7. These Friendly Isles
Few men who come to the islands
leave them; they grow grey where they alighted; the
palm shades and the trade-wind fans them till they die…
– R. L. Stevenson
With wind and current and sun all behind her, Atom shot out the coral-guarded inlet and away from Bora Bora. A day later we approached Motu One, a low atoll directly on my course line for Tonga. On second thought, I could have laid a course further north to safely avoid it, but I hoped to sight the island during daylight to confirm my position since an island sighted and confirmed passed is worth more to a navigator than a supposed position on paper. In this case I was counting on a couple of well-timed star sights to guide me past, but when clouds rolled in I put the sextant away. I assumed the island was 20 miles ahead, yet I could not be sure. To be cautious, I hauled in the sheets, swung Atom into the wind, and reluctantly hove-to for nine hours. With this fair wind I had given up 50 miles of easy progress during the night. Better the lost miles than to pile headlong onto an unseen reef.
As it turned out, a current combined with our drift carried us halfway to the island during the night. At dawn I sighted a line of green marking an island so low the coconut palms looked to be rooted in the sea. Passing this danger marked the boundary of French Polynesia and I packed away my French dictionary until next year. This leg of my Pacific crossing was to Tonga’s Vava’u Island and a last stop before crossing the vague ethnographical line between Polynesia and Melanesia.
With the wind steady from the east, I set up my running rig. One reef in the mainsail pushed all the way out to starboard, balanced with the number two jib held out to port on the spinnaker pole. This slowed the boat by about one knot from what she could do under full sail. But the windvane steered a better course at this lower speed and with less sail up there was more time to react to rising winds in a chance midnight squall. With Atom looking after herself, the hours and days drifted by as I tucked into my books, performed sets of deep knee bends and pushups between the bunks, mended sails, and generally got into my sea-going routine.
I grew to appreciate the compact world within a small boat. Within two steps of my bunk I could reach all my tools and possessions. This was convenient living, everything within arms reach of everything else. If I needed more space I could walk ten steps from the cockpit to the bow and cling with one hand on the forestay scanning the western horizon.
I attempted a haircut on the foredeck with dull scissors and no mirror. Using my fingers to judge the evenness of the length, I kept snipping in corrections until I was mostly bald. With no crew on board I was not in the least embarrassed and I would have nearly two weeks to sprout a less scary-looking head of hair before going ashore. It became a habit to cut my hair nearly to the scalp before beginning each long passage. I saved water and shampoo and found this ritual shearing of the crew in some way symbolic of the rebirth and new beginnings each passage represented. I also took to wearing, if nothing else, a wide-brimmed straw hat to prevent sunburn.
The moon was waning - rising later each night and showing smaller slices of itself - until within a few days it disappeared. As compensation for losing my lunar companion, the star watching was all the better without the moonlight. The strange patterns of stars visible to the south were still new to me. To learn to recognize them in their constellations I stayed up on deck many fair nights referring to star charts with a penlight held between my teeth.
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A broach at seven knots jolts me back from my mental wanderings among the stars of the Southern Cross. Too much sail, tuck in another reef. Atom settles down on her course and I take seven hours of sleep interspersed with hourly peeps through the hatch to confirm all is well with course and sails and the unlit path ahead. By morning the winds were caressing the sea so gently I hoisted all sail and we crawled along at two miles to the hour all the day through. The relative stability of our stance on the water gave a good opportunity for baking bread. I managed to turn out a lumpy loaf of oatmeal bread by placing a baking dish inside a large aluminum pot strapped down on the kerosene stove rail as a makeshift oven. On most days, pan-fried cornbread was the easier recipe to handle on a rolling boat.
During our slow crawl across the sea I spent some hours lying flat on deck with eyes trained over the side dangling a hand into the water and watching the ecosystem trailing under the boat. Small fish sought sanctuary close to the hull until chased away by larger tuna and dorado, which also kept station around the hull for days at a time. The Spanish called them dorado (the golden ones) because their flanks flash gold among their many colors. They break away at a blinding speed to inhale an unwary flying fish, and then fall back in patrol formation under the shadow of the hull. A year earlier I would have set a lure or gone for my spear gun at the sight of this potential meal. For now I was an observer, not a hunter, and welcomed the shared company. When living alone on the sea and blessed with abundant stores of food on board, even fish became precious companions. Like using a fast to strengthen the spirit and purify the body, I felt gained strength through these odd disciplines.
