Tongan Funerals

October 9, 2012

We got to experience a little bit of a traditional Tongan funeral today. In Tonga, village funerals are a part of life, they are very elaborate and confusing to us palangi. The funerals are normally in two stages- the home prayer and village morning stage with a feast, and then later the burial stage. There are specific ta’ovalas (a wrap around matt typically worn by men in any professional or formal setting) that have to be worn depending on your rank. In Tonga the highest ranking family member is the father’s sister (mehikitonga) if it is your mehikitonga that has past, you have to wear the biggest ta’ovala. I will leave it at that because it gets really confusing if you try and think about it and relate it to other family members and where they fit in… The home stage of the funeral has different times for each member group in the village to come and pay their respects- first it is the family, then the church the disseast was a part of, then each church and its congregation. After the viewings there is a giant feast where everyone in the village can come and eat. All funeral attendees get bags of chicken as parting gifts as well.

As Peace Corps, our school still operates on normal schedule when there is a funeral, even though we still dress in all black (to show are respect for the culture). Today the funeral was during our language class, which is in our village, so we convinced our teacher to take us to observe the funeral for a short time. He agreed and we walked over to the house where the funeral was being held. As we walked up to the house there were men working on preparing the bags of chicken, kids running around, and many villages approaching to sing and pray for the women who had passed. From outside the home where we were sitting we could hear the singing and crying. It was a very powerful experience seeing the whole village come together to morn a lost member. It is really respectful and there is a strong since of community because everyone in the village wears black and their ta’ovala, they all help by donating food and money and sometimes small gifts to the family, and for 4 days after the funeral there is no loud music played and no public celebrations.

The below pictures are not super great because I was trying to be respectful and not treat the funeral like a tourist attraction. I did break down and sneak a few photos, but from far away and not obviously....

Here are some local women in their ta'ovals- being that they are so long these women could be low ranking to the women who has died.

  

Some men in more modern style ta'ovalas Even the kids wear them!

  

A group of villagers on their way to pay their respects    

      

This is the nephew of the women who passed (she is is his father's eldest sister) That is why his ta'ovala is so large

Men at work preparing the bags of chicken to give away

  

This is the view of the out door feast from where we were sitting outside of the house where people were singing/'morning.