The Poetics of Tongan Traditional History, Tala-ē -fonua

The Journal of Pacific History

Volumn 28, Issue 1, 1993, Pages 109-121

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EID: 84972922090     PISSN: 00223344     EISSN: 14699605     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00223349308572730     Document Type: Note

References (80)

1. Marshall Sahlins, Islands of History (Chicago and London 1985), 58.
2. For recent discussions of this issue, see D. J. Mulvaney (ed.), The Humanities and the A ustralian Environment (Canberra 1991).
3. See E. W. Gifford, Tongan Myths and Tales (Honolulu 1924, repr. New York 1971), 103–19, for accounts of celestial bodies.
4. See I. FutaHelu, Tongan poetry: Faikava: A Tongan Literary Journal, 1 (1978), 21–5;
5. idem, ‘Laumatanga, Pride of Locality, in Tongan Ta'anga’, paper presented to a conference at the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, 1986.
6. I. F. Helu, pers. comm., 1985;
7. see also Adrienne L. Kaeppler, ‘Folklore as expressed in the dance in Tonga’, Journal of American Folklore, 80 :316 (1967), 160-8.
8. The concept of lau ‘otu (lit. counting row) is said to have originated in Lapaha, Mu'a, where dance was organised in semicircular form. Its formation was hierarchically based, beginning with the highest ranking dancers in the front rows, followed by rank in intermediary and back positions. This was to enable the Tu i Tonga and his sister, Tu'i Tonga Fefine (Female Tu'i Tonga), while both being entertained, to sit opposite each other because of the brother-sister prohibition. Malakava [Kavaefiafi], ‘Faiva'; Helu, pers. comm. 1988.
9. Enclosure-[of-the]-conqueror: Residence of Ngata, the first Tu'i Kanokupolu (King [of-the] flesh-[of]-'Upolu), situated close to the village of Kanokupolu in Hihifo, western Tongatapu. Ngata's mother was Tohu'ia, daughter of'Ama of Safata, a village on the island of'Upolu in Samoa. Elizabeth Bott, with the assistance of Tavi, Tongan Society at the Time of Captain Cook's visits: Discussions with Her Majesty Queen Salote Tupou (Wellington 1982), 113;
10. E. W. Gilford, Tongan Society (Honolulu 1929, repr. New York 1971), 87;
11. Ula [Taufanau), ‘Tola Faka-fonua'; A. H. Wood, A History and Geography of Tonga (Auckland 1943, repr. Wodonga 1972), 11.
12. Symbolic name for the Tu'i Kanokupolu, hence Pangai (Ha'apai) and Pangai (Nuku'alofa); in fact, the Tu'i Kanokupolu major ceremonies are called Faka-Pangai ([In-the]-Style-[of]-Pangai). Originally Pangai was a place in Kanokupolu in Hihifo, western Tongatapu, where the koka tree, under which the investiture of Tu'i Kanokupolu was performed, stood. Leha'uli, interview, 1988; Mafimalanga, interview, 1988; Ula [Taufanau], ‘Tala Faka-fonua'; Wood, History and Geography, 12.
13. ‘Alotolu: Rowers-[of]-three; also known as Ha'amonga'amaui {Ha'amonga/[Ha'amo'anga]-'a-maui/[Maui}; lit. Burden/[Carrying-stick]-of-maui/[Maui]): ‘the belt of Orion'. Kik Velt, Stars over Tonga: Ko e Ngaahi Fetu'u ‘o Tonga (Nuku'alofa 1990), 100.
14. The Ha'amonga-'a-Maui trilithon, grand gateway to the Tu'i Tonga imperial centre at Heketa in Niutoua, was probably named after this celestial navigational object. This may be related to the fact that Tu'itatui's two sons, Talatama and Talaiha'apepe, 12th and 14th Tu'i Tonga, had a love for sailing and boat racing; and the two famous kalia of the imperia [fleet were called ‘Akiheuho (Wake-to-kava-roots/kava drinking) and Tongafuesia (Tonga-[the]-carrier-[of]-burden). Gifford, Tongan Myths and Tales, 30; Leha'uli, interview, 1988; Mafimalanga, interview, 1988; Ula [Taufanau], Tala Faka-fonua. However, the names of the royal gateway and the two boats were probably symbolic of the oppressive nature of Tu'itatui's reputedly despotic rule.
