After the nobles come the Matabooles, or councillors, who are the companions and advisers of the chiefs, and take their rank from that of the chief to whom they are attached. They are always the heads of families, and are mostly men of mature age and experience, so that their advice is highly valued. The eldest son of a Mataboole is carefully trained to take his father’s place when he dies, and is thoroughly versed in all the rites and ceremonies, the administration of laws, and the many points of etiquette about which the Tongans are so fastidious. He also learns all the traditionary records of his people, and by the time that he is thirty years old or so is perfectly acquainted with his profession. But until his father dies he has no rank, and is merely one of the ordinary gentry, who will now be described.
Last of all those who possess any rank are the gentry, or Mooas. All the sons of Matabooles are Mooas, and act as assistants of the Matabooles, aiding on great ceremonies in managing the dances, distributing food, and so forth. Like their superiors, they attach themselves to the service of some chief, and derive their relative consequence from his rank. As a rule, the Mooas all profess some art, such as canoe building, ivory carving, and superintending funeral rites, in which three occupations the Matabooles also take part. They also preside over the makers of stone coffins, the makers of nets, the fishermen, and the architects, and all these employments are hereditary.
Just as the children and brothers of Matabooles take the next lowest rank, that of Mooa, so do those of Mooas take the next lowest rank, and are considered as Tooas, or plebeians. In this case, however, the eldest son of a Mooa assumes the rank of his father after his death, and is therefore more respected than his brothers, who are regarded like younger sons among ourselves. The Tooas do all the menial work, and act as cooks, barbers, tattooers, club-carvers, and so forth. The two latter occupations, however, as requiring artistic skill, are also practised by Mooas.
It will be seen from this brief sketch how elaborate, and yet how intelligible, is this system of the Tongans, even when complicated with the double grades of spiritual and temporal rank. This respect for rank is carried even into the privacy of home. If, for example, an Egi woman marries a Mataboole, or a Mooa, she retains her original rank, which is shared by all her children, so that both she and her children are superior to the husband and father. He, on his part, has to play a double rôle. He is master in his own house, and his wife submits to him as implicitly as if he were of the same rank as herself. Yet he acknowledges the superior rank both of his wife and children, and, before he even ventures to feed himself with his own hands, he goes through the ceremony of touching the feet of his wife or either of his children, in order to free himself from the tapu.
When the case is reversed, and a man of high rank marries a woman of an inferior station, she does not rise to the rank of her husband, but retains her original station, which is inherited by her children, who, together with herself, have to touch the feet of the husband whenever they eat. They imagine that if they did not do so a terrible sickness would consume them. When Mariner lived among the Tongans, he did not trouble himself about the tapu, much to the horror of the natives, who expected that the offended gods would wreak their vengeance on him. Finding that he suffered no harm, they accounted for the phenomenon by the fact that he was a white man, and therefore had nothing to do with the gods of the Tongans.
In consequence of the strictness of this system, Finow, who was king when Mariner lived among the Tongan islands, used to feel annoyed if even a child of superior rank were brought near him, and used angrily to order it to be taken away. Such conduct, however, would not be thought right unless both parties were nearly equal in rank; and if, for example, the Tooi-tonga’s child had been brought near the king, he would at once have done homage after the customary fashion.
Some very curious modifications of this custom prevail throughout Tongan society. For example, any one may choose a foster-mother, even though his own mother be alive, and he may choose her from any rank. Generally her rank is inferior to that of her adopted son, but even this connection between them does not earn for her any particular respect. She would be much more honored as an attendant of a young chief than as his foster-mother.
So elaborate and yet simple a system implies a degree of refinement which we could hardly expect among savages. In consonance with this refinement is the treatment of women, who are by no means oppressed and hard-worked slaves, as is the case with most savage nations. Consequently the women possess a gentle freedom of demeanor and grace of form which are never found among those people where women are merely the drudges of the men. So long ago as 1777, Captain Cook noticed that the women were much more delicately formed than the men, that they were beautifully proportioned, and that the hands were so small and soft that they would compare favorably with the finest examples in Europe and America. Hard and constant labor, such as is usually the lot of savage women, deteriorates the form greatly, as indeed we can see among ourselves, by comparing together a high-bred lady and a field laborer. The two hardly seem to belong to the same race, or scarcely to the same sex.
The Tongan women certainly do work, but they are not condemned to do it all, the men taking the hard labor on themselves, and leaving the women the lighter tasks, such as beating gnatoo, plaiting baskets, making crockery, and the like. At the great dances, the women are not only allowed to be present, but assist in them, taking as important a share as the men, and infusing into the dance a really cultivated grace which would not exist without them.
The light-colored hue of the skin, which has already been mentioned, is much more common among the women than the men, for the reason that the better class of women take more care of themselves than the men; and, though all classes live for the most part in the open air, the wives and daughters of powerful and wealthy men are careful not to expose themselves to the sun more than is absolutely necessary, so that many of them, instead of being brown, are of a clear olive tint, the effect of which is singularly beautiful when contrasted with their dark clustering hair, their gnatoo garments, and the leaves and flowers with which they adorn themselves, changing them several times daily. Altogether, a Tongan chief looks, and is, a gentleman, and his wife a lady.