I had lived as a higher predator and would do so again. For now, I was living a more passive coexistence in the world. There’s no way to feel this state of being alone in the sea-world or even make much headway understanding it if you spend most of your days and nights hidden within the walls and roof of a house, then take a car to an office or factory. Men have stood on the moon and told us about it, yet still, what do I really know of how it feels to stand on the moon…
After passing Palmerston Atoll, a tiny islet in an otherwise empty spot of the ocean, the barometer took a quick dip. Nothing to worry about since cyclone season is months away I told myself as the wind freshened and backed to the north. Cataracts of rain came down on us. The wind kept backing into the northwest, indicating the center of the disturbance would pass to my south. It was confirmed that night by lightning displays in the southern sky. At midnight the second squall line caught me asleep. Atom heeled sharply, then overpowering her windvane, turned into the wind and flogging sails shook her rig. Seconds after being comfortably asleep I was battling a wildly flapping jib that nearly threw me over the side before I got it down to the deck. The squall passed quick as it came, but I didn’t trust the weather and hove-to until dawn when the storm had visibly passed, replaced by a faint resemblance of the normal tradewinds. For the next two days there was only the lightest puffs of air from astern. By using the spinnaker and some hand-steering, while constantly adjusting the sail trim to the fickle breeze, I made acceptable progress.
A flock of sea birds, probably terns of some type, kept me amused with their fishing antics. As Atom cleaved the calm waters, small fish scattered ahead of us. When a bird hovering at masthead height caught sight of a fish he cocked back his wings in a vertical dive, hitting the water like a missile. They usually emerged with their prize clenched in their beaks. Tuna were also in high spirits for some reason, taking to the air in arching leaps, and nearly landed on deck a few times.
The sunsets off the bow were, if possible, even more unbelievable than any before. The red, yellow, and whites of the pulsing spinnaker cloth matched the shifting tones on the horizon behind it. To the north, spiked clouds indicated a distant mountain range that my charts told me were pure illusion.
Now and again, usually a few times on each passage, the earth’s atmosphere struck just the right balance to produce the sailor’s fabled Green Flash. But it’s no fable, despite the claims of color-blind or otherwise unseeing sailors who have told me it’s an illusion. In simple science terms the atmosphere at the horizon acts on the setting sun as a filter for the rainbow spectrum contained in visible light. With red blocked by the horizon, orange, yellow, blue, and violet scattered by molecules and absorbed by the atmosphere, green is left as the last prominent wavelength for the observer. It takes a clear sky with the right amounts of moisture and pollution-free clarity of air to bring off a good green flash. Being near the tropics helps. Having an open mind helps too.
The setting sun having made its flashy departure, handed the sky over to Venus, which glowed low in the west next to a sliver of new moon. Arching back across the heavens were the familiar signposts of Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter. I took a sextant shot at Jupiter, bringing her down to the water with the mirrors. A few calculations produced a satisfying line of position on the plotting chart. To add more certainty to the position, I shot three prominent stars as well, all done during the half hour of twilight while there was still a discernable horizon.
To the uninitiated, the practice of celestial navigation is something archaic and mysterious. A brief description can dispel some of the mystery. First the star is identified either through memory of its position in a constellation learned by referring to star charts or by pre-computing likely visible stars referenced in a book titled Selected Stars. Then the sextant is used to bring it down to a dimly visible horizon. This is done by swinging the sextant’s arm and making final fine adjustments to the vernier screw knob to bring the mirrored image of the star down to touch the horizon during the single second that the boat crests a wave. The instant of this event is noted to the nearest second. And it is a meaningful moment considering that a few seconds off could result in a position error of a mile or more. The sight reduction tables are then entered with the sextant altitude reading in degrees, the exact time, and an assumed (guessed at) position in latitude and longitude. Using the tables and making some 20 sets of simple addition or subtraction, a position line is obtained. Two of these position lines make a fix. Three is better. The precision of a two star fix taken in average conditions cannot be assumed to be better than about three miles, depending on the accuracy of your clock and sextant and your skill using it. The tight triangle of a three star fix may get you within a mile or two at best. And that is as good as it gets.
