, 632 See also aviation Alaska, 10 alcohol, 232, 326, 375, 380, 412, 420, 528–9 ‘Aloua Ma‘a Tonga, 34 Angahâ, 220 Anglicans. See churches animals, 38, 40, 78, 99–100, 145, 573–4, 576 archaeological remains, 116 law, 460 See also individual animals by name anthropologists, 15, 292, 294, 296 anthropology journals, 701, 705–8, 712 physical, 128, 701 ‘Api Fo‘ou College, 172 archaeology, 106, 117, 119, 121, 132, 142, 208 artifacts, 78, 103–4 excavations, 104, 107–8, 110, 116–9, 122–4 fishing, 109, 125 (see also shellfish) journals, 701, 705, 707, 712 sites, 66, 103–4, 107, 110–2, 118, 120, 122–4, 188, 205, 646 See also Lapita culture architecture, 27, 56, 638, 650, 665 monumental, 104, 112, 188–9, 208 archives and records. See Lands Office; Western Pacific High Commission armed forces, 475 art, 26, 632, 634–6, 648–9, 653, 741
288
depictions of Tonga, 72–4, 78–9, 131 grave art, 636, 658 history, 635, 712 pattern, 651, 661, 741 Assemblies of God. See churches astronomy, 605 ‘Atele Stadium, 473 ‘Atenisi Institute and University, 595, 603, 714 Australia, 736 aid, 596 migrants, 9, 514–6, 518, 532–3, 535–6, 547, 550 relations with, 178, 475–6, 478–9 Tongan missionaries to, 183 authors, 623 ‘avanga, 381, 384, 386, 415 aviation, 67, 431, 440, 460, 477, 693 Baha‘i. See churches Baker, Shirley, 206, 209, 216, 713–4, 716 and the church, 170, 285, 446 exile, 168, 192 and German treaty, 160 legislation, 193, 446 press, 193 bananas, 39, 84, 496, 562, 564, 572, 576 banks and banking, 17, 460, 464, 497, 505, 566, 576–7 barkcloth. See tapa baskets, 324, 634, 636–7, 639, 642, 644, 647, 661–2 bats, fruit, 10 beauty contests, 306, 331, 357 Becker, Eduard, 151 begging, 63 Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu, 721 Bible, 167, 420, 696 bibliography, 717, 719, 724–7, 729, 732 Captain James Cook, 718 fisheries, 593 history, 714 law, 463 linguistics, 235 mass communication and journalism, 692
Index of Subjects
Mormons, 175 music and dance, 667 navigation and voyaging, 723 periodicals, 730 regional development, 502 theses, 720, 728, 731 writers, 623 bilingual texts, 10, 138, 151, 618, 622, 627, 671, 675, 691, 699, 704 biography, 713 See also memoirs, Tongan birds, 10, 81, 86–7, 92, 99–100, 205 archaeological remains, 110, 116 See also names, birds blood groups, 383 blood pressure, 421 book trade, 685 brass bands, 632, 676 brothers. See family, siblings budget. See government, finance Bulu, Joel, 714 burial sites, 104, 112, 189, 205, 208 See also chiefs, death and burial; royal tombs business, 218, 291, 311, 430, 450, 480, 487, 501, 534, 600, 690 women, 311, 490 See also capitalism butterflies, 82 cacao, 573 calendar, 605 Canada, 535 canoes, 141, 199, 208, 636, 640 capitalism, 217–8, 321, 687 Cargill, David, 167, 173 Cargill, Margaret, 173 carving, 269, 277, 634–6, 647, 649, 661–2 cash crops. See crops cassava, 564, 570, 572 Catholics. See churches cattle, 573 census, 404, 526, 574, 579 1956, 527 1966, 270, 527, 538 1976, 248, 539, 579, 607
Index of Subjects
1986, 539 2006, 537, 545 chemicals, hazardous, 44, 49 chickens, 10 chief justice, 219, 440 chiefs, 71, 197, 320, 538 and contemporary politics, 430, 446 death and burial, 112, 177, 189, 205, 280, 289 early chiefdoms, 112, 116, 132, 205, 211–2, 333, 446, 451 kava ceremony, 376, 379 lineage, 113, 355, 358 marriages, 204, 212, 304 noseflutes, 678 power, 25, 176–7, 225, 280, 471 relations with populace, 78, 210, 217, 316, 345 sacrifice, 280 status, 189, 299, 353, 459, 589, 716 system, 2, 211–2, 224, 299, 322, 333, 343, 349, 379, 459 childbirth, 391, 394, 397, 407 weaning, 407, 423 children, 292, 294, 323, 326, 339, 360 adoption, 352 books, 562 diaspora, 519 education, 525, 597 (see also education; schools) health and nutrition, 406–7, 423 and language, 597 mortality, 404 punishment, 303 socialization, 339 See also twins China (People’s Republic), 473, 476, 478, 569 Christianity, 3, 9, 16, 71, 153, 174, 181, 270, 276, 281 charismatic movements, 271 conversions, 167, 176–7, 180, 286 denominations, 270–1, 285, 287 evangelism, 271, 284, 326, 684, 696 and family, 2, 18 influence of, 176, 204, 297, 303, 311–2, 331, 338, 354, 603
289
pentecostal movements, 271, 284 See also churches; missionaries; theology churches, 5, 71, 170, 270–1, 276, 287, 430, 435, 576, 650–1, 713 Anglican, 170 Assemblies of God, 287 Baha‘i, 287 Catholic, 165, 172, 607 and diaspora, 516 disputes and war, 285, 362 and economics, 480 and education, 172, 276, 604, 696 Free Church of Tonga, 168, 171, 206 Jehovah’s Witnesses, 287 Methodist, 165, 178–80 and modern democracy, 435, 439 Mormon, 25, 175, 270–1, 275, 287–8, 296, 535, 550 Quaker, 166 Seventh-day Adventists, 287 Wesleyan, 169, 184, 207, 214, 225, 272, 284–5, 479 Church of Tonga, 285 Free Wesleyan Church, 5, 25, 225, 270, 272, 274–5, 744 persecution of, 168, 171, 206 Tokaikolo Christian Fellowship, 272 See also Christianity; missionaries cicadas, 83 cinema, 3, 692 civil service, 430, 440–1, 505 civil war, 76, 150, 165, 198, 211, 538 class, 2, 25, 261, 275, 290–1, 307, 320, 324, 340–1, 348, 496 See also middle class climate, 17, 24, 36, 38–40, 44, 145 See also cyclones; earthquakes; tsunamis cloth. See mats; tapa; textiles clothing. See dress coconuts (copra), 554, 562, 565, 570, 576 export, 39, 573, 575 industry, 46, 230
