Culture of Tonga - Rank and Status

Rank and Status

All Polynesian cultures are strongly stratified, ranging from somewhat less to even more. Tongan culture is no exception, and despite almost two centuries of western influence, it is, together with Samoa still the most stratified culture. In former times the king (tuʻi) with the royal family was on top. Below him were the high chiefs (houʻeiki), the estate holders and warlords. Below them the lower chiefs (fototehina). Below them the working chiefs (matāpule), in fact attendants to the chiefs to which they belonged, providing services to them, like fishing, tax collection, kavamixing, undertaking and protocol keeping. Below them the ordinary people (tuʻa). Below them, or maybe more or less on the same level, the slaves, prisoners of war (popula).

In the modern context, the king remains in this position and has the final executive power of government. The high chiefs are now limited to 33 titles and called nobles (nopele), but some nobles carry more than one title. They are still estate holders, and as such have some influence, but they are not the government (although many of them are high ranking civil servants). The lower chiefs have disappeared (and the word fototehina now means 'brothers'). The matāpule have also largely disappeared except those who keep the protocol and serve as official spokesmen for the king and nobles. And also the royal undertaker, Lauaki. Tax collection is a task for the central government only. Slavery is abolished, since the emancipation of 1875, and all other people are just the 'commoners'.

The worldly power described above can be called status. A Tongan obtains his status from his father (or sometimes uncle, but always through the male line). He inherits his (noble or matāpule) title from his father. The crownprince will succeed his father. Land ownership is only inherited through the father.

However, status as such does not place you in society; this is based on rank. A Tongan obtains his rank from his mother, and that determines his place in the social order. Within the family the rank of women is higher than that of men. