Meet Tongan Royalty!

By Robert Slade

“KA-A-VA ko-he-e-e!”

The shrill cry, echoing down a beautiful valley some miles from Nuku alofa, announced that kava was ready and we gathered about King George Tabou II., ruler of Tonga, for the cere monial drinking. One by one, in strict order of official importance, we stepped forward, took a coconut bowl of the cloudy liquid from a bowing native, drank determinedly, swallowed desper ately, and threw the bowl away, with an underhand spinning motion, as in deck quoits.

The taste for kava is acquired pain fully, through years of grim trying. But there must be no shrinking from a ceremonial kava. Its drinking, parti cularly under the eye of a king, is a matter of awful punctiliousness. A splutter in the coconut shell would have been an insult to the Tongan realm.

Memories of how we—an official party from New Zealand —were most cordi ally and hospitably entertained in the Friendly Islands fourteen years ago, came crowding back recently when I saw the little prince of Tonga on a visit to Sydney. Our hosts then were the King and Princess (now Queen) Salote, respectively grandfather and mother of Sydney’s youthful visitor.

George Tabou II was a big man of enormous bulk, and his daughter was built on the same plan. Both were distinguished by quiet dignity and charming manners. Salote was young, obviously liked the colours that appeal to Islands femininity, but she never for a moment forgot that she was royal and on a plane apart. One of our ship’s officers, tickling his vanity with the thought of a flirtation with an is lands princess, was “put in his place” with a thump that echoed through the years. Salote was married several years ago. The display of her chic and beautiful wedding garments in the window of a Pitt Street shop caused a block in the traffic.

The king arranged a native picnic in our honour and the kava-drinking was a sort of aperetif. The booming of wooden drums summoned us to food.

It lay on banana leaves, on the ground, a succulent and smoking heap, thirty or forty feet long. There were chick ens, fish, young pigs, sweet potatoes, taro, birds, all jumbled together, cooked to a turn. The chefs had been at work since dawn, with shovels and axes. They had dug a huge trench, built in it a fire, heated many stones, removed the embers, wrapped the food in banana leaves and buried it with the stones half a fathom deep.

We squatted down on either side of the heap, sans plates, sans forks, sans salt —sans everything—and never have I tasted such delicious food. His Maj esty sat opposite me and he was a mighty trencherman. He seized a

delicately-browned chicken, a leg in either hand, tore it apart, and in ninety seconds it was part of a king. Like another famous royal personage, I think he crunched its bones. We drank the milk of green coconuts, out of coconut shells —at least, some of us did. Stronger liquors were available.

The king’s lieutenant, and master of ceremonies, was Tuikavano —surely the merriest and kindliest little Prime Min ister I have ever seen. He liked the stronger liquors and long before that feast had reached the savouries stage Tuikavano was in that condition known as “climbing hills.” He tried, in com ical fashion, to settle an old-standing difference with another of the King’s Ministers. The great stomach of George Tabou heaved spasmodically as he chuckled his appreciation of the scene. Years after I met Tuikavano strolling with his English secretary in Macleay Street, Potts Point, and re minded him of the picnic. The tem peramental little chap laughed and then he wept. George Tabou, his well loved master, was only recently dead.

Now Tuikavano himself has been gath ered to his fathers.

After the feast, native men and women produced for us one of the old time dances, banned since “civilisation” came to Tonga. The king watched the dancers, what time he discussed with me the theories of John Stuart Mill.

That night, in the palace—that pre tentious wooden building, the first ob ject to catch your eye as you come to Nukualofa —there was a State dinner.

Evening dress, cut glass, English dishes, formal toasts. The king was quite at ease and handled his armoury of forks without embarrassment. Mr. Grant, the British Resident (afterwards dis tinguished by war service and later Administrator of the Bahama Islands) wore an eyeglass and the insignia of the C.M.G.

A quaint little kingdom is Tonga and very loyal to Great Britain. There were more German flags than Union Jacks waving over the palm trees when I was there in May, 1914; but before that fateful year had ended there was not one emblem of Kaiserdom left in the Friendly Islands.