290
price, 217, 505, 565 uses, 10, 639, 651 Code of Tonga (1862), 714 Code of Vava‘u (1839), 190, 446, 459 coffee, 572–3 colonization, European, 134, 135, 153, 342 commerce. See trade communications, 17, 39 computers, 696 conflict, 362, 461 conservation, 57, 504 See also environment Constitution (1875), 1, 4, 230–1, 333, 434, 445, 448, 451, 464–6, 470, 538, 688, 714 establishment, 140, 176, 190, 192, 209, 343, 349, 456, 458–9 reform, 433, 435–6, 438–41, 444, 456–8, 470, 693, 716 construction industry, 17, 505, 507, 577 contraception, 390 Cook, Captain James, 72–3, 77, 146, 182, 356 artifacts collected, 637, 642–3, 649, 652, 678 artists’ impressions, 72, 131 bibliography, 718 descriptions, 72, 77, 194, 280, 282, 298, 308, 656 local memories of, 78 music and dance, 667, 669, 678 plants, 89, 572 vocabulary, 203 cooking, 10, 20 See also diet; food copra. See coconuts corned beef, 482 courts of law, 461–2 See also Land Court; magistrates’ courts; Supreme Court crabs, 10, 95 crafts, 32, 78, 337, 606, 661, 694 production and sale, 63, 300, 313, 490, 501, 560, 565, 576, 579, 584, 662 creation myths, 115, 143, 278, 628, 630
Index of Subjects
credit organizations. See saving crime, 336, 437, 529 Croker, Captain W., 135 crops, 2, 39, 74, 570, 572, 574, 576, 578–9 cash crops, 455, 480, 506, 530, 554, 558–9, 567–8, 570, 572–3, 575–6 See also individual crops by name cultural authenticity. See identity, national cultural relativity, 292 culture, 2, 9, 15–6, 61, 63, 71, 141, 143–4, 150, 153, 194, 331, 370, 700, 716, 743 change, 3, 129, 293, 315 material (see material culture) oral (see oral culture) and Queen Sâlote, 153, 223 values (see values, traditional) customs, 29, 32, 302, 459 cyberspace. See Internet cyclones, 24, 31, 36, 50, 52, 317, 577, 698 dance, 9, 62, 70, 74, 152, 177, 619, 631, 634, 666–9, 671–7, 679–80, 694, 716 See also performing arts death, 350, 355, 404, 420, 428, 618 and alcohol, 412 chiefs, 280, 289 statistics, 404 See also suicide decorations. See ornaments defence, 460, 479, 715 deforestation, 37 deities. See gods democracy, 218, 431–6, 438–40, 442–5, 449–51, 687–8 Democratic Party, 217 demography, 484, 716 dengue fever, 387, 421 dental health, 408 depopulation. See population diabetes, 382, 388, 393, 406, 409, 421 diaspora, 241, 322, 331, 341, 481, 519–21, 525, 530, 534–6, 540–1, 543, 716, 736
Index of Subjects
and cultural identity, 686, 689 influence of, 430 and Internet, 686, 689, 734 and tax, 462 See also migration; remittances; individual countries by name dictionaries, 250, 255–6, 259 historical, 714 See also vocabulary diet, 406, 484, 532, 563 changes in, 2, 408, 534 Lapita, 111 seafood, 590, 592 See also food; nutrition; obesity Dillon, Peter, 180, 198 diplomacy, 460, 473, 476–9 disasters, natural, 24, 52 Discovery (ship), 73 dissertations. See theses doctors, 417 dress, 9, 29, 301, 312, 637, 642, 651 See also mats drought, 52, 505, 569 drug dependence, 528–9 Duff (ship), 70, 75 earthquakes, 24, 52, 53, 60 ecology, political, 453 economic development, 218, 229, 348, 449–50, 484, 489, 497–8, 502, 504–5, 510, 575, 600 development plans, 485, 489, 494, 572, 577 journals, 702 economic performance, 44, 441, 499–501, 505–7, 512, 525, 596 economy, 1–2, 4, 13, 17, 24–5, 48, 147, 338, 483, 494, 507, 518, 531, 712, 716 cash, 328, 337–8, 348, 480, 488, 556 (see also remittances) current, 433, 690 dependence, 489, 498, 525 dualism, 557, 560 global context, 54, 134, 137, 499 growth (see economic performance) history, 210, 484, 511
291
informal, 520 journals, 705, 710, 712 macroeconomic framework, 494 market, 558 MIRAB, 508, 525 private sector, 314, 486–7, 494, 500, 506, 568 public sector, 494, 500, 506 regional inequality, 510 subsistence, 314, 321, 336–7, 503, 517, 525, 556 education, 2, 4, 25, 501, 531, 596, 598, 604, 608–10, 612–7, 623, 716 and churches (see churches) employment, 492 environmental, 44 foreign aid, 479, 596 health, 388 law, 460, 466 and missionaries (see missionaries) reform, 441 religious, 172, 274, 285 research, 601–2 sex, 394, 504 as social force, 430, 435 statistics, 17, 44 syllabus, 218 traditional, 144 and upward mobility, 291, 330, 340, 343 vocational, 596, 599, 602, 607 See also schools; teachers; universities Eendracht (ship), 263 effeminacy, male, 306 elections, 431 1987, 434–5, 444, 450 1990, 434–6, 439, 449–50 1993, 434, 439, 450 1999, 433 2002, 443 2005, 440 electricity, 440, 501 elites. See class; rank; status employment, 39, 46, 306, 492–3, 503–4, 528, 531, 537 fishing, 591 Mormons, 275
292