15. Ma'afu-[the]-runner: ‘the large Magellanic cloud'. Velt, Stars over Tonga, 101.
16. Wild Duck: Southern Cross (see ibid. 100).
17. A. kind of fish: Southern Fish; ‘the Coalsack'. Ibid., 100.
18. Ma'afu-[the]-lying-down/[the defeated]: ‘the small Magellanic cloud'. Ibid., 102.
19. Gifford, Tongan Society, 105; Ula (Taufanau], Tala Faka-fonw.
20. Leha'uli, interview, 1988;
21. Mafimalanga, interview, 1988; Ula [Taufanau], Tala Faka-fonua.
22. Lafoa'i, pers. comm., 1990;
23. Richard M. Moyle, ‘Samoan medical incantations’, Journal of the Polynesian Society, 83 (1974), 155–79.
24. See, e.g., E.E.V. Collocott, Tales and Poems of Tonga (Honolulu 1928); Gifford, Tongan Myths, among others.
25. Marshall Sahlins, Historical Metaphors and Mythical Realities: Structure in the Early History of the Sandwich Islands Kingdom (Ann Arbor 1981), 72; see also idem, Islands of History.
26. ‘I. Futa Helu, Tongan Oral Culture (Tala-e-fonuaY’, Tongan Culture lectures, University of the South Pacific, Tonga, 1972; Ula [Taufanau], ‘Tala Faka-fonua.
27. ‘I. Futa Helu, ‘Laumatanga, Pride of Locality, in Tongan Ta'anga’, conference paper presented at the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, 1986.
28. Also see examples of this genre in Collocott, Tales and Poems, 65–73;
29. E. W. Gifford, Tongan Place Names (Honolulu 1923), 5–19.
30. See Finau O. Kolo and Okusitino Mahina, ‘The role of social symbolism in Tongan Taanga’, Faikava: A Tongan Literary Journal, 9 (Dec. 1983), 16–22.
31. ‘I. Futa Helu, ‘Tongan poetry: I’, Faikava: A Tongan Literary Journal, 1 (Apr. 1978), 23; Malukava [Kavaefiafi], ‘Faiva'.
32. See I. Futa Helu, ‘Thinking of a psychotic’, paper presented to a conference on ‘Thinking*, Harvard University, 1984, where he discusses a traditional form of Tongan mental illness, ‘avanga, manifesting a variety of neuroses and psychoses suffered mostly by unmarried virgin girls, which he attributes to a clash between basic natural urges and an oppressive social environment.
33. See Collocott, Tales andPoems, 63–128;
34. Gifford, Tongan Place Names;
35. Gifford, Tongan Myths and Tales, 88–102.
36. Tales, poems and place names are connected with specific geographic features. (Cf. The Tahitian folk hero Hiro, the king of the purple sea, who imprinted his deeds on some parts of the Tahitian landscape. See Deryck Scarr, The History of the Pacific Islands: Kingdoms of the Reefs (Melbourne 1990), 54.)
37. Principal residence of the Tu'i Tonga in Lapaha; symbolic of the Tu'i Tonga. ‘Olotele also occurs in Samoa (Olotele, a mountain in Tutu'ila) and Hawaii (Olokele, a mountain in Maui). Gifford, Tongan Society, 71.
38. See Sione Latukefu, ‘Oral traditions: an appraisal of their value in historical research in Tonga’, Journal of Pacific History, 3 (1968), 135–43.
39. On the issue of the relations between oral traditions and history see, e.g., Kenneth Brown and Michael Roberts (eds), ‘Using oral sources: Vansina and beyond’, Social Analysis: Journal of Cultural and Social Practice, 4 (1980);
40. Scarr, The History, 52–72;
41. Jan Vansina, Oral Tradition: A Study in Historical Methodology, trans. H. M. Wright (London 1965).
42. For the case of Polynesia, at least before the rise of modern archaeology and linguistics in the 1940s, see, for instance, Martha Beckwith, ‘Polynesian mythology’ Journal of the Polynesian Society, 49/193 (1940), 19–35;
43. Edwin G. Burrows, ‘Culture-areas in Polynesia’, Journal of the Polynesian Society, 48/195 (1940), 349–63;
