A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF TONGA. I. THE BORDERLAND OF MYTH. This tiny SEEING that the past is the key to the present, I was at some pains to learn the history of Tonga. kingdom of 20,000 people, inhabiting widely scattered islands, but speaking the same language, intermarrying, and obeying the same Government, boasted so complicated a social polity that its history, as an illustration of the growth of human institutions, is worthy of study for its own sake. Until the introduction of Christianity swept away the old beliefs and the institutions that depended on them, there were in Tonga a spiritual and a temporal king. The former-the Tui Tonga-was lord of the soil, and enjoyed divine honours in virtue of his immortal origin; but he had an ever-diminishing share in the government, and he could take no part in any civil quarrel. His sole duty was to absolve his subjects from the penalties of the broken tabu, and to take the good things provided for him without descending into the arena of political strife: he was, in fact, the heaven-appointed sovereign in a limited monarchy. The temporal king- the Tui Kanokubolu was the irresponsible sovereign of the people, wielding absolute power of life and death over his subjects, and was charged with the burden of the civil government and the ordering of the tribute due to the gods and their earthly representative, the Tui Tonga. None but the son or grandson of a Tui Tonga could succeed to that dignity, and his mother must be the daughter of the Tui Kanokubolu. The temporal king was therefore always grandfather or uncle of the Tui Tonga. Thus was the blood kept pure. Although the Tui Tonga had no executive functions, yet, as representative on earth of the immortals, he was environed with the most rigid tabu. As it would be inconvenient to multiply personages of such transcendent rank, his wife was always taken from him after having borne him two children. Her son was the heir, but her daughter attained an even higher rank than her father or brother. She was the Tui Tonga fefine (female Tui Tonga), and even her father must bow to her for absolution of the tabu. No mortal might aspire to marriage with her, but she might, without loss of dignity, have children, and her daughter, if she had one, became the Tamaha the highest earthly dignity. Neither her mother nor her grandfather, to whom all others paid homage, could eat in her presence, nor neglect to per THE BORDERLAND OF MYTH. 293 form the moëmoë 1 by embracing her feet when they left her. These higher dignities, however, were a superstructure built of the high estimation in which women were held upon the fundamental idea of the divine affinity of the Tui Tonga. The key to this belief is to be found in the epic of Kau-ulu-fonua, from whose reign Tongan history may be said to date.2 The following is an unworthy prose version of the story: In days of old the Tui Tonga was lord of all Tonga― lord of the soil and of the men, and of the first-fruits; and to no other chief was tribute paid but to the Tui Tonga only. He received tribute from Haapai, from Haafulu hao,3 from Niuafo'ou, from Niua-tobutabu,5 from 1 A salute paid to the highest chief present. The person performing it sits cross-legged before him, and bows the head until the forehead touches the sole of the chief's foot, and then brushes the foot first with the palm and then with the back of each hand. After touching a chief's person the moëmoë must be performed on pain of the liver swelling up and causing death. As they are subject to scrofulous diseases, which they attribute to an unwitting breach of the tabu, they used to perform the moëmoë frequently from motives of caution, without reference to any special tabu they had broken. 2 Circa 1535. There are fragmentary traditions of an earlier time when the Tongans were in a lower social state, and cannibalism was practised. A colony from Tonga founded a powerful clan in Mangaia (Cook Islands) before the end of the fifteenth century, and it is probable that Pylstaart was peopled from Tonga before the sixteenth century; but the names of the kings before Kau-ulu-fonua are unreliable (vide Appendix I.), and the traditions are too disconnected to be classed in their proper sequence. The old men who stored up these traditions have passed away, and it cannot now be hoped that the records of the dim past will ever be rescued from oblivion. 3 Vava'u. 4 Boscawen Island. 5 Keppel's Island. 1 And Uvea, from Futuna, and even from Haamoa 3 and the far islands to the North. No man knows whence he derived his power, unless indeed he was a descendant of the gods. themselves, of Tangaloa, of Ikuleo, and of Mau'i, but this is hidden in the clouds of the ages. The people of Tonga were so thick in the land that the commands of the king were carried from one end of the land to the other, the people lying on their mats and shouting the message one to the other. It was the time of " Fanogonogo Tokoto" (making proclamation when reclining).5 seeing that all men were his slaves, and that the world held none that did not do him homage, the Tui Tonga put heavy burdens upon the people, and made them drag great stones and set them up for a memorial of his greatness; and the people neglected their yam plantations to do the tasks set them by their king, so that there was a great scarcity. And when they hungered they began to cry out against their king, for men are ever hard to govern when their bellies are empty. Now there came a Tui Tonga, named Takalaua, who was strong and harsh, and was greatly feared of the people. Every day he sent out his fishermen from Mua into the bay, and they would land on the islands to arrange their nets. One day they landed on Ata, near Euaiki, and when they sailed the two old people who 1 Wallis Island. 3 Samoa. 2 Hoorn Island. 5 At the time of Tasman's visit in 1643 there seem to have been no villages. The land was highly cultivated and fenced, and each family lived in its own plantation. It is more probable that the Fanogonogo Tokoto referred to this than that the population was ever much greater than at present. THE BORDERLAND OF MYTH. 295 lived on the island went down to the landing-place to see whether perchance they had left anything. They saw a bunch of cocoa-nuts and ran to pick it up, and when they reached the spot they saw lying near it the body of a little new - born child, but the head was like the head of a dove. The old woman took it up gently, and found that it still breathed. She had no children, and she begged her husband to let her adopt it and bring it up as her own; and she took it home and reared it in secret. And as the girl grew up she lost the dove's head, and grew into the fairest woman that was ever born into the world. So fair was she that her foster-parents greatly feared lest some man should see her and take her from them; and they taught her to hide always in the cover of the trees, and to look well abroad before she ventured into the sea to bathe, for great monsters floated on the sea, who, if they saw her, would swallow her up. But the days passed and she saw no one, for Ata was remote from the ways of men, and the fishermen knew it for a barren spot. Now there came a day when the Tui Tonga sent his fishermen, bidding them return with fish, for he hungered for them. But the chief of the fishermen hesitated, saying that the weather was too stormy for their nets, whereat the Tui Tonga grew very wroth, and swore that unless he had fish that day the chief fisherman should die. So they went out into the bay and tried to cast their nets, but each cast was spoiled by the wind and waves, which twisted the net and drove the floats under. And towards evening the chief said, "Let us at least try Ata: perchance the water is smoother there. Let us cast but once, and if we fail, |