overseas, 306, 340, 492–3, 531 rural, 576, 607 tourism, 62, 492 trends, 48 wage, 313, 492–3, 531 World War Two, 217–8 See also labour; unemployment encyclopaedias, 713, 716 energy, 17, 41, 44, 690 entertainment, 29, 355, 460 entrepreneurship, 480, 487–8, 567, 575 environment, 37–8, 40, 49, 63, 716 and construction industry, 577 education, 44 journals, 702 policy, 44, 57, 476, 504, 506 epidemics, 388 Erskine, John Elphinstone, 71 ethnology, 305, 707 ethnomusicology, 712 ethnopsychiatry, 403 ‘Eua, 28, 63–4, 78–9, 714 Cook, visit by, 72–3, 77, 131 fossils, 45 geology, 42–3, 47 migration, 220 population, 545 eulogy. See poetry Europe, influence of, 2, 3, 137, 147, 459 Europeans, 151 arrival, 134, 560, 572, 598 colonization (see colonization, European) portrayal of Tonga, 131, 194, 640, 680 exchanges. See goods, exchange of; marriage exhibitions. See museums expansion, 157, 199–200 See also imperialism, Tongan fables. See folklore Faleme‘e (temple), 122 family, 296, 300, 313, 339, 355, 364 ‘decentered’, 521, 525, 533 fathers and sons, 298, 335, 371 father’s sister, 308, 319, 332, 569
Index of Subjects
hierarchy, 302, 323 and illness, 398, 403 law, 466, 468 Mormon, 475 nuclear, 2, 293, 475, 521 planning, 390, 400, 504 relationships, 296, 308, 398 siblings, 224, 297, 300, 308–9, 311, 319, 323, 332, 342, 569 single-parent, 528–9 sisters (see family, siblings) as social force, 9, 430 See also kâinga; kinship famines, 211 Fanga‘uta lagoon, 110, 125 Fanua, Tupou Posesi, 222 farming. See agriculture Favourite (ship), 135 feasts and festivals, 2, 32, 63, 253, 306, 313, 331 Fetu‘u ‘o Tonga (newspaper), 193 fiction. See literature; novels; short stories Fiji, 25, 63, 82, 123, 138, 147 coups d’état, 475, 477 exchanges, 141, 159, 200, 210, 481 exiles, 168 Ma‘afu, Eneli, 197, 201 migrants to Tonga, 317 relations with, 187, 197, 200–1, 203 Tongan missionaries to, 183 films, 694 finance, 4, 17, 484, 495, 501, 506 law, 460, 466 See also government; money Finau, Bishop Patelisio, 172 Finau ‘Ulukâlala, 69, 714 firearms. See weapons fish, 587, 589, 592, 633 archaeological remains, 109, 116, 125 See also names, fish; shellfish fishing, 39, 109, 321, 323, 337, 556, 588, 593, 637 commercial, 487, 497, 565 in economy, 501, 507, 576, 591 and environment, 49 foreign aid, 479
Index of Subjects
labour, 493 law, 460, 591 and religion, 587 research, 601 traditional, 109, 556, 586–90, 592 and USSR, 477 See also marine resources; whales and whaling flora. See plants folklore, 38, 335, 356, 603, 618–9, 625, 628, 630, 673 and Christianity, 281 fish, 587, 589 and history, 113, 144, 149, 156, 208 and illness, 386 (see also ‘avanga) journals, 712 natural disasters, 52, 114 See also creation myths; proverbs folk medicine. See medicine, traditional Fonua, Pesi, 624 Fonualei, 43 food, 29, 64, 194, 253, 576 ceremonial, 210, 677 distribution, 482 health, 392, 416, 563 horsemeat, 146 household, 313, 336 imported, 406, 600 production (see agriculture; crops) See also cooking; diet; nutrition foreign aid, 25, 33, 475, 484, 490, 504, 506 Australia, 479, 596 China and Taiwan, 473 and construction, 577 dependency, 147, 489, 535, 575, 600 and fishing, 591 Great Britain, 479 New Zealand, 496 projects, 330, 473, 490 relief (see international relief) USSR, 475 forests and forestry, 37, 39, 44, 100, 493, 569, 578, 601 fortifications, 124, 208 fossils, 45 France, 705
293
missions, 165 nuclear testing, 474–5, 477 relations with, 199, 475, 477–8 treaty of friendship (1855), 165 Free Church of Tonga. See churches freedom of speech, 444 Free Wesleyan Church. See churches fruit bats, 10 Fualu Rural Training Centre, 607 funerals, 32, 141, 177, 302, 658 expenses, 302, 313 family, 308, 323, 329 film, 694 mats, 645 tradition, 328 further education, 172, 274, 604 games, 653 GDP, 484, 499–501, 503, 507, 518, 541 gender, 306, 346, 674 in dance, 669, 674 in folklore, 115 hierarchy, 324, 342 in history, 196, 297, 521, 669 relations, 196, 297, 310–1 roles, 106, 115, 335, 348, 521 See also family; transgenderism; women genealogy, 3, 132, 149, 156, 162, 205, 356, 358, 543 geography, 1, 16, 24, 38–40, 71, 145, 484 journals, 702, 712 geology, 17, 41, 59 formation, 38–9, 43, 47, 53, 103, 145 history, 42, 47, 83 volcanic, 43, 47, 58, 60, 101 (see also volcanic islands) George Tupou I, King, 140, 153, 188, 192, 202, 207, 209, 229, 714, 716 authority, 191, 295, 349 birthplace, 150 and Christianity, 9, 71, 165, 168, 269, 285–6 and Constitution, 176, 190, 192, 209, 459 death, 228
294
Germany, treaty with, 160 Great Britain, treaty with, 135, 160 heathens, war against, 180, 198 imperialism, 187 land, 54, 121, 467 legislation, 177, 190, 193, 204, 446 Ma‘afu, Eneli, relations with, 197, 201 marriage, 207, 228, 295 missionaries, relations with, 165, 177, 190, 198 national motto, 16 and nobles, 349 reforms, 121, 229, 459, 498 tomb of ancestors, 188 unification of state, 71, 76, 135, 140, 142, 324 George Tupou II, King, 139–40, 227, 229–31, 349, 446, 713 reforms, 498 supplementary agreement with Britain, 230 Treaty of Friendship and Protection, 160 George Tupou V, King, 140 Germans in Tonga, 151, 228 Germany relations with, 139 treaty (1876), 160 gifts, 508, 634, 636, 656 ceremonial, 177, 210, 327, 376 to chiefs and nobles, 177, 210, 455 exchange, 337, 385, 525, 534, 634, 636 and illness, 385 See also goods, exchange of gods, 3, 113, 115, 122, 138, 150, 269, 277–8, 280, 286, 741 See also religion, traditional goods, exchange of, 141, 495, 509 history, 159, 210 women, 481, 540, 636 government, 4, 11, 14, 17, 145, 448, 458 accountability, 433–4, 436, 444, 688 and chiefs/nobles, 333, 446, 538 corruption, 433–4, 439, 443, 450, 688 finance, 501, 505, 507, 575, 713
