The Tongan traditional history Tala-E-Fonua : a vernacular ecology-centred historico-cultural concept

Abstract

This thesis examines Tongan traditional history, tala-e-fonua, a vernacular ecology-centred historico-cultural concept, handed down through generations by word of mouth. As a Tongan Weltanschauung, tala-e-fonua can be regarded as an indigenous account of the land and its people, a symbolised human landscape. In this anthropo-ecological context, I examine the continuity of the social and the natural, and how the dialectic between structure and event are orally transmitted through culture and history. The first part introduces the issues by examining the formal characteristics of tala-e-fonua and its place in scholarship; moreover, it focuses on the dynamic of permanence and change, considering how convention is risked in action through which order is restored in the event. These issues are put in context in chapter one, where the formally complementary and opposed connections between myths and history are examined in synchronic and diachronic terms within a social context. The early traditional-mythological history, part two, delves into the issue of origin, dealing with the mythical past historically. In chapter two, the Tongan cosmogony and cosmology are explicated in terms of the Tongan creation myth, ta la tu pu ’a , where the local and regional origin of the concept is further traced in terms of the enforced divine power transference amongst the three principal deities. Furthermore, it addresses how hierarchy was risked within the interplay of religion and politics, and the way it was developed in Tonga in terms of the transformation of two regional cultures, Pulotu and Langi, over Maama or Lolofonua. The middle traditional-theological history, in part three, examines the political hegemony of the Tangaloa line over the Havea Hikule’o and Maui Motu’a lineages, respectively representing Pulotu and Maama. Chapter three is thus concerned with internal strife within the Tangaloa house, which culminated in the rise of the first Tu’i Tonga, god and king, ’Aho’eitu, ’Eiki and Hau, who unified Tonga against Samoa and the rule of the Tu’i Manu’a. In part four, the later traditional-classical history is articulated in terms of the emergence of permanent social institutions of greater economic and political significance in Tongan society. The birth of the Tu’i Tonga empire, Pule9anga Hau 9o e Tu9i Tonga, linking centre and periphery through maritime activities, preceded by a period of local nation building, is examined in chapter four. Chapter five discusses imperial expansion beyond Tonga via conquest, which, through antagonism, was changed to conquest-alliance formation. With the period of alliance formation which followed, chapter six considers imperial decline in conjunction with the fall of sacred Tu’i Tonga antithesised by the respective rise of the new secular Hau, Tu’i Ha’atakalaua and Tu’i Kanokupolu, into political supremacy. Finally, part five draws implications from the thesis as a whole. Having socially articulated through poetry the literal and symbolic relationships between the three royal titles, Tu’i Tonga, Tu’i Ha’atakalaua and Tu’i Kanokupolu, in geographic terms, chapter seven focuses on the cultural and historical continuity of past and present. Recognising this philosophical character of human affairs, it is concluded that the exchange between structure and event manifests itself on the level of the dialectic between culture and history.