In today’s digital world, celestial navigation is mostly a lost art. Yet to those who know, it remains a mark of competency that sets the experienced navigator apart from today’s satellite-guided sailors – those who wouldn’t have the remotest chance finding a not so remote island a few hundred miles off their bow if their GPS had its circuits fried by a lightning strike. This and lesser calamities have modern adventure-averse sailor’s reaching for the rescue beacon.
From my journal of August 28 comes the following entry: I crossed the International Dateline last night and advanced from Tuesday directly to Thursday. So for me Wednesday the 29th never existed. The strange part is that the time zone Tonga belongs to puts those islands geographically firmly in Tuesday. Yet by some creative bending of the dateline, Tonga declares they are in Thursday. Then they set their clocks to minus 13 hours from Greenwich Time, bringing them briefly to… Wednesday?” Even though I understood the necessity of the date change, I was somewhat confused with the mechanics of it and was perhaps unreasonably mourning my lost Wednesday.
Thirteen days after departing Bora Bora, I approached the northern coast of Vava’u Island. The steep-to shoreline exhibited white scars of landslips here and there. On the western coast I passed through deep passages between bold rocky islets and the main island in a scene looking more like a Scandinavian fjord, except these valleys were cloaked in sun-soaked grooves of coconut palms and tropical gardens. The channel wound around to a landlocked bay where I laid Atom alongside the concrete quay in downtown Neiafu to clear in with customs and immigration.
Two large Tongan officials asked only a modest three dollar fee for port charges, then returned to their card game as I moved Atom further into the harbor to the yacht anchorage off the Paradise Hotel. For four dollars a week I had the use of the Hotel’s dinghy dock and freshwater tap, the swimming pool and showers, even a movie once a week in the lounge; all unexpected luxuries.
This last remaining Polynesian monarchy, which regally calls itself The Kingdom of Tonga, contains over 150 significant islands in three main groups stretched 200 miles along Polynesia’s western margin. To the south is the country’s capitol city, Nuku’alofa (“The Abode of Love”). Other sailors had warned me that Nuku’alofa was not so lovely as its name implied – more of a congregation of squatter settlements. Not an abode of love so much as the abode of natives who have migrated to the capital in search of things they wouldn’t find, though they have seen enough of tourists bearing traveler’s checks and unceasing demands.
The central group, called Ha’apai, is a cluster of dot-like islands where Captain Bligh stopped to take on water just before his crew mutinied and set him adrift. The northern group of Vava’u where I landed, was seldom visited by Westerners before one of the better known visitors here a few centuries earlier wrote in his diary:
(Because of) “the friendly behaviour of the Natives who seemed to vie with each other in doing what they thought would give us leasure… this group I have named the Friendly Archepelago as a lasting friendship seems to exist among the Inhabitants and their Courtesy to Strangers entitles them to that name.” Little did Captain Cook know, the local chief was craftily planning to make them feel at ease then catch them off-guard, murder the sailors and capture their ships. Cook left his “Friendly Islands” just before the plans could be carried out. And though this nickname is still used and applies very well to today’s crop of Tongans, at least a few of the early European visitors might have said “The Treacherous Islands” would better describe the natives disposition.
One such unlucky ship was the 500 ton, three-masted square rigger, Port-au-Prince. In 1806 the ship was roaming the South Pacific indulging in a bit of whaling and piracy when they headed to Tonga to make repairs. Unfortunate for them, they anchored off the island of Lifuka, the same island Cook had stopped at in the Endeavor 30 years before. The islanders had patiently waited and plotted for Cook’s return. This time the Friendly Islanders would not miss their chance.
As the ships crew repaired the leaking hull, Lifuka’s chief came aboard bearing gifts, welcoming the captain to visit ashore. Meanwhile hundreds of Tongans armed with clubs and spears climbed aboard the Port-au-Prince. Captain Brown refused to believe they were in any danger because, after all, hadn’t the great Captain Cook himself named these the friendly Islands? Captain Brown then stepped into a canoe, was taken ashore and clubbed to death. The natives on board screamed Maté! Maté! (Kill! Kill!) and quickly massacred most of the crew. The fate of Captain Brown should make a cautious sailor a bit skeptical of pilot books and cruising guides.
Since none of the Tongans knew how to sail the ship, they beached it and stripped it of every piece of metal they could find. To stone-aged Tongans any metal was of such rarity and usefulness that they burned the ship to collect the iron, bronze and copper bolts that fastened her timbers.
