The Materiality of the Funeral of King Tupou IV of Tonga

reblogged via Material World {12/27/06}:

Dr. Fanny Wonu Veys, Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas, Metropolitan Museum of Art

In September 2006, I worked closely with the Tonga Traditions Committee, whose employees were recording the best they could all the events pertaining to the funeral of King Tupou IV. King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV of Tonga, the fourth king in the modern dynasty of Tongan rulers died after forty-one years of reign on 10 September in a New Zealand hospital. Through genealogy, Tupou IV embodied the three royal lines of Tu’i Tonga, Tu’i Kanokupolo and Tu’i Takalaua.

                            

Thursday 21 September 2006. Catholic schoolchildren bring dozens of cakes for presentation	Monday 18 September 2006. People from Niuatoputapu prepare  to enter the palace grounds with barkcloth, fine mats, and a basket. Everyone is wearing the appropriate attire for funerals which consists of black clothing,   a ragged mat with a pandanus strip belt.

From the day the king’s body arrived on Tongan soil (13 September 2006) different funeral rites were performed. The activities included ceremonial presentations; lotu, prayer vigils; takip?, all-night wakes when palm sheath torches are lit around the palace grounds; ha’amo, presentations of kava, pigs, and cooked foods in palm leaf basket which are carried on sticks over the shoulder; fei’umu, cooking of food in an underground oven; taumafa kava, royal kava drinking ceremony; and of course the different aspects of the interment ceremony itself that took place on 19th September.

Tongan funerals, named putu or me’a faka’eiki – the honorific term used for chiefly funerals - have been discussed in literature from different perspectives. Instead of looking at how funerals reinforce kinship ties (Kaeppler 1978) or what the effective cost is of the objects exchanged (James 2002), I will concentrate on materiality of the ceremonial presentation made before and on the first few days after the funeral.

Most of the presentations took place on the palace grounds under the marquis set up to the left of the palace. Members of the royal family would sit cross-legged with their backs to the sea and facing the group of people performing the presentations. The members of the presenting group (a church group, a village, an island, nation or a government department) positioned themselves in a semi-circle facing the sea and the members of the royal family. These presentations followed a set scheme. First the chief’s attendant or mat?pule would briefly present the objects. These included kava, root crops, live pigs and half-cooked pigs, mats, yams, taro, tapioca, barkcloth, mats, baskets, flower garlands and flower baskets, coconut oil, cakes, bead spreads, crisps, fruit, sweets and large screens named tapu, made out of mats, barkcloth or flowers which will ultimately serve as grave decoration. Then all the products of agriculture and animal husbandry are enumerated by a mat?pule and counted one by one, by touching every pig, kava plant, and palm leaf food basket. After this, a woman enumerates the list of all the other objects that are being presented. The quantity, length and name of the mats and barkcloths is stated. The goods the woman enumerated, are spread out in the circle formed by the giving party and receiving party. No one physically counted these goods. The mat?pule of the presenting group, finally gives a speech and a dried piece of kava root is presented. The mat?pule of the receiving party reciprocates with a closing speech after which people pay their respects to the members of the royal family presiding the presentation.

This descriptive piece of writing is preliminary to a more analytical article focusing on the materiality of the 2006 funeral, and linking it with past funerary practices.

                                                                            

Wednesday 20 September 2006. Presentation on the first day after the funeral. There are kava plants in the foreground, and half-cooked pigs in the background. Women are carrying flower baskets on the right.	Friday 21 September 2006. Presentation of a large tapu       (grave decoration) made of fine mats (kie) and barkcloth (ngatu).
Wednesday 20 September 2006. Presentation of a tapu tupenu,or grave decoration.	Thursday 21 September 2006. A p'kakala, or ‘flower fence’,       made of freshly cut flowers and leaves, mounted on a background of barkcloth, is presented by the Catholic schoolchildren.
Monday 18 September 2006. Delegation from Niuatoputapu   with mats and barkcloth.	Thursday 21 September 2006. Presentation of baskets filled with sweets, fruits, crisps, and coconut oil. A tapu lole (grave decoration) made with sweets such as Cadbury chocolate, crisps and other sweets. Cakes, fine mats and bedspreads were also presented on this occasion.