A royal progress

In the 1970s, Dunedin-born journalist and author Neville Peat undertook a Volunteer Service Abroad assignment  with the weekly newspaper The Tonga Chronicle — it was, he says, "a cavalcade of Tongan life and times". In this  essay he portrays a tropical kingdom that would be devastated by volcano and tsunami five decades later.

THE LAST POLYNESIAN MONARCHY

A month after my arrival in Tonga in July 1974, King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV called a summit meeting of South Pacific leaders in Nuku’alofa to discuss regional air services. From Fiji, Samoa, the Cook Islands and Nauru they came. As Fiji’s Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamasese Mara told me in an interview, "The mountain has come to Mohammed". He wasn’t joking. Tonga is a cradle of early Polynesian settlement in the Pacific. Archaeological evidence and linguistics paint a sketchy picture of Southeast Asian ancestors boldy voyaging eastwards across Oceania’s high seas about 3000 years ago accompanied by domesticated plants (coconut, taro, yam, breadfruit and banana) and animals (pig, dog, chicken and, deliberately or accidentally, rat), in the course of which they settled Fiji, Tonga and Samoa.

The proto-Polynesians included the Lapita people, who brought pottery skills with them — Lapita ware, which has distinctive curved lines, zig-zag patterns and smoothed-over joints because their pots were not fashioned on a potter’s wheel but built up from slabs of clay. Ceramic skills died out in Polynesia by about the time of Christ, before the radiation of Polynesians to the hugely distant margins of East Polynesia — Hawaii, Rapanui Easter Island and Aotearoa New Zealand. Vestiges of Lapita pottery and culture have turned up in Tonga.

Lapita culture was strong on chieftainship, which did persist in the archipelago of Tonga. In the ninth century AD, the Tu’i Tonga dynasty emerged. Legend has it that this royal lineage started when the god Tangaloa came to Earth and had a son, Aho’eitu, with a human mother. Tongan society subsequently became highly organised and ranked, and royal bloodlines were carefully managed through arranged marriages. Below royalty were chiefs (today’s nobles) and elders with specialised skills, including navigators and priests, then came the commoners. Women often had high status.

Tupou IV, as the title suggests, was the fourth Tu’i Tonga monarch. In this dynasty, longevity is nothing short of remarkable. King George Tupou I was baptised and anointed king as a child in 1798 and reigned for 95 years, during which time he introduced a new set of laws to unite a nation torn by civil war. During his reign, Tonga gained, in 1875, a constitution, flag, anthem and state seal. Schooling was compulsory, and land was not to fall into the hands of foreigners. Colonisers take note!

After Tupou I died in 1893, Tonga was led by King George Tupou II for 25 years, then by Queen Salote Tupou III for 47 years till her death in 1965. Queen Salote was a sensation, at home and overseas. She reinforced Tongan cultural life through improved education and health facilities. In the course of her reign she acquired, as one historian put it, "the aura of statesmanship". During the 1953 coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in England, she famously rode in an open carriage despite rain falling on the parade. Salote was very much a people’s monarch.

And so to His Majesty Taufa’ahau Tupou IV, her son. He may not have had his mother’s compelling personality but after 10 years as sovereign, when I met him, he had made his mark. His physical presence is what you noticed first — 6ft 5in tall (1.95cm) and weighing close to 200kg. It’s hard to imagine him, during his school and university years in Australia, as a well-performing athlete, pole-vaulting being one of his specialities.

I had several meetings with him during my year in Tonga. At one of the first audiences I had, he extolled the merits of a German sport called handball, a curious mix of netball, basketball and soccer codes. He’d introduced handball in 1971 following a state visit to Germany. Forewarned about his size, the Germans built a wide, robust chair for His Majesty, who was so proud of the chair he took it home. A good swimmer, Tupou IV also introduced surfing to Tonga, with an outrageously large board.

At the University of Sydney he studied law, the first Tongan to gain a university degree. But linguistics was a passion. I was aware the Polynesian languages, like the people, had their origins in Southeast Asia so I wasn’t too surprised when the king told me he had found 39 Indo-Malayan words that were common to Tongan as well as most other Polynesian languages, words such as mata (eye) and talinga (ear).

Throughout the Tu’i Tonga era, the monarchs have welcomed dealings with other nations — James Cook dubbed the archipelago the Friendly Isles — so long as the foreigners respected Tongan sovereignty. Attempts by the French, Spanish and German to colonise Tonga were rebuffed. Even the British had to accept Tonga’s monarchy was staunch, well supported at home and not open to selling land. Treaties of Friendship were signed with Germany in 1876 and Britain in 1900, the latter deal morphing into protectorate status whereby Britain agreed to defend Tonga’s independence as a self-governing island nation. It could be described as part of the British Empire but in name only. Meanwhile, the Polynesian nations surrounding Tonga — Fiji, Samoa, Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau — were all colonised.