Of the few crew who were spared and kept as slaves was 15-year-old Will Mariner. Chief Finau took a liking to young Will, adopting him as his son and giving him the name Toki. Will quickly learned the Tongan language and ingratiated himself with the chief by teaching his warriors how to fire the cannons salvaged from the Port-au-Prince. With Will’s help, Chief Finau became ruler of all the Tongan Islands. In gratitude, Will was made a chief himself and given a plantation on Vava’u Island and lived there four years until a visiting ship picked him up and returned him to England. Today white men are still referred to in Tonga as Papalangi (“Sky-Burster”) after the incredible tall rigs of the sailing ships that rose over their horizon 250 years ago.
At the yacht anchorage a man named Matoto watched my arrival and paddled out in his canoe to welcome me to Vava’u. For $5 per person ($3 if you don’t eat the lobster) Matoto organized a “traditional” Tongan feast at nearby Ano Beach. That Saturday a small bus took ten of us from the visiting yachts to the secluded beach. When we arrived, a band of guitar, banjo, ukelele, wooden drums, and a screechy violin were warming up. We sat under the palms by the beach and watched a solo dancer as she played out an ancient story with intricate, graceful hand motions and subtle movements of her ankle-garlanded feet. Then she was joined by other girls also decorated with flowers, shells, and beads over their pareos. Honey-colored skin shone with a generous coating of coconut oil. Their bodies swaying to the music captivated me like underwater coral sea-fans set in motion by surf passing close overhead. Hands and feet moved in a gentle wave-like motion as hypnotizing to the sailor as the roll of the ocean. The women then performed another dance peculiar to Tonga, sitting cross-legged on the grass, their hands, arms, and shoulders moving in precise unison.
Some of us swam off the beach while our hosts placed the food in a rock-lined fire-pit oven. Before sunset we sat Polynesian-style, cross-legged on pandanus mats, while the unearthed food was carried out on long trays of plaited palm fronds. In front of us were heaped piles of lobster, octopus, fish, a whole roast pig, fruit salads of papaya, mango, and pineapple with coconut cream. My hands quickly fell to the corn, taro, breadfruit, yams, cassava, and sweet potatoes, all locally grown in the sun-blessed island of Vava’u. We ate, each according to his taste and capacity until we fell back, one by one, in satiated bliss. It was noon the following day before I could think of eating again and then it was from the basket of leftover vegetables Matoto insisted I take home with me. Poor Captain Brown arrived 180 years too early.
An itch to find untouristed Tonga led me to fill my backpack with camping equipment and set out to walk to Longamapu Village located at the end of the road that wanders across Vava’u. I walked a shady lane past villages, hills, and bays with dreamy, soft-sounding names like Taoa, Faleolo, Ha’akio, and Feletoa. In the small villages I never passed anyone without being greeted. If a Tongan who knew some English spotted me, I was obliged to stop and visit. They were the most socially curious-minded people I had ever met. If I responded to their “Hello” with the Tongan version, “Malo E Leilei” they smiled hugely and asked all sorts of personal questions in a friendly way that came natural to them. The standard questions asked in the same order were the same everywhere, almost as if they were checking off points in a survey: where was I going, where was I coming from, my name, marital status, family size, and so on. Each greeting was conducted like a job interview and all the while I was scrutinized from head to toe, with a sympathetic smile. Actually, it was wonderful to partake in these interviews with total strangers, even if the questioning was mostly one-sided. It was a first step in being recognized as something more than a tourist.
As I walked through the village of Tefesi, a teen-aged boy with the Tongan curly mop of black hair, named Malakai introduced himself and instantly decided to join me for the walk to Longamapu. He knew little more of English than I knew of Tongan, but by referring to my phrase book, we had a type of conversation. More out of desire to practice Tongan than any real need to know, I asked, “Are we close to Longamapu yet, Malakai?”
“Yes, close.”
A mile down the road I tried, “Is it one more mile?”
“Yes, one more mile,” was the smiling response.
So we walked at a fast clip for two and a half more hours. “That was some mile, my friend!” Tongans, I learned, have an overwhelming urge to answer “yes” merely to be agreeable. Why disappoint the temperamental, demanding foreigners with a “no.” To Tongan’s, agreement is more highly valued than accuracy, which is maddening to tourists. After I got used to it, I learned how to phrase my questions more carefully.
