Humanities and Social Sciences

Anthropology Program

Tongan History Association Newsletter

Vol.2 No.2, February 1991

Next THA Conference

Dr. Sione Latukefu, President of THA, has postponed the Hawaii conference until May 1992. Dr. Eric Shumway has agreed to handle arrangements and is presently organizing a local committee to plan the conference. The conference will be held at Brigham Young University, Laie, Hawaii. Brigham Young University is delighted to host the 1992 THA conference, Dr. Shumway writes. "We are anxious to put together an unforgettable program," he says. "We have access to a considerable Tongan community here as well as the Bishop Museum and Polynesian Cultural Center."Dr. Shumway suggests that the conference be scheduled for either the week of May 1823, 1992, or May 2530, l992. If either or both of these times is inconvenient, please write directly to Dr. Eric B. Shumway, Vice President for Academics, Brigham Young University Hawaii Campus, 55220 Kulanui Street, Laie, Hawaii 96762.At the close of the 1990 conference, several suggestions for improving our conferences were made. 1) Edgar Tu'inukuafe proposed that slides, films, and performances be used along with text to make the presentations more interesting. 2) Aletta Biersack suggested that some participants might want to form panels devoted to specific topics, making it possible to provide more indepth treatment of particular aspects of Tongan history and culture. Aletta would like to organize one for the next conference on Tongan religion. The panel would cover aspects of indigenous religion, the relationship between traditional religion and Tongan Christianity, and new religious movements. If you would like to give a paper on this panel at the next conference, please contact her at this address: Aletta Biersack, Dept. of Anthropology, U. of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, USA.The next edition of the THA Newsletter will carry further details about the Hawaii conference and will carry a formal call for papers.

Proceedings of the 1987 THA Conference

The proceedings of the first international Tongan History Conference, held in Canberra in January 1987, are now available in the handsome paperback volume titled TONGAN CULTURE AND HISTORY edited by Phyllis Herda, Jennifer Terrell, and Niel Gunson and published in Canberra by the Department of Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University. Its contents include: F.O. Kolo, "Historiography: the myth of indigenous authenticity"; Niel Gunson, "Tongan historiography: shamanic views of time and history"; Phyllis S. Herda, "Genealogy in the Tongan construction of the past"; `Okusitino Mahina, "Myths and history: some aspects of history in the Tu'i Tonga myths"; Aletta Biersack, "Bood and garland: duality in Tongan history"; Adrienne L. Kaeppler, "Art, aesthetics, and social structure"; Wendy E. Cowling, "Eclectic elements in Tongan folk belief and healing practice"; K. E. James, "Gender relations in Tonga: a paradigm shift"; Dirk H. R. Spennemann, "Changing gender roles in Tongan society: some comments based on archaeological observations"; Caroline Ralston, "Gender relations in Tonga at the time of contact"; Bonnie Maywald, "Women of the lotu: the foundations of Tongan Wesleyanism reconsidered"; Kalapoli Paongo, "The nature of education in preEuropean modern Tonga"; Guy Powles, "The early accommodation of traditional and English law in Tonga"; Elizabeth Wood Ellem, "Chief Justices of Tonga 190540; Wendy E. Cowling, "Motivations for contemporary Tongan migration"; Edgard Tu'inukuafe, "Tongans in New Zealand a brief study"; Siupeli Taliai, "Appendix: Tupou College and the education of women.People wishing to receive a copy should send $A21 or $US25 plus $4 postage and packaging (checks made payable to Department of Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies) to Tongan Culture and History, Department of Pacific and Southeast Asian History, RSPacS, Australian National University, GPO Box 4, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.Edgar Tu'inukuafe is requesting that those who gave a paper at the May 1990 Auckland conference submit their paper to him for publication. Edgar's address is: Pacific Islanders' Educational Resource Centre, 272 Jervois Road, Herne Bay, PO Box 46056, Auckland 2, New Zealand.

Dr. Bott Spillius Named Honorary Member

Dr. Elizabeth Bott Spillius has been named the first honorary member of the Tongan History Association. The letter of award cited Dr. Bott Spillius's "work with Her Majesty Queen Salote Tupou III and the Tonga Traditions Committee from 1958 to 1960. This work has resulted in a series of major publications(with the assistance of Tavi) Tongan Societv at the Time of Captain Cook's Visits: Discussions with Her Maiesty Queen Salote Tupou (1982), "Power and Rank in the Kingdom of Tonga" (1981), and "Psychoanalysis and Ceremony" (1972)"and in the "generous archive" available at the Palace Office, Nuku'alofa, Tonga, and also in Auckland, New Zealand. The letter went on to express the deep gratitude Tongan scholars feel for Dr. Bott Spillius. In a letter to the President of the association, Dr. Sione Latukefu, Dr. Bott Spillius expressed her thanks for the honor. In addition to the honorary membership, Dr. Bott Spillius will receive a copy of Tongan Culture and History (edited by Herda, Terrell, and Gunson [1990]).

