200 Tongans
p. 36 · Read in the full issue
For Festival
Prince Tu’ipelehake, Prime Minister of Tonga, made a radio broadcast in November to announce that more than 200 Tongans will take part in the South Pacific Arts Festival in Suva from May 6-20 next year, and that the kingdom would see to it that “in dress and in bearing, in artistry and presentation” the team would be “competent and culturally authentic”.
He said that the festival (in which all Pacific territories will take part) could “set the seal on a new dimension of Pacific race relations, based not on differences but on peace and harmony”.
The Tongan party will in clude skilled weavers from Keppel and Tin Can Island, traditional dancers from Vavau, tapa cloth beaters and designers from the Ha’apai Islands, and poets and singers mainly from Tongatapu and Eua.