As we walked I saw that most of these gently-sloped hillsides were in cultivation with one crop or another. There were wide groves of taro, cassava, yams, and bananas. The road ended at Port of Refuge Bay by the village of Longamapu. We walked down to the seashore where I staked out my tent and Malakai built a fire on the beach. When the driftwood burned down to red embers we tossed in a whole breadfruit to bake. A few minutes on each side to burn the skin black and we rolled it out of the fire with a stick and cracked it in half to eat the soft, bread-like center pulp. Actually, the texture and taste were like a combination of yam and bread. As we ate, several people from the village came to join us bringing papaya and oranges to share. Will Mariner had been chief with a plantation here, but not a single local person I spoke to ever heard of the white Chief Toki.
A man in his early 20’s, named Ilangi Vea, looked long at my tent and asked if I really was going to sleep in that “thing.” He warned that the south wind would be cold that night so would I please stay with his family in the village. Nights in Tonga couldn’t get cold enough for my liking, but seeing no clubs in their hands, I was happy to go along. The hospitality in the islands, like the solitude found at sea, increases as a direct function of your distance from the crowded cities.
On top of a hill overlooking the bay, Ilangi led me to a two-room thatched house that sheltered his family of nine. In the grassy yard was a single breadfruit tree that reached over to shade the house from the afternoon sun. Inside was not a single piece of furniture. The floor of crushed coral was covered with finely woven mats. These houses are light and airy, but must be rebuilt every second or third year as they weather and dry out. Last years hurricane, called cyclones in the South Pacific, took many of the houses down early. Since then some of the people here switched from thatch to tin roofs, which are less work, last longer, and are more secure, but make a horrible racket in a heavy rain. Some of the richer families have burdened themselves with homes built of cement blocks and tin roofs. These are both noisy in the rain and unbearably hot in the sun. Their sole attributes being their longevity and the relative sanctuary of cement walls during cyclones.
The island’s electrical grid had not yet reached Longamapu Village. As darkness fell the kerosene lamps and cooking fires lit up the open doorways of each home. Ilangi and his brother unhooked a guitar and ukelele from the thatched wall and played Tongan songs with the rest of the family singing along. I don’t know how long they played. I was tired from the five-hour walk and the sweet sounds sent me to sleep under a rough tapa blanket made from tree bark.
I was awakened by the Polynesian pre-dawn concert of crowing roosters and barking dogs. This was replaced with the sound of chopping wood to fire the kettles for morning tea. From nearby homes came the sweet choral singing of Tongans joyously greeting a new day. We sipped tea brewed from the dried leaves of a neighbor’s orange tree. Ilangi and Malakai took me to the community house where women were painting patterns on tapa cloth and gluing lapped edges together to form long sheets used for blankets, clothing and wall coverings. The cloth comes from the haipo, a type of mulberry tree, which are planted and carefully tended for two years until they mature. The bark is then stripped off and the soft, white inner layer is hung to dry in the sun. Then it is beaten flat and thin with a wooden mallet. Two of these pieces are fixed back to back with arrowroot glue. Traditional geometric designs or the Tongan coat of arms is then painted on using black and brown dyes from the sap of mangrove roots.
The women also weave handsome baskets and mats from specially prepared pandanus leaves. Tongans wear these mats, called ta’ovala, around their waists. Under that, the men wear a knee-length skirt of patterned cloth. Womens skirts were all ankle-length. It had surprised me to see the bank manager wearing a white shirt and black tie, stand up from behind his desk to reveal the ta’avola mat around his waist on top of a skirt. This was the formal attire in Tonga.
When I left Longamapu, Ilangi made a gift to me of the tapa blanket I had slept under the night before. I had made the mistake of openly admiring the blanket and now was obliged to take it, according to custom. I thanked him and presented him the only extra shirt I had with me, and carefully folded the multi-layered cloth into my pack.
 A basket takes shape in a Tongan home |
On the way back to Neiafu I traveled a different higher route that offered a better view. Norfolk pines lined the ridges and family-sized plantations patterned the hillsides. I happily lost myself in the Tonk-Tonk rhythm of ironwood mallets sounding throughout the valley as women pounded the tapa over logs. Each hour or so a vehicle driving by stopped to offer me a ride. It was as if they had never seen anyone walking long and far, just for the enjoyment of it. I thanked them for the offer, answered their barrage of questions, and continued walking, where I could better appreciate the slowly unfolding landscape. You can always drive to your destination, but a true journey is made on foot.
