Culture of Tonga

Before the arrival of European explorers in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the Tongans were in frequent contact with their nearest Oceanic neighbors, Fiji and Samoa.

Cash crops include squash and pumpkins, which have in recent years replaced bananas and copra as the largest agricultural exports.

[2] In post-contact Tonga, newly pubescent males were kamu (tefe), or circumcised by cutting one slit in the foreskin, on the underside of the penis.

[5] Tongan families do not necessarily compete to put on the largest, grandest funeral possible, but they do strive to show respect for the deceased by doing all that is customary.

Violent crime is limited, but increasing, and public perception associates this with returns of ethnic Tongans who have been raised overseas.

A few notable cases involve young men who were raised since infancy in the United States, whose families neglected to obtain citizenship for them and who were thus deported due to confrontations with the American justice system.

Traditionally, there is little social stigma regarding incarceration (although this too is changing), which means that imprisonment does not serve as a strong deterrent against crime.

Previously, attempts were made to temporarily exile young offenders to Tau, a small island offshore Tongatapu but this was later abandoned.

They raised children, gathered shellfish on the reef, and made koloa, barkcloth and mats, which were a traditional form of wealth exchanged at marriages and other ceremonial occasions.

Wearing the ta'ovala is a sign of respect, and it is said that in early times men returning from a long voyage at sea would cover up these mats before visiting the chief of the village.

Before Western contact, many objects of daily use were made of carved wood: food bowls, head rests (kali), war clubs and spears, and cult images.

[11][12] The tradition Tongan fale consisted of a curved roof (branches lashed with sennit rope, or kafa, thatched with woven palm leaves) resting on pillars made of tree trunks.

There are many surviving examples of Tongan stone architecture, notably the Haʻamonga ʻa Maui and mound tombs (langi) near Lapaha, Tongatapu.

Preachers in some Methodist sects still wear long frock coats, a style that has not been current in the West for more than a hundred years.

Women who attend the Wesleyan Methodist girls' school, Queen Sālote College, are taught several Western handicrafts, such as embroidery and crochet.

Village women are much more likely to turn their efforts to weaving mats or beating barkcloth, which can be done with free local material.

In the 1970s there was a small factory near Nukuʻalofa that made simple jewelry from coral and tortoise-shell for sale to Western tourists.

Early visitors, such as Captain Cook and the invaluable William Mariner, note only the singing and drumming during traditional dance performances.

Radio Tonga begins each day's broadcast with a recording from Honourable Veʻehala, a nobleman and celebrated virtuoso of the nose flute.

Villagers would rise, eat some leftover food from the previous day's meal, and set out to work in the fields, fishing, gathering shellfish, etc.

The diet consisted mainly of taro, yams, bananas, coconuts, and fish baked in leaves; shellfish were usually served raw, as a relish.

Baked breadfruit was eaten in season; said fruit itself as well as the banana and taro could be stored in pits until fermented into a unique staple preserve known as mā.

Hence a household's main security was generous distribution of food to relatives and neighbors, who were thus put under an obligation to share in their turn.

In the last few decades, Tongan farmers with access to large tracts of land have engaged in commercial farming of pumpkins and other easily shipped vegetables as cash crops.

It is eaten straight from the can, or mixed with coconut milk and onions, wrapped in leaves, and baked in the earth oven.

Tongans also eat the common South Pacific "ship's biscuit", hard plain crackers once a shipboard staple.

Sometimes this is imported Australian or New Zealand beer; more often it is home-brew, hopi, made with water, sugar or mashed fruit, and yeast.

Imported drinks are sold only to Tongans who have liquor permits, which require a visit to a government office, and limit the amount of alcohol which can be purchased.

[20] Much of this is related to the nation's cultural love of food and eating as well as the modern influx of cheap and high-fat content meat, with corned beef and lamb belly remaining firm favourites in Tongan cuisine.

The king and the majority of the royal family are members of the Free Wesleyan Church (Methodist) which claims some 35,000 adherents in the country.