Index of Subjects
land management, 54 law, 460 natural disasters, 24 reforms, 440, 443, 450, 740 See also local government grammar, 69, 237–8, 250, 254, 260, 265 Great Britain imperialism, 135, 137, 139 nuclear testing, 474 protectorate, 139, 227, 229–30 relations with, 135, 160, 217, 229, 233, 459 supplementary agreement (1905), 230 Treaty of Friendship and Protection (1900), 160, 227, 229 gross domestic product. See GDP gynaecology, 391 Ha‘amonga trilithon, 104, 646 Ha‘ano, 337, 569, 589 Ha‘apai, 28, 63–4, 207 agriculture, 570–1, 573 archaeology, 121–2, 187 Baker, Shirley, 206 Cook, visit by, 72–3, 77 economy, 480, 524–5 Erskine, visit by, 71 family planning, 390 fishing, 556 geology, 47, 55 government, 447 health care, 411 households, 571 Lapita culture, 107, 110–1, 118, 120 Mariner, William, 69 Mata‘uvave, 205 material culture, 647, 662 migration, 30, 46 population, 545, 548, 570 religious revival, 198 society, 326, 337 women, 300 Ha‘ateiho, 317 handicrafts. See crafts harbours, 49, 139 Hau‘ofa, Epeli, 451, 621, 624, 716
Index of Subjects
Havannah (ship), 71 Havea, Limu, 32 Havea Hikule‘o. See Hikule‘o Haveluloto, 317 headrests, 636, 649, 659 healers, traditional, 385, 389, 396, 410–1, 414, 419 diaspora, 382, 528 mental illness, 381, 384, 386, 528 health, 17, 229, 396, 427, 441, 501 care, 232, 388, 391, 394, 396, 399, 401, 411, 420–1 education, 388 law, 460 policy, 392, 420–1 heart disease, 406, 409 Heilala Festival and Pageant, 306, 331 herbal remedies. See plants, medicinal Heteka (site), 646 Hettig, August, 151 Hikule‘o (deity), 115, 122, 309 historians, 148, 150 historical dictionaries, 714 historiography, 144, 148, 150, 156, 324 history, 1–2, 4, 16, 26, 63, 134, 136, 143–63, 348, 356, 713, 716 journals, 705–7, 712 oral, 103, 150, 155, 351 post-1900, 17, 24, 137, 139, 217–34, 451 pre-1900, 121, 132, 135, 142, 146, 157, 164, 190–216 traditional, 152, 162, 205 See also prehistory Hoi, 338 homosexuality, 534 horses, 3, 146 hospitals, 5, 31, 232, 395, 400, 420, 424, 528 hotels, 46, 62–3, 65, 485, 501 Houma, 66 housing, 46, 48, 56, 74, 194, 300, 638, 650–1, 665 See also architecture human sacrifice, 280
295
human settlement, 56, 121, 538, 716 early, 47, 107–8, 110–1, 118, 125 hurricanes. See cyclones hypertension, 406 identity, national, 9, 144, 153, 367, 375, 504, 603 diaspora, 153, 516, 519, 528, 536, 546, 686 expressions of, 301, 357, 375, 620, 654, 672 and monarchy, 322 Mormon impact, 296 ideology, political, 433 illness, 350, 426, 429 cultural beliefs, 350, 398–9, 410, 414, 418, 420, 428 See also ‘avanga; mental illness; psychiatry imperialism, Tongan, 157, 187, 199–200, 203, 212 independence (1970), 31, 160, 229 indigenous wealth, 490 industry. See manufacturing inflation. See prices insects, 97, 100 See also individual insects by name international law, 466 International Planned Parenthood Federation, 400 international relations, 13, 229, 460, 474–8 See also expansion; imperialism, Tongan international relief, 52 Internet, 686, 689, 695–6, 732–9 interracial mixing, 383 investment, 440–1, 455, 469, 488, 499–500, 520, 538, 542 investment, foreign, 62 Japan, 25, 475–6, 478, 499, 567–8, 572, 575 Jehovah’s Witnesses. See churches justice, 444, 459–60 kâinga, 224, 347, 364, 543
296
kakala, 619 Kalianet (Web site), 689 Kalonikali Tonga. See Tonga Chronicle Kao, 79 kava ceremony, 29, 194, 314, 326, 335–6, 355, 363, 371–2, 374, 377, 420, 677 origins, 295, 309, 374, 379 parallels with Christianity, 273, 281 royal, 35, 318, 372, 376, 379 wartime, 377 weddings, 327, 377 informal drinking, 314, 345, 371–3, 375, 380, 699 plant, 378, 480, 554, 562 Kava Bowl (Web site), 689 kings. See individual monarchs by name kinship, 141, 176, 308–10, 316, 321, 323, 336, 353, 569 adoption, 352 and economy, 325, 488, 498, 509 historical, 324, 358 and illness, 398 kava ceremony, 309, 379 migration, 521, 525, 530, 540, 664 nuclear family, 293, 297 and rank/status, 295, 316, 353, 379, 488 See also family; kâinga Kiribati, 203 Koloi, Rev. Senituli, 272 Kotu, 366, 480 La Pérouse, Jean François de Galaup de, 78 Labillardière, J. J., 78, 194, 235, 678 labour, 336, 492–3, 503, 537, 596 agricultural, 46, 492–3 wage, 455, 492, 495, 524 See also employment; unemployment land, 29, 44, 229, 311, 313, 318, 336–7, 340, 358, 552 law, 460, 464, 466–9 management, 54 reform, 121 shortage, 527, 533, 559, 565–6
Index of Subjects
tenure, 317, 323, 348, 355, 455, 464, 467, 527, 533, 566, 571, 574, 576, 716 litigation, 461 in modern economy, 54, 293, 325, 435, 455, 467, 472, 566 urban problems, 48, 467 women, 469 urban, 54 use, 54, 548 Land Court, 468 Lands Office, 30 language, 2, 9, 71–2, 144, 150, 241, 244, 267, 716 accent, 243, 246, 254, 257–8 bilingual texts (see bilingual texts) courses and learning, 237–8, 242, 597 development, 117 speech, 254, 261 See also linguistics Lapita culture, 107–8, 110–1, 116–8, 125, 188 migration, 118 pottery, 103, 107–8, 110–1, 116–20, 123, 125, 701 shellfish, 105 trade, 120 Late, 43, 79, 101 Lâtûkefu, Sione, 148, 150 law and legal system, 145, 437, 458–68, 471 international law, 466 Le Maire, Jacob, 194, 263 leadership, 298, 446, 613 legal codes, 458–60, 714 See also Code of Vava‘u legends. See folklore Legislative Assembly. See Parliament Liahona High School, 614 libraries, 685, 694 catalogues, 721–2 Libya, 475 life expectancy, 404 Lifuka, 64, 69, 77 limu, 581 linguistic evidence, 109, 111, 123, 203
