By Janet Baird.
Preface:
In 1987 I visited Tonga. I hope it has not become too westernised since then or even disappeared altogether.
Small black pigs with piglets in tow fossick at low tide for tiny fish and sea creatures. Snouts delve deep into sandy shallows. Then they wander back home across roadways for a feed of coconut.
Everyone wanders in Tonga. No-one hurries or looks at a watch. Everyone smiles. The moment is all that matters, not yesterday or tomorrow.
Men, women and beautifully dressed children wander into church at any time during the service, the adults wearing their best handmade tapas wrap overskirts. Everyone sings in enthusiastic harmony, a wonderful sound.
Children seem to be born singing, smiling and moving rhythmically. At a primary school which we visited, the children joyfully sang and danced for us. When we arrived, I was greeted by a little bare-footed girl dressed in her neat red tunic running towards me with a coconut as a gift. ‘Janet’, she said, reading my name tag. Her clean white teeth lit up her smiling brown face framed by shiny black hair. I felt honoured.
English is the second language in Tonga. Tertiary education is only available to selected church-sponsored students who travel to either Australia or New Zealand. Any resulting income must be shared between family and church.
Unemployment is high (no benefits), wages low ($2.00 per hour), time is of little consequence. Therefore, many hours are happily spent creating handcrafts for markets and decoration. Even some light poles are decorated with plaited coconut fronds. Making of the traditional tapas cloth takes many stages from drying the plant material right through to dying of intricate patterns reflecting the culture—dolphins, whales, turtles, birds, boats and tikis.
Dancing is dramatic. Unlike Irish dancing, the Tongan women concentrate on graceful hand and arm movements, quite mesmerizing. By contrast, the men adopt warrior mode in a stamping, squat position with very aggressive arm and leg movements, leis and grass skirts flailing as they jump and gyrate. To show appreciation, members of the audience wander up during the dance and tuck money notes into their costumes or slap them onto coconut-oiled arms.
Underground cooking is common in many cultures. In Tonga it is called the ‘umu’. On supports over the coals the first layer is usually whole sweet potatoes. The next layer consists of various parcels of vegetables wrapped in coconut leaves, palm leaves or foil. These contain taro, yam, seaweed, cockles, corned beef wrapped in taro leaves (like spinach) and whole fish. All are basted with coconut milk which has previously been made by the laborious process of grating the coconut meat into the liquid, then a bunch of the fibre is dipped repeatedly in to gather the ‘meat’, squeezing it into the bowl before discarding it. The resulting liquid then becomes creamy. The top layer in the umu is the meat, just thrown on unwrapped, lamb, pork and chicken pieces. All is then covered with banana leaves and more coals and left for 2 hours. When cooked it is laid out on coconut and banana branches, smorgasbord style—absolutely delicious. On Sundays most families prepare the umu before going to church. Then the afternoon is spent eating and socializing.
Tonga is one of the last remaining kingdoms in the world. In Tonga, some members of parliament are elected, others appointed, but the king always has the final say. This is well accepted.
The lavish palace, churches and hotel seem incongruous in a country where most people live in humble shacks and have very little money. Food is subsistence cultivation, gathering and fishing— permaculture par excellence. Yet in many ways the Tongan people are so much richer than us. They are happy, healthy, very well nourished, strong, neatly dressed, laid back and unstressed. I hope they stay that way.
However—their days may be numbered by climate change. Tonga is only a few metres above sea level. Unlike the Cook Islands which have a central mountain range due to their volcanic origin, the Tongan people have nowhere to escape in the event of a tsunami. Even the airport would go under.
Meanwhile the sea level is creeping higher.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Janet Baird has been a member of Geelong Writers since the early days at the Wintergarden. She is an artist, writer, grandmother, long standing student of U3A and retired secondary teacher. Janet recently published a book of poetry entitled Connecting: to this planet and Her inhabitants. Copies are available at The Book Bird.
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