As for how democracy worked in the 1970s, the centre of attention was Tonga’s Parliament, formally known as the Legislative Assembly. It met in a small, unpretentious wooden building downtown. Royalty and nobility dominated representation; always had. Tonga’s 90,000 citizens, two-thirds of whom lived on Tongatapu, were represented by seven seats in the Legislative Assembly and there was an equal number of seats for the nobles, all 33 of them. Sessions were usually presided over by a royal or noble appointee, typically the Prime Minister. Parliamentary reform would not happen until the 21st century.

Land ownership and land use seemed to be set in their ways. The royal family and nobility owned more than a third of Tonga’s land area. These were large estates scattered through the three main groups of islands — flat Tongatapu and nearby high-rise ‘Eua, Ha’apai’s low-lying coral atolls and, further north, a mix of volcanic peaks, atolls and lagoons of the Vava’u group. Traditionally, when boys reached the age of 16 they acquired an allotment (’api) of about eight acres (3.2ha) for cash crops and subsistence food production. By the 1970s, however, ’api land was in short supply. Soon, none would be left to allocate.

Every year agricultural productivity was showcased all over the kingdom when His Majesty and Queen Mata’aho embarked on a circuit of Royal Agricultural Shows. I was invited to join the tour and report on the shows for the Tonga Chronicle. We would sail as far as Tonga’s northern outlier, Niuatoputapu, which is closer to Samoa than it is to Tongatapu.

Let the voyage begin ...

SHOW TIME

With a royal entourage of 80 boarding the tug Hifofua at Nuku’alofa’s port, cabin space is hard to come by. So I opt to park my sleeping bag in a space that had built-in air-conditioning — under the lifeboat on the port side. I’m not the only occupant of this space. An elderly Tongan man, a distinguished "matapule", has cornered a patch of the same piece of deck. Turns out he is a traditional navigator, here by royal command. His name is ’Ula Matatoa and he is descended, no doubt, from the Polynesian navigator class who guided the first humans to settle these islands. I am in awe of him, and not a little puzzled as to whether a traditional navigator stationing himself so close to a lifeboat has anything to do with the seaworthiness of the vessel. She’s been spruced up and pressed into service for two weeks’ cruising around Tonga’s Royal Agricultural Shows.

For luggage, ’Ula has a worn green suitcase bound by string in case the rusted locks fail. He reaches out to touch my hand and bare arms like he knows me somehow. He sits on a mat of woven pandanus with decorated bark-cloth tapa as a blanket. This is his 15th royal assignment at sea. Before the present king, he says, he accompanied Queen Salote to symbolise the navigator tradition. I doubt he will need to go to the bridge on this voyage.

Under the lifeboat I am an arm’s reach from a set of steel steps rising steeply to what would ordinarily be the tug’s auxiliary flying bridge. On this voyage, it doubles as a royal compartment. A green tarpaulin has been rigged over the flying bridge for Their Majesties, who are already ensconced. At least it saves them the embarrassment of having to negotiate narrow companionways. A soldier or occasionally a manservant is on duty by the steps round the clock to monitor visitors.

The sea is calm as we set sail north. When I wake early next morning, no land in view, the royal breakfast is being delivered from the galley on a silver tray by a manservant who looks as if he does body-building. I can see porridge on the tray, and a side plate of golden pawpaw. At the foot of the steps, the big servant kicks off rubber jandals almost large enough to waterski with, and climbs up to the royal billet.

Passing the volcanic pyramid islands of Kao and Tofua — the latter of Captain William Bligh (mutiny on HMS Bounty) fame — we sight a frisky whale, a humpback, and push on for Niuatoputapu. Little does it know it’s running a gauntlet of hand-held harpoons in these waters, for Tonga is one of the few places left in the world where men still hunt whales in open boats.

It’s a long way to the northernmost reaches of the kingdom. I’m told Crown Prince Tupouto’a has never been to Niuatoputapu. Around 4 o’clock next morning, warm rain mixed with sea spray flush ’Ula and I from our lifeboat bivvy. From where I take shelter I glimpse His Majesty through a gap in the tarpaulin. Dressed in green pyjamas, he is seated at a desk, reading under a lamp. Perhaps at this dark early hour it’s the Bible. Apparently, sea sickness is not keeping him up. ’Ula says he is a fine sailor.

Before dawn our hilly destination is breaking the horizon and by the end of breakfast we are hove to outside the reef, awaiting transhipment ashore through a natural channel, narrow and zig-zagging. Niuatoputapu has been promised a safer man-made channel and in a small boat with outboard motor, the king is taken to see the site — no mean feat given his size and weight. A huge steel-framed seat with royal-red vinyl coverings is positioned in the middle of the boat, a servant behind it holding a black umbrella that always goes with him, rain or shine. The royal party is accompanied by two roofless white Mini Mokes, royal land transport.

