Speaking of “Tongafiti,” as far as I can find out the word is a compound of Tonga and Viti (Fiji), and it is probable that the Pacific’s ancient conquerors took Fijian warriors along with them in the days when they were the Huns and Vandals of their time.
Sikiana had been cleaned out by “Tongafiti” people; there was evidence that they had fought their way via the fringing Polynesian islands to the west, conquering as they went; at the tip of the Solomons the people of little Rennell Island had beaten these warriors by luring them up on the sharp coral, which mangled their bare feet. One end of Rotumah is still settled by a chief who is descended from Tongan invaders, so is one end of Mangaia on the Cooks. For two or three centuries the Tongans made slaves of the Samoans; at last Malietoa drove them off, and they promised never to return except in peace. Then Tonga forgot the arts of war, but in the seventeenth century it became fashionable for their chiefs to go over to Fiji and join forces with one or the other of their warring provinces. These trips were a sort of Grand Tour, a part of their education. They were always welcome because they were unafraid of charging a fortified position, something that the Fijian always dreaded. Chief Ma’afu, descending on Fiji, would have unseated Thakombau had the British not intervened.
Contact with Melanesia has given the Tongan a slightly browner coloring than the golden skin of the pure Polynesian; those portions of dark Fiji where Tongan warriors and mission teachers were most frequent can still be picked by lighter skins and other Tongan stigmata. Tongans have a stoutness, a fiber, that excels that of all other Polynesians. In many ways they are the superior natives of the Pacific.
Captain Cook discovered them in 1770, although seventeenth-century navigators had sighted them. Because of their kindly reception Cook called them “the Friendly Islands”; he didn’t know that he would have been butchered and his boats seized if the chiefs had not disagreed among themselves. A few years later the Port au Prince was less lucky. A young boy appropriately named Mariner was the only one saved; Finau Ulukalala, the leading chief, happened to take a fancy to him. Mariner lived there for four years, and after his escape a Dr. Martin took down his enthralling story, which reads like a dime novel.
The missionary followed the white trader, and Tonga was a cockpit for religious factions. The last chapter of that bitter feud was written as late as 1924. It was Methodist against Catholic at first; finally Methodist against Methodist—actually Wesleyan against Wesleyan. Taufahau, a giant chief of the Kanakupolu family and destined to be king, first saw the writing on the wall and joined the Wesleyans; by that time the Tongans had lost their old religion, the worship of Polynesian deities. Taufahau may have yielded to a greater magic than he knew. He may have become a true Christian, although this seems difficult to believe. Certainly he seized the opportunity to weld the group into a political unit. A great warrior, a great strategist, a great man, he was enthroned in 1826 and lived until 1894. Under his kingship all Tonga became Christian, mostly Wesleyan.
In his later years, around the seventies and eighties, scandals arose in the Church. Much money was exacted in religious offerings, and after the missioners had feathered their own nests, the balance was sent out of the country. Tonga, mind you, was just emerging from the Stone Age—yet she was supporting foreign missions! Finally Taufahau, now King George the First, decided to head his own state Church, the Free Church of Tonga. There were cruel persecutions of Wesleyans who wouldn’t recant; many were killed, thousands driven out of Tonga. George the First had a renegade Wesleyan missionary named Baker as his guide, and the guide became Prime Minister. Although Prime Minister Baker served the kingdom with some permanently wholesome laws, his rule degenerated in the course of years. As much appears to have been wasted through him as through the former rule of the missions, and things came to such a pass that the British High Commission had to intervene and institute a protectorate over Tonga. The Free Church pursued its erratic way through the reign of George the Second of Tonga, who died in 1918, and into the reign of Queen Salote. In 1924 she joined the Wesleyan Church, and the Free Church ceased to be Tonga’s official faith. The Free Church left a bad financial record, and had little regard for honest business practices. For many years Tongan religion had been largely a matter of politics. Whenever a monarch switched his religion there had been a corresponding switch in the opposition to the Crown.
The Tubous are the sole survivors of numerous native dynasties which the first white men found in the Pacific. The Tongan kingdom has outlived the greedy gobblings of Western powers, and the people have kept their identity through every political crisis.
The Tubous have a past longer than that of any other ruling dynasty today. Their kings first came from Eastern Samoa, probably from Ta’u, which seems to have been the cradle of great Polynesian kings. The Tui Tonga was the spiritual and temporal head of the state, and Aho’-itu was the first of the Tui Tonga. A later Tui Tonga wearied of the double burden and turned temporal affairs over to his brother Tui Haatakalaua, and Haatakalaua finally passed his power over to another brother, Tui Kanakupolu. When King George the First took the throne, he abolished the title of Tui Tonga. Joeli, last claimant to that ancient title, died after my first visit to the kingdom.
This seems a pretty sketchy way to pass over a thousand years of history. When I first saw Tonga its two great historical strains were joined in marriage. The Haatakalaua and the Kanakupolu families united in Tungi and Salote. The royal wedding was in 1918. With three sons the dynastic succession seemed safe.
In 1924 the reigning couple were more highly educated than most of their subjects. Salote had studied in Auckland and Tungi had gone to an excellent school in Sydney. Ata, one of the great nobles, had also been to Sydney for his education. Otherwise only a few half-caste children had enjoyed foreign advantages. Generally speaking, the people knew only a few words of English.