Index of Subjects
linguistics, 235, 240, 245, 249, 252, 268, 707, 709 discourse, 236 endangered, 241 ergativity, 245, 252, 262, 266 loanwords, 240, 247 personal relationships, 236 publishing, 241, 248 in school, 248, 606 sentence, 249 sociolinguistics, 712 spatial relationship, 239, 264 translation, 618 verb, 245, 252, 262 See also language; loanwords literacy, 25, 248, 596, 606, 611, 684 literature, 621, 623–4, 627, 673 journals, 704 litigation, 461 livestock. See animals loanwords, 240, 247 local government, 48, 369, 447 London Missionary Society, 75 love. See ‘ofa Lupepau‘u, 207 Ma‘afu, Eneli, 197, 201, 215 Maamafo‘ou Fellowship. See churches, Wesleyan, Tokaikolo Christian Fellowship magistrates’ courts, 437 mail, 21, 22 Mala‘e Lahi (royal tomb), 188 Malaspina, Alejandro, 74 male effeminacy, 306 mana, 224, 282, 305, 354, 459 manufacturing, 321, 330, 493, 501, 505–7, 560, 577, 696 maps and charts, 61, 64, 77, 79, 716 marine algae. See limu marine resources, 25, 40, 44, 556 See also fishing Mariner, William, 69, 182, 194–5, 280, 282–3, 308, 355, 389, 655, 714 maritime expansion. See expansion markets, street, 482, 520 marriage, 18, 149, 154, 195, 204, 212,
297
224, 295–6, 299, 304, 308, 327, 355 exchanges, 141, 157, 159 kava ceremony, 377 political hierarchy, 154, 204, 213, 295, 333 Queen Sâlote, 149, 224 and Samoa, 212 status, 154, 295, 299 mass media. See media; news media Matangi Tonga (Web site), 733 material culture, 2, 3, 116, 634–8, 642–3, 647, 661–2, 665 Matheson, Dr. Farquhar, 31 mats, 301, 312, 368, 417, 637, 642, 645 as art, 634, 636, 647, 661–2 ceremonial, 318, 327, 645 exchange, 490, 540, 636 traditional wealth, 310, 324, 490, 540, 641 Maurelle, Francisco Antonio. See Mourelle, Francisco Antonio media, 4, 430, 450, 687, 692–5, 700, 734 See also news media; press; individual media by name medicine, 169, 391, 396, 398, 414, 417–8, 424 law, 460 plants and kava, 85, 378 rural, 336 traditional, 69, 389–91, 396, 398, 403, 410, 414–5, 418–21 memoirs, Tongan, 148, 222 mental illness, 386, 402–3, 405, 420, 528–9 See also ‘avanga Methodists. See churches middle class, 291, 297, 314, 320, 340 emergence of, 25, 218, 229, 271, 330, 435 graves, 658 wealth, 435, 501 migration, 25, 40, 47, 218, 317, 348, 467, 553 emigration, 48, 337, 514, 537, 565, 576, 600 (see also diaspora) impact of, 18, 276, 398, 400, 525,
298
531–2, 535, 539, 541, 544, 550 reasons for, 330, 340, 492–3, 521, 527, 531–5, 544 immigration, 460 local, 30, 46, 48, 326, 337, 467, 527, 531, 538, 576 prehistoric, 117–8, 125, 134 mineral resources, 41, 44, 460, 487 Ministry of Agriculture, Marine Fisheries and Forests, 568, 573, 593, 601 Ministry of Education, 597, 601, 606 Ministry of Finance, 739 Ministry of Health, 400 Ministry of Lands, Survey and Natural Resources, 601 Ministry of Works, 577 MIRAB economy, 508, 525 missionaries, 70, 75, 131, 134, 136, 146, 151, 169, 181, 185, 286, 299, 331 Anglican, 170 and art, 649 attitudes, 31, 76, 177, 192, 198, 372, 660, 662, 680 Catholic, 71, 165 and education, 31, 598, 684 health care, 169, 396, 414 impact of, 177, 281, 303, 446 Methodist, 31, 148, 165, 167, 178, 182, 209, 684 and music, 632 printing, 684, 696 Protestant, 165, 174 Tongan, 177, 179, 181, 183, 279 Wesleyan, 71, 148, 166, 169, 173, 176–7, 179, 183–4, 190, 198, 214 women, 184, 279 Mitchell Library, Australia, 722 monarchy, 12, 35, 322, 333, 359 biography, 713 and democracy, 439, 442 in design, 654 legitimacy, 152, 154, 188, 191, 349, 358, 434, 445 lineage, 188, 213, 355 and power, 25, 188, 688
Index of Subjects
succession, 154 See also Tu‘i Ha‘atakalaua; Tu‘i Kanokupolu; Tu‘i Tonga; individual monarchs by name money, 495, 530, 534 See also finance; government Morey, Elizabeth, 195 Mormons. See churches mortality. See death mosquitoes, 76, 80, 98, 102, 387 motto, national, 16, 668 Moulton, James Egan, 185 Mourelle, Francisco Antonio, 7, 74 Mu‘a, 66 Mulikiha‘amea, 70 museums, 635–7, 642–3, 646, 649, 654, 678, 721 music, 69–70, 227, 627, 634, 676, 678–80, 716 acculturation, 670 bands, 632, 676 bibliography, 667 Queen Sâlote, 672, 674–5 See also performing arts; songs musical instruments, 632, 637, 642, 678, 680 musicians, 680 musicology, 712 myths. See folklore names, 355 birds, 81, 86 fish, 88 places, 19, 30, 203, 205 plants, 85, 91, 96, 100 National Committee for Political Reform, 693 National Economic Summit, 486 national motto, 16, 668 national security, 715 natural disasters, 24, 52 Nau, Semisi, 179, 183 Neiafu, 61, 64, 68, 482 New Britain Tongan missionaries to, 183 New Zealand, 572–3, 737 aid, 496
Index of Subjects