44. (Catherine Luomala, ‘Documentary research in Polynesian mythology’, Journal of the Polynesian Society, 49/194 (1940), 175–95;
45. idem, ‘Notes on the development of Polynesian hero-cycles’, Journal of the Polynesian Society, 49/195 (1940), 367–74;
46. idem, Maui-of-a-Thousand Tricks: His Oceanic and European Biographers (Honolulu 1949).
47. ‘I. Futa Helu, ‘Traditional history’, lecture, Centre for Pacific Studies, Auckland University, 1990.
48. See Finau O. Kolo, ‘Historiography: the myth of indigenous authenticity’, in Phyllis Herda, Jennifer Terrell and Niel Gunson (eds), Tongan Culture and History (Canberra 1990), 1–11.
49. See Gitford, Tongan Myths, 8–43;
50. Phyllis Herda, ‘The transformation of the traditional Tongan polity: a genealogical consideration of Tonga's past’, PhD thesis, Australian National University (Canberra 1988), 17–32;
51. Okusitino Mahina, ‘Religion, politics and the Tu'i Tonga empire’, MA thesis, Auckland University (Auckland 1986), 187;
52. idem, ‘Myths and history: some aspects ofhistory in the Tu'i Tonga myths’, in Herda, Terrell and Gunson, Tongan Culture and History;
53. F. X. Reiter, ‘Tradions tonguiennes’, Anthropos, 2 (1907), 230–40;
54. Noel Rutherford (ed.), Friendly Islands: A History of Tonga (Melbourne 1977), 1–2.
55. See Jens Poulsen, ‘Archaeology and prehistory’, in Rutherford, Friendly Islands, 4–26;
56. Dirk H. R. Spenne-mann, ‘ata ‘a Tonga mo ‘ata ‘o Tonga: early and later prehistory of the Tongan Islands’, PhD thesis, Australian National University (Canberra 1989).
57. See Herda, ‘The transformation’, 19:
58. Mahina, ‘Religion, polities’, 187;
59. idem, ‘Myths and history’, 34.
60. See John Martin, A n A ccount of the Natives of the Tonga Islands. from the extensive communications of Mr William Mariner, Several Years Resident in Those Islands (Vava'u 1981), II, 298–9;
61. Ula [Taufanau], ‘Tola Faka-fonua; Wood, A History and Geography, 3.
62. See Sione Latukefu, Church and State in Tonga (Canberra 1974), 22–3;
63. Martin, An Account, I, 62–3.
64. Leha'uli, interview, 1988;
65. Mafimalanga, interview, 1988; Ula [Taufanau], ‘Tala Faka-fonua.
66. Wood, A History and Geography, 5.
67. Mortimer J. Adler and Seymour Cain, Religion and Theology (Chicago 1961). 2–14;
68. George Grey, Polynesian Mythology and Ancient Traditional History of the New Zealand Race (Auckland 1885), 1–9.
69. Wood, A History and Geography, 66–7.
70. See Gifford, Tongan Myths, 71–5, 181 -95 for examples of the ecological myths such as myths of the origins of the kava plant and coconut palm (niu).
71. Tupou Posesi Fanua, ‘Koe Tata ‘o e Toutai Kui/The Blind Navigator’, Faikava, No. 4 (Dec. 1979), 3–5, 15-17. I have not come across any other written account of this story, although it is common knowledge among some Tongans who have featured such an incident in poetry and oratory.
72. See ‘Opeti Manisela Taliai, 'social differentiation of language levels in Tonga’, MA thesis, Auckland University (Auckland 1989).
73. For accounts of Pulotu see, e.g., Collocott, Tales and Poems, 12–17;
74. Giflbrd, Tongan Myths, 153–78 ;
75. Leha'uli, interview, 1988; Mafimalanga, interview, 1988, Martin, An Account, II, 298–314; Ula [Taufanau], ‘Tala Faka-fonua’ among others.
76. Wood, A History and Geography, 66.
77. See GifFord, Tongan Myths, 43–4;
78. idem, Tongan Society, 52; Leha'uli, interview, 1988; Mafimalanga, interview, 1988; Ula [Taufanau], ‘Tata Faka-fomm'.
79. Gifford, Tongan Society, 53; Leha'uli, interview, 1988; Mafimalanga, interview, 1988; Ula [Taufanau], ‘Tola Faka-fonw'.
80. Leha'uli, interview, 1988; Mafimalanga, interview, 1988; Ula [Taufanau], ‘Tata Faka-fonua'.