Over a century ago, King George Tupuo’s Land Act gave each male Tongan a parcel of land upon reaching his 16th year. That piece of land was 100 ofa square, an ofa being the span of the kings outstretched arms. As long as the man farms it and pays a small tax he can keep it. None of this land could be sold; in title it still belongs to the crown. With the growing population these land grants have likely been reduced, if not stopped altogether by now.
Although Tonga was a British protectorate for a time, mainly in order to keep it out of the grasping colonial hands of Germany and France, the country craftily managed to retain its sovereignty. The ruler at the time of my visit was King Taufa ahau Tupuo IV, who took over in 1965 after his mother, Queen Salote died. Tupuo IV is of kingly size, well over 300 pounds, and was reported to be a skillful surfer, at least in his younger and slightly leaner years.
A Tongan friend invited me to the Kava Club in Neiafu on Friday night. The mildly narcotic kava drink is made from the root of a pepper shrub, traditionally prepared by virginal maidens who chewed the roots to soften them. The saliva-soaked roots were then squeezed into bowls of water to extract the kava. These days, either kava-chewing virgins are a rarity or spit-flavored kava has gone out of favor. Today the drink is usually prepared by beating them with clubs (the roots, not the virgins!) and the powder placed in a mesh screen and squeezed into a pail of water. It comes out looking and tasting like stagnant muddy ditch water. They drink this in a social way much as we do coffee or beer. It numbs the mouth and its strange earthy flavor is what they call an acquired taste.
The kava clubhouse held over a 100 men sitting on mats in groups of five to ten around huge wooden bowls that servant girls refilled with kava by the bucketful. A girl kneeled behind each bowl, scooping out a half coconut shell full of kava to one person at a time. Each man swallowed the brew in one gulp and ritualistically threw the cup to the floor, to be picked up by the server and refilled for the next person. With some effort, I held back from spraying the first mouthful all over my smiling hosts. I then threw the cup down with perhaps a little more enthusiasm than was called for. So we sat, hour after hour, the kava cup making countless rounds. Actually, I did count, and it tasted considerable better after the fifth cup when my mouth was completely numb.
I had read the story of a young American sailor who visited Tonga and was served kava by a girl named Foi’atelolo, meaning “fat liver full of oil.” That is some flattering name considering the Tongans love of oily food, especially pig’s liver. Tongans start out slender in their youth, but grow quite large, sometimes enormously so, as they mature. A woman’s beauty is measured in kilos, with those at the heavy end of the scale being most highly prized by Tongan men.
Between gulps from the kava cup the men told stories and spread the latest gossip. As the only Westerner there, I was urged to use my numb tongue to tell our group about myself and why I was in Tonga. With one of the men acting as interpreter they queried (you might say quarried) every nugget of detail from my story. My tales of sailing among the isles of the Pacific seemed to stir in these men some atavistic memories of their warrior ancestors who voyaged throughout the central Pacific to conquer or settle new lands. Sadly, the voyaging canoes are no more.
After each 10 rounds of kava a collection was taken up for the evening feast with each group trying to outbid the others. The groups gave themselves names like The Fishermen, and The Sailors, and the amounts they donated were tallied and called out to keep the competition going. Some of the money would go to the local college whose brass band was booming and blaring British marching songs right outside our door to insure we could not forget them at donation time. In my honor, our group chose the name Amerika, and I in return, emptied my pockets of their few coins and bills. They may have thought Amerika would be at the top of the list. Instead, when the speaker read off the final tally it was The Fishermen over The Amerikans at $35 to $27. When I stood up to leave, I found the numbness had spread from my tongue down to my feet. As I left, my fellow Amerikans loaded me down with a basket of food to bring back to the boat.
On that weekend I went to sample another feast on the beach. This time a different group performed – the girls dancing wave-like in the center with athletic young men leaping about in frenzied accompaniment. Then the men alone performed the kailao, the Tongan war dance. Drums beat out a steady rhythm as the men stomped the ground, kicking up sand, grimacing and shouting - leafy costumes rustling as they swung wicked-looking war clubs at their imagined enemy. Next, a long-haired man with a wild set of eyes and two twirling machetes leapt out in front of us. After dark he came back and did some tricky juggling of flaming clubs.