migrants, 532–3, 535–6, 544, 546, 550, 617 dress, 312 health, 382, 528–9 language, 241, 546 remittances, 517 military presence, 217 relations with, 25, 475–6, 478 trade, 572–3 news media, 690–3, 695, 697–9, 733–9 See also press; individual newspapers by name newspapers. See news media Niua Fo‘ou. See Niuafo‘ou Niua islands, 681 Niuafo‘ou, 21, 22, 64, 92, 114, 220 eruption and evacuation (1946), 220 language, 240, 254, 267 population, 545 Niuatoputapu, 64, 79, 199, 363, 545 archaeology, 103, 107, 111–2, 116 fishing, 109, 586 nobles, 157, 307, 322, 333, 340, 343, 345, 349, 359, 533, 556 and contemporary politics, 430, 442, 445–6, 451, 688 and freedom, 153 land, 54, 455, 461 leadership, 11 in Parliament, 431, 433, 446 succession, 349, 461 Nobles’ Representatives. See Parliament Nomuka, 72, 73, 77, 79 noseflutes, 678 novels, 624 nuclear testing, 136, 474–5 Nuku‘alofa, 8, 27, 35, 36, 40, 64, 66, 228, 296, 345, 495 alcohol, 412 archaeology, 110 family planning, 400 fishing, 588 flea market, 520 food distribution, 482 funerals, 302 land use, 54
299
manufacturing, 560 migration, 317, 326 riots (2006), 63, 140, 444, 507, 519, 687, 693, 733, 740 in song, 672 surgery, 395 urbanization, 46, 48, 317, 412, 538, 716 Nukuleka, 110 Nukunuku, 399 nursing, 604 nutrition, 406–7, 563, 591 See also diet obesity, 406, 409, 416, 425 octopus, 592 ‘ofa, 334, 398 oil, 25, 41 oral culture, 714 oral tradition, 132, 144, 148, 150, 205, 351, 459, 645 ornaments, 636–7, 642, 656, 662 Pacific Islands Monthly (magazine), 692 PACNEWS (radio network), 697 palace. See Royal Palace Pangai, 336, 482 Pangaimotu, 78 panpipes, 678 Papua New Guinea, Tongan missionar ies to, 183 Parliament, 430–2, 435, 437, 448, 450–1, 713 cabinet, 431, 448 history, 435 Nobles’ Representatives, 433, 446, 448 People’s Representatives, 433, 434, 443, 448–9, 497 and the press, 688 Privy Council, 442, 444, 448, 468 reforms, 2, 435, 439, 442–3 See also government passport sales, 436, 440, 449 People’s Representatives. See Parliament
300
performing arts, 2, 46, 620, 632, 674, 676 See also dance; music; poetry; songs petroleum. See oil Philatelic Bureau, 22 phonetics and phonology, 240, 246–7, 251 photographs, 23, 26, 28, 151, 678, 716 archaeology, 116 architecture, 56 geology, 42, 51 herbal medicine, 419 historical, 35, 151, 170, 228 natural disasters, 50, 220 performing arts, 675–6, 678 phrasebooks. See vocabulary pigeons, 205 pigs, 95, 677 pineapples, 572 place names. See names, places Planet Tonga (Web site), 689, 734 plants, 38–40, 78, 85, 89–91, 93–4, 96, 101, 145 law, 460 medicinal, 384, 386, 389, 391, 403, 419 sacred, 619 See also names, plants poetry, 619, 634, 679 ancient, 138, 631 anthologies, 621, 624, 627 criticism, 622, 631 protest, 681 Queen Sâlote, 674–5 and tapa, 652 poets, 620 Pohiva, ‘Akilisi, 433, 435, 450, 697 police, 460, 604 political ecology, 453 political ideology, 433 political parties, 436, 444 See also individual parties by name politics, 1, 2, 4, 13, 24, 25, 69, 137, 682, 715–6 contemporary, 430, 444, 454, 456, 483, 688, 690, 740 ethics, 433
Index of Subjects
journals, 703, 712 reform, 693 and tradition, 430, 451 pollution, 37, 49 See also environment population, 39, 44, 145, 355, 551–2 decline, 211, 337, 525, 537, 545 density, 132, 147, 476, 484, 527 and development, 303–4 distribution, 538, 607 growth, 229, 400, 484, 493, 526–7, 537, 565, 570 history, 526, 548 intermixing, 383 statistics, 17, 493, 526, 531, 713 trends, 25, 480, 493, 539, 545 urban, 48, 54 See also migration Port-au-Prince (ship), 69 Portland (ship), 195 postal service. See mail poverty, 62, 528–9, 535 prehistory, 106, 108, 112–3, 116–9, 121, 123, 125–7, 129, 145 journals, 706 press, 436, 567, 695–6 freedom, 193, 431, 440, 498, 687–8, 692–3, 697 See also news media; printing; individual newspapers by name prices, 484, 499, 505, 507, 575 priests, traditional, 277, 286, 385 prime minister (office of), 447, 735 printing, 684, 695–6 See also missionaries; press; publishing prisons, 460 privatization, 441 privilege, 11 See also rank; status Privy Council. See Parliament Pro-Democracy Movement, 229, 343, 432–3, 435, 439–40, 442–4, 450–1, 697, 716 professional classes, 450 prostitution, 62, 232, 534 protectorate. See Great Britain
Index of Subjects
Protestants, 165 proverbs, 626 See also folklore psychiatry, 403, 405 See also ‘avanga; mental illness psychology, 218 public administration, 452, 460 public order, 460 publishing, 241, 248, 696 Pulotu, 115 pumpkins. See squash punishment, 303 Quakers. See churches Queen Sâlote Memorial Hall, 27, 473 radio, 687, 692, 695, 697–9, 736–7 Radio Tonga, 697–8 Ramsay, Charles Stuart, 21, 22 rank, 132, 189, 204, 335, 343, 448, 658 clothing and cloth, 301, 312, 645, 654, 668 in dance, 669, 677 differentiation, 290–1 within family, 302, 310 female, 308, 335 in foreign relations, 141 kava ceremony, 377 and leadership, 224, 343, 446 and lineage, 316, 323, 329, 352 nature of, 295, 299, 340, 351, 354 and power, 354, 374 Queen Sâlote Tupou III, 224, 316, 328 See also status recipes, 10, 20 religion, contemporary, 4, 16, 270 religion, traditional, 3, 74, 122, 277–8, 281, 355, 587, 741 fish, 587 illness and death, 280, 386 (see also ‘avanga) and missionaries, 177 shamanism, 156 See also folklore; gods; priests, traditional; spirit possession
301