Research News

This section will carry information about current research projects and recent awards. If you would like to communicate with other scholars that may have information of use to you, please use this section for that purpose.Dr. Ian Campbell of the Dept. of History, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, expresses interest in foreign aid and contemporary Tongan politics. Dr. Campbell is presently completing a history of Tonga. Address: Dept. of History, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. Glen Crothers of Box Hill North, Victoria, describes himself as a keen collector of books and other materials on Tonga. Address: 79 Heathfield Rise, Box Hill North, Victoria, Australia 3129. Dr. Elizabeth Wood Ellem is interested in the rise of the Tupous and in the history of Parliament. Dr. Richard Moyle of the Dept. of Anthropology, University of Auckland, is interested in the music and oral tradition of Polynesia (especially Western Polynesia) and Aboriginal Australia. Address: Dept. of Anthropology, University of Auckland, Private Bag, Auckland, New Zealand. Dr. Caroline Ralston is working on gender relations in Polynesia from precontact times to the l980s.Address: Dept. of History, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109. Dr. Robert Seaholm is working on Francisco A. Maurelle and Alejandro Malaspina in Vava'u. Special congratulations to Dr. Kerry James, who has just been awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship in the Humanities for 19911992 at the Center for Pacific Island Studies at the University of Hawaii. She will be working on an ethnography of a fishing village in Vava'u.

Book Review Corner

• Gailey, Christine Ward. Kinship to Kingship: Gender, Hierarchy, and State Formation in the Tongan Islands. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1987. (The following is excerpted from a review that will appear in full in the Journal of the Polynesian Society.)
  By Kerry James, Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.

For her research in state formation and gender hierarchy as interrelated developmentswhich involves searching for the beginnings of surplus extraction, the emergence of state institutions, and the associated class formation Gailey considers two periods of Tongan history to be the most important: the two hundred years prior to European contact, roughly from 1450 to 1650, which was characterised by stratified and tensionfraught kinship relations and during which time the extent and strength of the authority of `chiefs' fluctuated; and the two hundred years following contact, especially from the late 1700s on when various processes identified with capitalist colonisation were used by a number of opposed chiefly and nonchiefly groups in ways that militated for and against political centralisation and class formation. She would maintain that relations between men and women shifted dramatically from the late eighteenth to the midtwentieth centuries, precisely the period during whic the class and state structures evident today first emerged (p. 267). Much of the book, such as the lengthy introductory discussion of gender in transition from kinship to class and state formation, and of the quest for origins of the subordination of women, is addressed more to Marxists than to students of Tonga, a tendency reflected also in the selection of ethnographic detail and the list of references. Gailey begins her discussion of Tonga by looking at gender and kinship relations in precontact Tonga. She deals creatively with some perplexities of the kinship system, and attempts to trace the thread of `social authority' emanating from what she terms the `kinshipbased' society through succession disputes, marriage patterns and the various influx of foreigners from Fiji and Samoa into Tongan ranks, the division of labour, exchange and value, and gender relations at the time of contact. In her treatment of these topics Gailey, who has gleaned her data from an extensive search of published and archival material augmented by several months fieldwork in Tonga in 1986, says much that is insightful and imaginative.Especially stimulating is Gailey's reanalysis of the pattern of `generalised exchange' brought about by successive marriages between high chiefly groups and her adumbration of the benefits which accrued as a result to the rank and influence of particular statuses of high ranking women. Perhaps the emphasis swings too far, however, to suggest that women were able to maneouvre these results and the marriage alliances all by themselves. Gailey centres her argument for women's superior rank and power in their relation to objectsthe culturally denoted valuables koloa of Tonga. She asserts `Women were once the only creators of wealth in Tonga' (p. xv) but the only reference for this alarming statementcan one think of any society in which one gender would be the only creators of wealth?is Gifford (1929: 148), who does not say this in my copy. The mistaken conception that `valuables were always superior to things made by men' (p. 97) thus bedevils her argument throughout discussions of exchange and value to much else including `Women's involvement as the sole creators of socially valued products 5effectively prevented the emergence of class relations'. Nevertheless, much that she maintains about changes of meaning, the separation of rank from authority, and the loss of the power of senior sisters to reproduce the preeminent position of chiefs is incontrovertible, although one might argue that the processes belong to somewhat more recent history than Gailey suggests, and have come about through different mechanisms than the one she distinguishes.The last main section concentrates on conversion to capitalism as well as Christianity, commodities, and state formation from the time of early contact to the crusade for Christian civilisation on the part of the missionaries, the creation of class and gender stratification with the setting up of a native kingdom (sic) in the middle of the nineteenth century, changing relations of production with commodities, tribute and forced labour, and, finally, passages on the dialectics of class and state formation. The problem Gailey explores by means of data on Tonga is how prestations to chiefly people can change from reciprocal obligations in a concrete material sense to oneway tribute, with an ideology of reciprocity (p. 248). Because Gailey cannot by definition allow that the dynamics of class formationwhich always involve the emergence of exploitation, the extraction of goods or labour without equivalent compensation over timearose without capital penetration, she cannot allow that the chiefly estate in precontact Tonga exercised many of the prerogatives she associates solely with the modern state although she does insist that much of everyday life today provided by customary activitythe defense of useoriented production, communal property, and kindefined userightshas become politicised as a form of `resistance' . . . to the state institutions. Everywhere there are perceptive gems about Tongan gender and polity in this rich and interesting book but, too often, they end up ritually placed on the altar of a dogma about gender, the subordination of women, and the processes of state formation according to received Marxist dialectical tradition.