This feast and dancing went on for six hours, after which we all piled into the back of a pick-up truck for the ride back to town. When we guests had filled the truck to capacity, the musicians squeezed in around us. Then the dancers, the cooks, and the women selling handicrafts wedged their way in with their piles of gear. Those who couldn’t get on top of us, hung along the sides. As we bounced down the dark, rutted road the Tongans sang at full strength, even the old woman with breaking voice tried to be heard above the rest. Leading the singers was the crazy-eyed fire dancer, who finding no other spot available, was sitting on my lap like an overgrown infant.
Matoto invited me to visit his church with his family on Sunday. Everyone on Vava’u Island was devoutly Christian. Even the smallest village has two churches. There are Mormons, Seventh day Adventists, Free Weslayans, Catholics, and other more obscure groups represented. The Adventist church believes Sunday in Tonga is actually Saturday because of the manmade deviation of the International Dateline (Atom’s navigator agrees!) and so hold their services on Sunday instead of their usual Saturday meetings. It’s not clear to me if they live the rest of the week 24 hours behind their neighbors or if the dual dates are only necessary for the religious calendar.
Introducing Christianity here had been a deadly task. In 1797 the London Missionary School landed ten missionaries on Tongatapu Island. They were welcomed at first and promised protection by the chiefs. They soon discovered the natives were more interested in stealing their supplies and tools than in saving their souls. Two years later, civil war broke out across Tonga and three of the missionaries were murdered by the natives. The rest were burned out of their houses and fled to the coast where they lived in caves for a year until a passing ship picked them up. Years later they tried again and eventually they baptized the chief, giving him the name George after the King of England. Following the royal example, Tongans flocked to Christianity, embracing it with the zealous fervor of the newly converted. The missionaries have unquestionably brought peace and order to the islands. They have also reversed the natural and ancient customs of the Tongans until today the women discreetly cover their bodies from neck to ankle, even when swimming. The Tongan dancing is mostly reserved for paying tourists. Men on this tropical island are forbidden to go shirtless in public! The liberal-minded Gauguin had no idea how good he had it in French Polynesia.
Church bells ring out to announce services for one denomination or another nearly every day of the week. Everywhere is heard the songs of practicing choirs. Sundays immobilize the island like a general anesthetic. No work or shopping is permitted. It is possible you might be arrested for fishing on a Sunday and shame on the couple caught holding hands on any day of the week. When cultures as fragile as those of Polynesia are overturned by a foreign civilization, these vigorous-hearted people may be inclined to take the instructions of the new deity to extremes. Only Mohamed himself could have done a better job of straitjacketing a culture.
Matoto belonged to the Free Weslayan Church in the village of Pangiamotu. The wooden building had large open windows to let in the light and air and let out the music of the choir. The congregation, wearing their finest clothes, sat barefoot on the floor on mats. When they sang I really took notice. I had never heard 30 mouths sing so loud with such rich voices and perfect timing, without musical accompaniment: effortlessly holding a four-part harmony. During the sermon the preacher slashed at the air with his arms to punctuate an emotional speech. But since his words and the songs he directed were all in Tongan, his passionate message flew over my head.
After the service I shook hands with the entire congregation and then followed Matoto to his house for the big Sunday dinner they had begun preparing on Saturday. Again I surprised myself by overeating and had to sit back to catch my breath and wonder if this gluttony was a sign that my own cooking was lacking something. But then, it could be that overindulgence in all manner of things is the natural state of a sailor on shore leave.
I asked Matoto about the abundance of food on this island. Plantations were thriving everywhere. Sugar, flour, and tinned meats and fats were at the top of their imports. Many Tongans were fat and burdened with one of the world’s highest incidence of diabetes. There were little if any crops exported and the island’s sole vegetable market was overstocked. Matoto explained that this year they did have a surplus, though with the vagaries of the weather and the occasional cyclone, some years much of the crops failed. They could not predict what would happen from one year to the next. Judging by the size of the people, they had enjoyed some bountiful years recently.
In Matato’s house there were four heavy sacks of taro roots harvested from his own garden. “Will you sell some of your surplus at the market?” I asked.
“No, this I will share with my friends,” he said and went on to explain “The Ha’apai group of islands south of here also produced more than they needed this year. Because they are poor, we let them sell their crops here.”
In Tonga, the essentials of life – from food to spirituality to friendship – are available in abundance.
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