remittances, 322, 337, 449, 464, 484, 489, 505–7, 517–25, 530–6, 540–2, 544, 571, 573, 575 See also diaspora reptiles, 99, 100 research, 597, 600–2, 720, 728, 731 Resolution (ship), 72–3 restaurants, 46, 63, 65, 501 riots. See Nuku‘alofa, riots ritual, 280, 289, 298, 318, 371, 374, 587, 645, 656 See also kava roads, 232, 460 Rodgers, Bishop John, 172 Rotuma, 203 royal family, 645, 688, 691 as entrepreneurs, 567 Royal Palace, 27, 66, 650 royal tombs, 66, 104, 188 Royal Tongan Airlines. See aviation royalty. See monarchy; royal family; individual monarchs by name; individual royal lines by name Russia. See USSR sacrifice, 280 Sâlote Tupou III, Queen, 7, 31, 140, 143, 153, 160, 223, 226, 229, 358, 632, 714, 716 accession, 3, 228, 645 ancestry, 149, 224, 316 and baskets, 639 death, 31, 328 dress, 301 economy, 489, 639 family, 224, 297 government, 219, 234, 444, 446 kava ceremony, 376 marriage, 149, 224, 358, 645 and national unity, 225 and Parliament, 435 performing arts, 149, 152, 631, 672, 674–5 reforms, 229, 358, 435, 444, 498 and social structure, 340, 356 and tradition, 148 Tu‘i Fefine, 224
302
and Wesleyan churches, 285 World War Two, 217, 232, 632 Samoa, 25, 30, 82, 123, 138, 141, 147, 154 Convention (1899), 160 emigration to, 535 legends, 154 place names, 30 relations with, 155, 159, 187, 200, 203, 210–1, 481 Tongan missionaries to, 183 sandalwood, 569 sanitation, 48 saving, 488, 495, 530, 542 saxophone, 632 schools, 32, 71, 148, 248, 317, 338, 595–8, 604, 606, 614 Catholic, 172 Methodist, 31 Tongan studies curriculum, 606 See also churches; missionaries Schouten, W. C., 194 science, 601, 611 sculpture. See carving security, national, 715 self, 339 Seventh-day Adventists. See churches sewerage. See waste disposal sexuality, 62, 177, 232, 306, 346, 357, 394, 534 shamanism, 156 sharks, 592 shellfish, 594 archaeological remains, 105, 110, 125 See also fish shipping, 497–8, 538, 585 ships. See individual ships by name shops, 46, 482, 560 See also markets, street short stories, 621, 624, 627, 629 Sia‘atoutai Theological College, 274 sisters. See family Small Industries Centre, 66, 492 smoking. See tobacco social science, 623 social space (tauhi va), 543
Index of Subjects
society, 1–3, 24, 29, 33, 132, 134, 157, 321, 325, 355–6, 363, 715–6, 743 change, 290, 292–3, 314–5, 337–8, 341, 348, 364, 449–50, 481, 513 control, 365 hierarchy, 261, 308, 316, 331, 339–40, 343–4, 351, 643, 654, 668, 674 journals, 707 structure, 290, 293, 295, 299, 318, 333, 354–5, 377, 560, 603, 634 traditional, 2–3, 69–79, 151–3, 176, 194, 210, 293, 299, 324, 356, 459, 557 See also class; middle class; rank; status sociolinguistics, 712 sociology, 707, 712 soils, 38–40, 51, 55, 132, 525, 570, 572–3 Solomon Islands migrants to Tonga, 317 Tongan missionaries to, 183 songs, 318, 619, 627, 670–2, 680, 682 dance songs, 631, 671, 677, 679 protest, 681 Queen Sâlote, 674–5 See also music; performing arts Sopu, 317 South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, 474 Soviet Union. See USSR Spain, 74 speech, 254, 261 spirit possession, 3, 283, 398, 403 spouse exchange. See marriage, exchanges squash, 315, 449, 505–7, 525, 554–5, 559, 567–8, 572, 575–6 Japan, 499, 567, 575 standard of living, 229, 484, 504, 507, 532, 534, 537 state formation, 348, 368 statistics, 4, 14, 17, 44, 145, 404, 406, 467, 482, 484–5, 487, 493, 505, 713 economic, 506–7, 571, 574, 576, 591 emigration, 535
Index of Subjects
labour, 493, 503 population, 545 savings, 495 status, 132, 154, 188, 290, 295, 299, 316, 341, 488 children, 339 dress, 301 female line, 154, 295, 299, 329 funerals, 302 kava ceremony, 379 language, 261 leadership, 207, 299, 446 monarchy, 188, 207, 295, 316, 446 See also privilege; rank strikes, 440–1 string figures, 653 suicide, 413, 528 supernatural, 282, 286 Supreme Court, 444, 468, 688 surgery, 395 sweet potato, 564 taboo (tapu), 3, 277, 282, 377, 379, 398, 420, 459, 587, 663 Tafahi, 79, 114, 399 Taimi ‘o Tonga (newspaper), 688 Taiwan, 473, 476–8 tapa, 312, 642, 655–6 ceremonial, 318, 327 design, 632–4, 636, 638, 641, 651–2, 654–5, 668, 696 exchange, 540, 634, 636 production, 106, 310, 324, 490, 636, 641, 647, 655–7, 662 tapioca, 482 tapu. See taboo taro, 564 Tasman, Abel Janszoon, 79, 194, 280 tattoo, 634, 660, 663 Taufa‘âhau Tupou IV, King, 11–2, 140, 219, 221, 318, 716 accession, 35, 645 in dance, 152 and democracy, 439 80th birthday, 473 population growth, 400 reforms, 229, 330, 435, 444, 498
303
visits to China/Taiwan, 473, 478 wedding, 645 tauhi va, 543 taxation, 193, 220, 462, 469, 505 teachers, 599, 602, 604, 606, 608 technology, 2, 601, 611 telecommunications, 498, 690 television, 697 Teukava of Kolovai, 195 textiles, 427, 641, 664 See also mats; tapa Thaman, Konaiholeva Helu, 621, 624, 716 theology, 273–4, 285, 604, 711 theses, 720, 728, 731 See also research thinking, 603 Thomas, John, 165, 180, 182, 186, 191, 197–8, 280, 286, 714 Thomas, Sarah, 184 Thomson, Basil, 139, 160, 192 time. See calendar Tin Can Island and mail, 21–2 tobacco, 177, 232, 375 Tofua, 43, 47, 59, 79, 480 Tokaikolo Christian Fellowship. See churches Toloa, 100 tombs, royal, 66, 104, 188 Tonga Broadcasting Commission, 695, 698, 738 Tonga Chronicle (newspaper), 193, 473, 691–2, 695, 699 Tonga College, 598 Tonga Council of Churches, 285 Tonga for the Tongans Trading Association, 230–1 Tonga Human Rights and Democracy Movement, 440, 443 See also Pro-Democracy Movement Tonga ma‘a Tonga kautaha. See Tonga for the Tongans Trading Association Tonga National Museum, 646 Tonga-Now (Web site), 739 Tonga Ridge, 41 Tonga Traditions Committee, 148 Tonga Trench, 41, 53
