548 
Paul van der Grijp 
Anthropos 99.2004 
ambitions of these chiefs the local autonomy in 
creased and the political unity in Tonga was threat 
ened. This happened in spite of the peace and 
prosperity which would have reigned in 18th-cen 
tury Tonga. Also inspired by their contacts with 
Fiji and Samoa (Couper 1968; Kaeppler 1978) the 
young ambitious chiefs wanted more than just a 
peaceful life: they longed for suspense, sensation, 
and power. 21 Of importance were the increasingly 
frequent contacts with Fiji, where Tongans learned 
about new products such as spears, wooden bowls, 
large double canoes, pottery, sandalwood, and red 
feathers. The young chiefs traveled to Fiji in order 
to obtain these items. On the spot, they participated 
in the many local wars. They then returned to 
Tonga - though not always - bringing with them 
various prestige goods and wild stories. But they 
also adopted doubtful customs from the Fijians, 
such as the strangling of widows at the funeral of 
their husbands, and cannibalism in wartime (Mar 
tin 1981: 68, 89, 188 f., 194; Thomson 1894: 320). 
Prehistorians, however, argue that cannibalism in 
Tonga was much older than that. 
Rather than as a sequence of conflicts and con 
tinuous competition - or a chain of social dramas 
- classic Tongan historiography represents politics 
previous to the 19th century as a stable system, 
interrupted only by an “unusual” civil war. 22 This 
war would have accelerated in 1799 after the 
nighttime murder of the high chief mentioned at 
the beginning of this article and, half a century 
later, in 1852, stopped by another high chief, his 
grandson Taufa‘ahau, who enjoyed the support 
of British Methodist missionaries and the British 
navy. With this, not only a solid foundation would 
have been created for the present royal house, 
invariably interpreted as a continuation of the tra 
ditional paramount chieftain lines, 23 but also the 
foundation for peace and order ever since. 
This presupposed continuity is contradicted by 
the ethnographic material analyzed in this arti 
cle (see also Campbell 2001) in terms of social 
drama with its different phases. Almost the en 
tire first century of the more intensive contacts 
21 Latukefu did not leave any doubt about who was responsi 
ble for the crisis: “It was when [the young chiefs] began to 
misuse their power for purely selfish ends that corruption 
crept in followed by serious disturbances” (1974: 10). 
22 In this, Queen Salote (1900-1965) has played a major role 
by manipulating genealogies as well as the interpretation 
of at least some historians and anthropologists (Herda 
1995: 51; see also Wood-Ellem 1999). 
23 In a radio speech, for example, Taufa’ahau Tupou IV 
claimed to embody “in his person all the royal lines of 
ancient Tonga” (James 1995: 80). 
between Tongans and Europeans, starting with 
Cook’s visits in the 1770s, was accompanied by 
violent competition and overt conflicts between 
the chiefs, rather cyclical than unusual states of 
warfare which may be compared with about the 
same period in Hawaii. 24 Clear examples of com 
petition and conflicts between the chiefs in Tonga 
were the conflicts of succession within the three 
dynasties of paramount chiefs. In this article, the 
Tu‘i Kanokupolu has been discussed at length. In 
my opinion, the rapid change of titleholders is 
obvious. In the 70 years between Tupoulahi, the 
7th titleholder (about 1760; see no. 7 in Fig. 2), 
and AleamohTa, the 18th titleholder (1827-1845; 
no. 18 in Fig. 2), the Tu‘i Kanokupolu title was 
claimed by at least 12 persons, seven of whom 
were of the same generation. Moreover, in this 
period the title had been dormant for about 
20 years. 25 There was also discontinuity in the 
Tu‘i Tonga dynasty. The Tu‘i Tonga Paulaho, for 
example, was either dismissed or murdered. The 
succession of his brother Ma‘ulupekotofa was con 
sidered unlawful. The succession of Paulaho’s son 
Fuanunuiava was delayed for several years. After 
his death in 1810, the Tu‘i Tonga title remained 
vacant until 1827, the year in which his son Lau- 
filitonga was installed in the title. After the death 
of Laufilitonga in 1865, the Tu‘i Tonga position, 
previously Tonga’s highest title of chieftainship, 
was never filled again, although the present king, 
Taufa‘ahau Tupou IV, apparently also claims to be 
the Tu‘i Tonga. 
References Cited 
Bargatzky, Thomas 
1985 Person Acquisition and the Early State in Polynesia. In: 
H. J. M. Claessen, P. van de Velde, and M. E. Smith 
(eds.). Development and Decline. The Evolution of So 
ciopolitical Organization; pp. 290-310. South Hadley: 
Bergin and Garvey Publishers. 
Blanc, Joseph Felix 
1934 A History of Tonga or Friendly Islands. Vista: Vista 
Press. 
24 For example on 0‘ahu in Hawaii: “Until 1795, when it was 
definitively taken by Kamehameha, the island was beset by 
political troubles - of its own as well as others’ making- 
In less than two decades since Cook’s time, it saw three 
invasions, two of which resulted in conquests, one coup 
d’état, one unsuccessful rebellion, and six different ruling 
chiefs” (Sahlins 1992; 36). 
25 Between 1790 and 1804, around 1808, probably also 
from 1808 till 1813, and from 1820 till 1827 (Campbell 
1982: 183, note 13; see also Gunson 1979: 38 f.).