Coronations in Oceania

Coronations in Oceania are, or were, held in the following countries: Bau island chief Seru Epenisa Cakobau used Western cannons and muskets to subdue most of Fiji.

Kalākaua's accession in 1874 saw no ceremony due to the political unrest at the time and his unpopularity with the Emmaites, supporters of Queen Emma.

Kalākaua's sister Liliʻuokalani reported that at the moment of his crowning, the sun was obscured by a cloud which gave way to reveal a single bright star.

Unlike the other islands of Polynesia, Niue had no nationally organized government or single ruling chief until the beginning of the 18th century.

Around 1700 the concept of kingship appear to have been introduced through contact with Samoa or Tonga, and from then a succession of patu-iki (kings) ruled the island, the first of whom was Puni-mata who bathed in Papatea, near Hakupu.

A senior chief would then anoint (fakauku) the new ruler by dipping a lau-mamālu leaf in a cup of coconut oil, then striking the king's head three times.

Songs (lologo) were composed and sung at the feast (katoaga) held to honor the king after his anointment; many examples survive through oral traditions to this today.

Each village would send representatives to attend the ceremony; others performed various services, such as providing the stone against which the king sat to be anointed, called a pepe.

The rite centered upon the maro ura, a sacred girdle symbolizing Pōmare's status and power, composed of yellow and red feathers, five yards long by fifteen inches wide.

As the ship's barber, Skinner commanded special prestige among Tahitians, who valued his red hair and wove some of it into their maro ura.

[8] By 1824, when his son Pōmare III was crowned, the Tahitian coronation ritual had changed significantly, under the influence of foreign Christian missionaries.

This time, a European-style rite was enacted, with the new king escorted to the Royal Chapel in Papeete behind a procession of flower-strewing girls accompanied by governors, judges and other civil servants.

A European coronation ceremony had been introduced to the islands by Western missionaries, where it followed a centuries-old traditional Tongan rite involving the ritual drinking of kava by the new king, together with the receipt of dozens of cooked pigs and baskets of food.