Anthropos
99.2004: 535-550
Strategic Murders
Social Drama in Tonga’s Chiefly System (Western Polynesia)
Paul van der Grijp
Abstract. - This article deals with a chain of social dramas
typical of an important part of the civil war in Tonga (Western
Polynesia), a period of decline of the paramount chieftainship
which was a continuation and intensification of an already
existing competition between the Tongan chiefs. Here, this
competition and the resulting social dramas - with distant
parallels in Hawaiian history - are conceived as rather cyclical
than unusual states of warfare. The major research questions
of this article are: How was the disintegration of the Tongan
system of paramount chieftainship brought about? and: What
Were its implications? In analyzing a selection of historical
ethnography from a political anthropological point of view, the
metaphor of social drama, adapted from Victor Turner, will
be used as an analytical tool. [Polynesia, Tonga, chiefs, war,
murder, social drama, political anthropology]
Paul van der Grijp is director of the Department of Ethnology
at the Université de Provence (Maison Méditerranéenne des
Sciences de l’Homme, Aix-en-Provence) and researcher of the
Centre de Recherche et de Documentation sur T Océanie (Mai
son Asie Pacifique, Marseille). At the Université de Provence,
he is in charge of teaching History and Theories of Anthro-
pology, Economic and Political Anthropology, and Oceania
Studies. His major research interests concern past and present
e conomic and political situations in Western Polynesia (Tonga,
Tallis, Futuna, Samoa, Rotuma). Recent publications include
Selling is Poverty, Buying a Shame. Representations of Work,
Effective Leadership, and Market Failures on Wallis” (Ocea
nia 2002) and “Between Gifts and Commodities. Commercial
Enterprise and the Trader’s Dilemma on Wallis” (The Contem
porary Pacific 2003).
the night of 21 to 22 April 1799, during a
funeral ritual on Tonga’s main island Tongatapu,
a high chief was murdered. The funeral, a reburial
°f the Tu‘i Ha‘atakalaua Toafunaki, offered an
e *cellent opportunity because on such occasions
notwithstanding their mutual rivalry many chiefs
from the numerous Tongan islands were gathered
together in a mourning mood over several days.
The murder was unexpected. One chief with his
warriors lay in wait outside the house of the
sleeping victim, whilst the instigator went inside.
He wanted his victim to know to whom he owed
his death and, therefore, first slapped him with the
flat of his hand in the face. The victim woke up,
and his murderer shouted: “It’s me, Tupouniua,
who is beating you!”, and then smashed his skull
with a war club. The victim’s brusquely awakened
companions had not the slightest chance of fleeing
from the house. Outside, they were confronted
with the heavily armed accomplices.
This story derives from the young British
sailor William Mariner (Martin 1981:71), who
was a survivor of a capture by the Tongans of
his ship, the Port-au-Prince, and subsequent mas
sacres. Mariner lived in Tonga between 1806 and
1810. On his return to England, he had his ex
periences recorded by the London physician John
Martin, who published them in 1817. It is no
eyewitness account of the murder, but Mariner was
particularly well informed, among others by his
adopted father, the accomplice to the murder. Ac
cording to historical anthropology (Bott 1982: 9),
the murder marked the “ferocious local wars” from
the early 1780s until 1852. During the first part
of the war, a period of decline of the paramount
chieftainship which lasted till 1826, at least one-
fourth of the population died on one of the many
battlefields or in the accompanying famines (Wood