18. Tohi Hohoko Losaline Fatafehi:n.p.; Ve‘ehala and Fanua 1977:30 and Gifford (1929:60) claim that her name was Vaenöpö and that she was the daughter of ‘Ahome‘e’s younger brother. Thomas (Tongatabu:72) claims Va‘etapu married Ngata, the first Tu‘i Kanokupolu (see below), but this is not supported by the corpus of genealogical material.
19. McKern 1929:51-52. The name was probably coined at or just after the reign of ‘Uluakimata 11 to distinguish the two leaders.
20. Koe Tohi Hohoko ‘a S. Tu'iketei Pule:69,n.p.; Reiter 1933:381; Burrows 1937:23-25, 163-164. See Gifford (1929:56-57) for an account of the great respect the wood from Lomipeau received after the canoe was dismantled.
‘U luak im ata is rem em bered for the great m any m arriages he m ade, three of which w ere w ith w om en of high ranking and powerful lineages. These women were T alafaiva, N an asilap ah a and M ata u k ip ä. Any one of them could have become m a 'ita k i, the principal wife and m o th er of the heir22. T alafaiva, like m any of the previous m ä lita k i, w as from Sam oa. She m ust have been th e highest ranking of the three for she was called fa k a to u a to (‘chiefly by both p a re n ts’) and brought w ith her 50 fo k o n o fo (secondary wives) from Sam oa. She appears to have been preferred as m ä ^ ta k i; although this was n o t to be for she had a child w ith a V ava‘u chief, T u ‘i‘äfitu L olom ana‘ia, before going to th e T u ‘i T onga. A ccounts differ on th e details of the incid en t23. One contends th a t T a lafa iv a becam e enam oured of L olom ana‘ia during her journey to ‘U luakim ata. M anam a is a term which carries a suggestion of divine interven tion (m a n a) and is app lied to young men who are overwhelm ingly a ttra c tiv e to women; T a lafa iv a ’s sexual en co u n ter w ith L olom ana‘ia is thus presented as an act beyond her control. A nother acco u n t suggests th a t L olom ana‘ia gained access to th e T u ‘i T o n g a ’s secluded compound an d seduced T alafaiv a, who was already the wife of ‘U luakim ata; in this version T a lafa iv a pays w ith her life for the indiscretion, (which is blam ed on a low hanging tree b ran ch ). A th ird version records a form al m arriage betw een T alafaiva and Lolom ana‘ia. In any event, T a lafa iv a was not called m a ‘ita k i, seem ingly through no fau lt of her own, and when she died a langt was built for her in the V av a‘u archipelago, a favourite spot of ‘U lu ak im ata, as well as the home of L olom anafia2^.
It is n otew o rth y th a t T alafaiva was not considered eligible to be m ä ‘ita k i because she had already had a child before she m arried ‘U lu ak im ata, or at least before she had a child by him. T he first child of a wom an was greatly esteem ed, especially of high-ranking w om en, because of the general em phasis, already m entioned, on the superiority of the first of a n y th in g , it being regarded as containing m ore divine substance th an those th a t followed it. T his was tru e of alm ost everything including a yam crop, any agricultural e n terp rise, the first to die in b a ttle or th e first born of a wom an; all were said to be consecrated to th e gods. These ‘firsts’ were designated w ith special term s: o/opo‘ou (‘a w o m a n ’s first ch ild ’), ‘u /u a /t (‘the first killed in b a ttle ’), fu a ta p u (‘first of a crop ’), and kin a s i (the first of th e kahokaho yam s designated the ‘share of the gods’)25. A bias to w a rd s prim o g enitu re in title succession is easy to u nd erstan d in light of such a cultural value, as is th e T ongan belief th a t the oldest of th e sam e substance (ie. same sex siblings) is of higher rank, owing to their g reater proxim ity to the gods. It also helps to
22. Interview, 26 August 1985; Reiter 1933:374.
23. Interview, 26 August 1985; Collocott 1928:52; Gifford 1924:37; Samuela Taufa 1970; T u ‘i‘afitu 1970.
24. Havea in Malupö, Ancient Tradition:9; McKern 1929:30,49-51; Interview, 27 July 1985 25. Churchward 1959:651
explain the unequal control of the sexual behaviour of women of differing rank, a subject which early visitors to Tonga often commented on. They noted that whereas unmarried
n o
t u la women had almost unlimited sexual freedom, chiefly women who were not
married refrained from any sexual activity27. It has often been assumed by these and other writers that it was the woman’s virginity or chastity which was significant and therefore being guarded, when in reality it was her fertility and more importantly her ability to channel divinity to her first born that was valued2®.
The significance of the first born of the m a'itaki to the succession of the kau Tu‘i Tonga is shown in an account of the marriage of Tu‘i Tonga Momo to his ma'itaki,
Nua, the daughter of the legendary Lo‘au29. It is said that after seeing the beautiful Nua, Momo wanted her for his wife. He therefore sent a metaphorical message to Lo‘au asking for seedling yams for his plantation, the insinuation, which did not escape Lo‘au, being that Momo desired the daughters of Lo‘au. Lo‘au replied that his yam harvest was not good, one yam had already sprouted and the other was immature, meaning that Nua had already had a child and her sister was still too young. The Tu‘i Tonga was said to have replied, lNe ongo ‘e fena ka ko N u a ’ (although she has sprouted, yet Nua), meaning that although she had a child, she was still Nua and would be his m a litaki. The salient feature of the discussions was, obviously, the fertility of Nua, not her virginity. A later example concerns a chief who sought to eliminate the Tu‘i Tonga line by ensuring th a t his sister (who was to be the principal wife and mother of the heir) had a child by another man before she married the Tu‘i Tonga, thereby reducing the mana of the potential heir*'0.
That the emphasis is on fertility is made clear when it is considered that widowed or divorced31 chiefly women who chose not to remarry were free to choose casual sexual partners without condemnation; these women were known as finetakapo (‘women who wander freely at night’). George Vason, a renegade L.M.S. missionary who later repented and published an account of his time in Tonga in the late eighteenth century, renders finetakapo (‘feene takabou’) as ‘harlot’, while Mariner another long term European resident of Tonga at that time, translates it (‘fafine tacabe’) as ‘single or
26. There is some question as to whether kau t u ‘a married, in the sense of the union being ritually or socially marked, at all (Interview, 31 August 1985; Interview, 12 September 1985).
27. See, among others, Beaglehole 1967-1969 (3):945; Edwards 1915:134; Novo y Colson 1885:385; Waldegrave, Report:6
28. James (1987) has come to a similar conclusion.