304
Tongatapu, 20, 28, 32, 63–4, 66, 70, 78, 198, 207, 294 agriculture, 95, 562, 570–1, 578, 607 archaeology, 105 civil war, 76 Cook, visits by, 72–3, 77 economy, 541 Erskine, visit by, 71 food distribution, 482 geology, 47, 55 government, 447 health, 399 kinship, 352 Lapita culture, 107–8, 110–1, 123, 125 material culture, 647, 662 migration, 30, 220, 541 population, 545, 548, 570 shellfish, 105 society, 157, 313, 338 Tasman, visit by, 79 Tokaikolo Christian Fellowship, 272 Wilkes, visit by, 76 women, 300 Tongololeka, 390 toponymy. See names tourism, 40, 67, 330, 479, 506–7, 575 guides, 63, 65–6, 68, 694 impact of, 49, 62, 67, 276, 485, 557, 584, 647, 662 income from, 62, 165, 484–5, 557, 573, 639 and tradition, 2, 430 trade, 17, 39, 40, 145, 194, 485, 501, 505, 563, 690, 713 exports, 39, 484, 489, 499–500, 518, 541, 607 (see also agriculture) imports, 39, 482, 484, 505–7, 525, 541, 591, 600 (see also food) international, 2, 73, 134–6, 190, 230, 489, 491 law, 460, 466 local, 132, 141, 159 policy, 486 prehistoric, 120 trade unions, 430 traders, 134–6, 146, 151, 190
Index of Subjects
tradition, 9, 153, 174, 272, 312, 367, 669 and communication, 700 role in politics, 430, 451, 454 See also customs; politics; society tradition, oral. See oral tradition training. See education, vocational transgenderism, 346, 357 translation, 618 See also bilingual texts transport, 17, 146, 194, 441, 460, 501, 690 transvestism, 306 travel. See tourism; voyages Treaty of Friendship and Protection (1900), 160, 227, 229 tribute, 132, 212 tsunamis, 24, 52 tuberculosis, 388 Tu‘i Fefine, 224 Tu‘i Ha‘atakalaua, 70, 213, 714 Tu‘i Kanokupolu, 30, 149, 191, 211, 213, 376–7, 714 Tu‘i Lau. See Ma‘afu, Eneli Tu‘i Tonga, 165, 204–5, 212, 298, 335, 714, 716 foundation myths, 113, 115, 295, 309, 329, 379 and kava ceremony, 295, 376–7 lineage, 122, 132, 140–2, 149, 154, 159, 213, 224, 358, 645 Tuku‘aho, 211 tumours, 424 tuna, 589 Tungî Mailefihi (William Tupoulahi), 224–5, 234, 358, 714 Tupou College, 148, 598 Tupou Posesi Fanua. See Fanua, Tupou Posesi Tupouto‘a, Crown Prince, 28, 474 twins, 397 typhoid, 422 ‘Ulukâlala, 318, 645 ‘Ulukâlala, Finau. See Finau ‘Ulukâlala unemployment, 493, 528–9, 576, 607 Union (ship), 195 United States of America. See USA
Index of Subjects
universities, 595, 714 University of the South Pacific, 593, 601, 623, 729–30 urbanization, 48, 54, 276, 482, 534, 551, 565, 607, 716 USA migrants, 532, 535–6, 543, 549–50, 734 military presence, 217–8, 232, 474, 534, 632 nuclear testing, 474 Peace Corps, 7, 237 relations with, 139, 217, 218, 232, 475 USSR, 475–8 ‘Uvea language, 208 relations with, 187, 199, 208 Tongan missionaries to, 183 Vaea, Nanasipau‘u, 645 Vaiola Hospital, 395, 400, 424 values, traditional, 2, 18, 54, 144, 328, 412, 534, 646, 743 vanilla, 315, 455, 497, 506, 554–5, 559, 565, 568, 573, 575–6 Vason, George, 70, 194, 714 Vava‘u, 7, 28, 30–1, 70–1, 74, 90, 167, 228 agriculture, 497, 555, 571, 573, 581 economy, 361, 464, 524 flora, 90 geology, 47, 55 government and politics, 440, 447 illness and death, 189, 426 land tenure, 464 material culture, 647, 662 migration, 550 missionaries, 167, 198 music, 670 population, 545 travel, 8, 61, 63–4, 68 villages, 336 women, 300 Vava‘u Press, 696 venereal disease, 232 Vete, Vili, 621 videos, 694
305
villages, 336, 338, 453, 562 economy, 509, 524–5, 530, 560, 571 land tenure, 325, 527, 571 settlement, 56, 527 society, 290, 293, 313, 323, 365, 509 violence, domestic, 412 vocabulary, 69, 73, 78, 235, 253, 256, 263, 618–9 See also dictionaries; names volcanic islands, 42–3, 47, 52–3, 59, 114 voyages, 61, 716, 723 historical, 71–9 Wallis Island. See ‘Uvea war clubs, 635–6, 649, 661 warfare, 157, 194, 299, 355 kava ceremony, 377 waste disposal, 17, 44, 48–9 water, 17, 38, 44, 48–9, 300, 441, 501 watermelons, 506, 554, 572, 576 wealth, 291, 501, 513 traditional, 312, 490, 525, 530, 540, 645, 664 women, 490, 513, 664 weapons, 210, 635–7, 642, 649, 661, 742 weather, 36, 38–9 See also climate; cyclones; earth quakes; tsunamis Web sites. See Internet weddings, 141, 313, 323, 645, 694 See also marriage Wesleyan Missionary Society, 198 Wesleyans. See churches Western Pacific High Commission archives, 161 wetlands, 37 whales and whaling, 136, 138, 590, 592 Wheeler, Daniel, 166 Wilkes, Captain Charles, 76 Willis, Bishop Alfred, 170 Wilson, Captain James, 75, 194 women, 33–4, 540 business and economy, 324, 481, 488, 490, 513, 579 and children, 292, 294 (see also childbirth; children; family, planning)
306
church and theology, 184, 274, 276, 279 in the economy, 579 legal rights, 34, 329, 469 in politics, 430 role, 33–4, 106, 196, 297, 311, 314, 335, 342, 576, 579 status, 33–4, 308–10, 319, 324, 329, 342, 368, 669
Index of Subjects
Women-in-Law Association, 34 World War One, 228 World War Two, 217–8, 232, 534, 632 writers, 623 yams cultivation, 558, 561–2, 570, 572 religious significance, 280, 298, 329 youth, 276, 326, 529