Letters

Rethink the kingdom's priorities

I read with interest your Briefs column in Pacific Islands Monthly September, 1999, (King of Tonga commissions new telephone exchange). There is no doubt that Tonga needs future development in its telecommunication system, converting to digital and better quality of communication.

However, I do not believe that a video telephone display is suitable for Tonga to spend 4.5 million pa’anga in upgrading and replacing the telephone exchanges in Nuku’alofa, Mu’a, Masilamea and ‘Eua, while the outer islands of Ha’apai and Vava’u are still struggling to get any phone lines at all.

Our local radio station, SBS in Melbourne, announced the same story of King Taufa’ahau of Tonga officially commissioning the island nation’s new telephone exchange in mid-August. At the same time, spending $4.5 million on a telephone video display.

It entailed a very poor story from Vaiola Hospital in Tonga to the poor people of the kingdom living in Australia, as the hospital appealed for help in collecting toilet paper, bedclothes, pillows, detergent and equipment.

It was sad to hear that half the body of the Government could borrow more that four million from EFI (Export Finance Insurance) with a return in future.

If that is the case, it seems that most non government organisations can run better without being fully controlled by the Government of Tonga.

The health system should follow their lead and borrow money from overseas to buy toilet paper and new equipment, and then invite our beloved king to officially open it and charge patients a small fee for better health conditions.

Aisea Filihia,

Australia.

Help slop Hie misinformation

I always enjoy Sally Andrew’s articles,

so I looked forward to the one she wrote on my home islands for the July 1999 issue.

Naturally I was pleased that she found Kaua’i people “friendly folk”, and happily read about her tour around the island, until I got to her North Shore visit.

My pleasant vicarious amble with Andrew screeched to a halt when I read that following: “At Key Beach we ... made the traditional offering of a stone wrapped in a ti leaf.”

Oh horror!

Where to begin?

In the first place, there is no place called Key Beach. Ke’e (neither spelled nor pronounced like the English word “key”) we do have, and it is the site of a number of heiau (I give Andrew full marks for not committing the linguistic misdemeanor of spelling it he’iau).

At none of these heiau is a “stone wrapped in ti leaf’ a traditional offering.

Quite the contrary.

For many years those who care about the ancient sites of Ke’e have tried to stop people from wrapping up rocks in leaves and leaving them around the temples there.

Not only are these unwanted and unwonted gifts completely inappropriate to the deities who reside at Ke’e, the usual method of creating them ( picking up a rock from one part of the site and moving it to another) is seriously damaging the

archaeological remains.

Unfortunately, thanks to ill-informed tour guides and equally ill-informed tourists, the

practice continues.

I hope that your magazine will help those of us who are trying to halt the desecration of these places which are holy not only to Hawaiians, but, as a resident of Laka (Lata, Rata, La’a), to people throughout Polynesia.

Please do not be a vehicle for misinformation.

Heu’ionalani Wyeth,

Hawaii.