Onshore, the first local I speak to is a small boy who approaches shyly. "Malo e lelei," I say ("good day"). He replies in English with a rapid mouthful of words, "Hello, bye-bye, morning tea!", then runs away, giggling, having exhausted most of his remembered English. Somehow, palangi foreigners and morning tea were linked in his mind.

Niuatoputapu’s link with Lapita culture puts it on a pedestal — a pivotal point for humanity’s Polynesian race. From islands in this part of the South Pacific, a couple of thousand years ago, they voyaged far to the east, north and south to eventually occupy an expanse of the planet’s surface larger than that of any other race. The thought takes the breath away.

But in a community of 1500 who call this 7km-long island home, a community so far from big centres of population, what does agriculture look like? The royal show that day suggests it doesn’t amount to much; 12 horses, two pigs and half a dozen goats are the only animals on show, and food crops are thinly arrayed around the showground perimeter. Word has it the turn-out is a people’s protest against an unpopular governor of the island. So upset about the governor were they, a crowd lining the streets diverted the Mini Moke royal party away from a scheduled stop at the governor’s residence. It took competitive basket-weaving and coconut-husking events to jolt some vitality into the show. Then came the finale, prize-giving: best banana crop, biggest taro, finest copra, tidiest ’api. His Majesty personally dished out the awards, wearing a dazzling white tunic almost bursting at the collar and a traditional woven mat belted above his waist.

At the wharf the people paid homage to their monarch in the form of four large pigs and a stack of kava roots. Alive and kicking, the pigs were tethered on deck, further restricting sleeping space for the overnight journey to Vava’u.

Cliffed islands and deep-water channels mark the approach to Vava’u and its sheltered capital, Neiafu. It is a hot, windless Sunday, the first of three days of programmed activity, and no day for a boisterous welcome. Only a royal visit could justify exuberance on the Sabbath. We are welcomed by a brass band, members of which could be seen running to the wharf carrying their gleaming instruments. We’ve arrived two hours early.

There follows next day a prolonged kava welcome ceremony, and I am more or less ordered to sit cross-legged for 90 minutes in the front row with local elders and their wives. It’s hot. Their Majesties are seated on special chairs, shaded by a tent. Queen Mata’aho fans the king, who is stoic behind sunglasses. Later, he gets to open a new school building in town, even though there is clearly still work to be done on it.

In Vava’u, where the people have been described as the kingdom’s Irish, you make the most of a royal visit. Show Day is all about farm animals and crops, traditional dancing and drumming, a morning tea resplendent with home baking and lemonade, and lunch featuring crayfish and crab. Before departure next day Vava’u turns on demonstration games of the new seven-a-side sport of handball, clearly to impress its biggest fan, His Majesty. At the wharf for the farewell are spirited male dancers and the brass band whose quirky repertoire includes Waltzing Matilda. The New Zealanders on board are not impressed. What does impress as we sail south through the many islands of the Vava’u group is an impromptu call at a tiny island, Nuku, a traditional royal swimming and picnic spot.

Some soldiers and I swim ashore and light two fires on the coral sand. The queen lands with her attendants from the ship’s boat and we sit apart in two groups, the soldiers and me around one fire and the queen’s party around the other. More or less in silence, we drink in the still, velvet evening air and the islet’s special charm. An electrical storm flashes without sound on the northern horizon, then Venus rises, almost bright enough to be the moon. The queen sends over to our fire some leftover crayfish and pure-white royal yam, which is of finer texture and taste than the run-of-the-mill variety. Across the water on the nearby inhabited island of Kapa, a line of fires is lit in salute of the royal visitors, an ancient practice. Two boatloads of villagers approach Hifofua and add to the tribute with songs under lamplight. When the moon appears in Venus’ track, full and strong, the lamps are superfluous.

Next morning, it’s Ha’pai’s show. Platoons of marching girls strut their stuff to the martial music of an occasionally off-key brass band, and there’s an equestrian event of sorts. There’s also a downpour halfway through the programme that forces us to take our morning tea under coconut-palm shelters that drip incessantly. The fancy china has been brought out, with silver teaspoons, and the mud underfoot is what you put up with in a cloudburst in the tropics.

Soon the tour will be over and King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV will return to his office and attend to affairs of state. He might have a Soviet fishing delegation to meet, a Japanese aid offer to consider, or a tour of Europe and the Middle East to plan.

And old ’Ula will return to his school-teacher role at a Nuku’alofa high school, happy to have served his monarch one more time and in doing so continue a navigator tradition going back millennia.

Neville Peat’s next book will focus on islands in the New Zealand marine realm that figured in his work as a journalist or publicist, ranging from the tropical atolls of Tokelau to icy, volcanic Ross Island in the Antarctic.