• During, Kurt. 1990. Pathways to the Tongan Present (`Uuni Hala ki Tonga he Kuonga ni). Nuku'alofa: Government Printing Department.
  By Aletta Biersack, Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403, USA.

This book is dedicated "to the people of the Kingdom of Tonga and the Pacific Islanders in memory of `Amelia `Alaelupelahi Tupou, Eduard Becker, and August Hettig." `Amelia was the last Tamaha and Edward Becker, the first director of the Tongan branch of the world commercial house J. C. Godeffroy & Sohn, was her husband. Hettig, meanwhile, was a businessman, artist, theater director, and photographer. In the l880s Becker was the Acting Imperial German ConsulGeneral for the South Seas Islands in Apia, Western Samoa. This branch was formally established in 1867 and within a few years had established 26 trading stations throughout the archipelago devoted to the purchase and export of copra. The book's photographs were taken primarily by Becker (for the 186719l6 period) and Hettig (for the 19161970 period). 6The book contains an informative historical preface in both English and Tongan rehearsing the principal events of Tongan history. The author himself is a native of Germany, and the book provides a welcome counterpoint to the numerous historical accounts biased toward the British rather than the German (or the French, for that matter) presence. We learn much about German entrepreneurship in Tonga and the marriages established between predominantly male Germans and female Tongans, Tamaha Amelia's marriage being the most important among these. Professor During draws interesting connections between the political reforms introduced by King George Tupou I, on the one hand, and the growing presence of nonmission European enclaves, on the other. For example, he points out that with the 1862 decree, taxes were instituted, which meant that Tongans had to enter the world market to obtain cash. "This brought foreign traders to Tonga to sell European products and buy the [coconut] oil" (p. 22). Through the photographs, we catch fascinating glimpses of expatriates or papalangis (British and German) married to Tongans.Placed side by side, the photographs often tell an interesting story. For example, we are shown how attire has changed over a period of 100 years or more: from traditional to heavily Europeanized to the interesting mix of styles of the presentday. A section on World War II, containing photographs showing American troops and Tongan volunteers, introduces the reader to a chapter of Tongan history that does not often receive attention, certainly not in a powerful visual way. There is also a miniphotographic essay on the preparation of Tongan tapiocabased bread, captions suggesting that Tongan practices were eventually abandoned in favor of purchasing Western bread and cakes.The photographs themselves are the heart of the volume. While most of us will have seen a good percentage of them in other publications, they have not been assembled in one volume before; and many of them will be new to readers. The photographs and other portraits portray all Tupou reigns and provide in sum a panoramic and varied history of the Friendly Islands. Professor During is planning a glossier version of the same book, with higher quality reproduction, in the near futuresomething we can all look forward to. Copies of the book can be ordered directly from Professor During: PO Box 10l9, Nuku'alofa, Tonga. This reviewer does not know what the present price is.

Recent Publications

Benguigi, MarieClaire Battaille. 1988. "The fish opf Tonga: prey or social partners." Journal of the Polynesian Society 97:18598.

