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Full Text: Anthropos, 99.2004

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
	        
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