Tonga yesterday began a week of celebrations to mark the upcoming coronation of the Pacific nation’s monarch, King Tupou VI, with an ancient ceremony involving the mildly narcotic drink kava.
The buildup to the coronation on Saturday next week started near the Royal Palace in Nuku’alofa, where chiefs from around the kingdom presented gifts of pigs and yams to the king.
Sitting in a circle wearing traditional ta’ovala mats around their waists, about 150 nobles drank kava from coconut shells in a ceremony dating back centuries.
Street parties, black-tie balls, fashion shows and choral recitals are to be held over the next week before King Tupou VI is officially crowned in the capital’s Free Wesleyan Church.
Thousands of expatriate Tongans have flown home for the ceremony, with accommodation in Nuku’alofa booked out weeks ago.
A large number of dignitaries, including Japanese Crown Prince Naruhito and an as-yet unnamed member of the British royal family are also expected to attend.
The king — a 55-year-old former diplomat — succeeds his brother Tupou V, who died in 2012 after a six-year reign of major reforms that expanded democracy in the nation of about 110,000 people.
US anthropologist Adrienne Kaeppler of the Smithsonian Institution said Tongans’ attitudes toward the monarchy had changed over the years, but there was still a deep affection for the royals.
“Most of the people are still in awe of the chiefs and the monarchy, but they do have modern ideas influenced by the democratic ways they’ve seen in the US, Australia, New Zealand and so on,” she told reporters.
Tonga’s monarchy can trace its history back 1,000 years and by the 13th century the nation wielded power and influence over surrounding islands, including Samoa, nearly 900km to the east.
Tupou I, who converted to Christianity after coming under the influence of missionaries, was proclaimed king in 1845 after winning control of the monarchy from two other royal lines.
By 1900, the country had become a British protectorate and only acquired its independence in 1970. It remains the only monarchy among South Pacific island nations.
Kaeppler said that for Tongans, yesterday’s kava ceremony, or Taumafa Kava, was as important as the official coronation next week.
“That’s what everyone is waiting to see, that’s the Western-style coronation,” she said. “They’re dressed like European monarchs, they have the cloaks of velvet and ermine, and crowns are put on their heads.”
However, she said there was an ancient Tongan title called Tu’i Kanokupolu that predates the monarchy by centuries and also passes to Tupou VI.
“They trace their ancestry back to the sky god Tangaloa,” she said. “The new king is the 24th Tu’i Kanokupolu and the Taumafa Kava confirms his title when he drinks the kava.”
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but