Biersack, Aletta. 1990. "Under the Toa Tree: The Genealogy of the Tongan Chiefs." In J. Siikala, ed., Culture and History in the Pacific. Transactions of the Finnish Anthropological Society No. 27. Helsinki: The Finnish Anthropological Society, pp. 80106.

Campbell, Ian. 1989. "The demise of the Tu'i Kanokupolu: Tonga 17991829." Journal of Pacific History 24: 15063.

Campbell, Ian. 1989. Classical Tongan kingship. Nuku'alofa: `Atenisi University. 7

Campbell, Ian. 1990. "The alleged imperialism of Tupou I." Journal of Pacific ..

Claessen, Henri J., "Tongan traditions: on modelbuilding and historical evidence." Biidragen tot de Taal. Land en Volkenkunde 144:43344.

Dalby, Mark. 1989. The Cocker connection: Yorkshire. Van Diemen's Land. Melbourne. British Columbia. Mexico. Tonga & Michigan. London: The Regency Press.

During, Kurt. 1990. Pathways to the Tongan present (`Uuni hala ki Tonga he kuonga ni). Nuku'alofa: Government Printing Department.

Gunson, Niel. 1990. "The TongaSamoa Connection 17771845. Some observations on the Nature of Tongan Imperialism." The Journal of Pacific History.

James, Kerry. 1988. "O, lead us not into `commoditisation"': Christine Ward Gailey's changing gender values in the Tongan islands. Journal of the Polynesian Society 97:3148.

James, Kerry. 1988. Making Mats and Barkcloth in the Kingdom of Tonga. Suva, Fiji. Text and Pictures. Moyle, Richard. 1987. Tongan music. Auckland: Auckland University Press.

Moyle, Richard. 198788. "Music and religion in Oceania and Australia." In M. Eliade, ed., Encyclopedia of Religion. New York: Macmillan, vol. 10:176 78.

Moyle, Richard. 1988. "Tonga." In H. Touma, ed., Festival traditionaller musik 99, Pazifik. Berlin: Internationales Institut fur Bergleichende Musikstudien, pp. 3239.Poulsen, Jens. 1987. Early Tongan prehistory: the lapita period on Tongatapu and its relationships, 2 vols. Canberra: Department of Prehistory, Research School of Pacific History, Australian National University.

Ralston, Caroline. 1990. "Deceptive dichotomies: private/public and nature/culture. Gender relations in Tonga in the early contact period." Australian Feminist Studies.

Ralston, Caroline. 1990. "Women workers in Samoa and Tonga in the early twentieth century. In Clive Moore et al., eds., Labour in the South Pacific.

Spenneman, D.H.R. 1987. "The potential role of archaeology in the cultural development of the Kingdom of Tonga." In T. Rowlands and D.H. Faka'osi, eds. Tufutufumafua 1987. Nuku'alofa: `Atenisi Institute.

Spennemann, Dirk Hal. R. 1988. Pathways to the Tongan past: an exhibition of three decades of modern archaeology in the Kingdom of Tonga (1957 to 1987). Text by Dirk H.R. Spennemann. Nuku'alofa: Tongan National centre.

Spenneman, D.H.R. "Pandora's Box or Aladdin's Lamp? The role of archaeology in the cultural and economic development of Pacific island countries. Examples from the Kingdom of Tonga." In Cultural Administrators Training Workshop, September 1418, 1987, Apia, Western Samoa, Final Report (Apia, UNESCO Office for the Pacific States, 1988).

Van der Grijp, Paul. "Ideology and social inequality in the Tongan kinship system." Biidragen tot de Taal. Land en Volkenkunde 144:44563. 8

Related works:

Biersack, Aletta, ed. 1991. Clio in Oceania: Toward a Historical Anthropoloqy. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.

Wood Ellem, Elizabeth, ed. 1990. The Church Made Whole: National Conference on Women in the Unitinq Church in Australia. Melbourne: David LoveIl Publishing.

Membership Renewal

That time of year for renewing membership is quickly approaching. Please send a check to Treasure Salote A. Fukofuka, c/o U.S.P. Centre, PO Box 278, Nuku'alofa, Tonga, to cover membership for another year beginning July 1, l991. Thanks!

Membership Information
Name:
Address:
Occupation:
Research Interests:
Current Research:
Recent Publications:
Return to: Aletta Biersack, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, USA.

Return to Newsletter Index

Return to the Tonga Research Association Home Page