Tongan culture

Tongan Culture

By Ganesh

Tongan culture is a culture that is widely known about, so here is an informative blog post on it. Tongan people, despite embracing most of the features of the modern world, they still proudly hold their ancient culture by still living in village communities and doing their ancient traditions to this day.  They were their traditional dresses, and cook their food how their ancestors did while drinking ‘kava’ which is a ceremonial tradition of the Polynesian monarchy that Tonga once used to have. This is because it was never colonised by a foreign power, but still was strongly influenced by Christianity, so there are many churches for the population of Tonga.

Within the people, they’re three social dialects, one for each of the classes, the king, chiefs and nobles, as well as the common people. To allow communication between these classes, there are people called ‘talking chiefs’ that know all dialects and translate for everyone in official ceremonies. Much of the population knows little English as it is taught in primary schools and high schools. Apart from schools, everywhere else like streets, markets, offices and churches use Tongan as the language as is commonly used to communicate.

Just like most other cultures, Tonga has its own creation myth, which states that’s the islands were fished from the ocean by Maui, which is one of the major three gods. Another myth is about ‘Aho’eitu became the first king of Tonga, he was the son of a human female and the god Tangaloa, so he was human and godly, so he was the embodiment of the Tongan people.

Tongans were fierce, loyal warriors as well as skilled navigators, which had ‘outrigger’ canoes that hold up to two hundred people, that were used to go to neighbouring islands and politically and culturally influenced their island. There were also a lot of techniques that were passed down from generation to generation, like bone carving, wood carving, basket weaving and fine weaving for Tongan craftspeople.

In villages and the main towns, food is the occasion for a family gathering only at the end of the day, otherwise, food is taken freely any time of the day. The basic foods are root crops like taro, and cooked meat or fish. The ceremony ritual of kava drinking characterises both formal and daily events. How kava is prepared, is by grinding dried roots and then mixing it with water in a ceremonial bowl. It is non-alcoholic, but it is slightly narcotic.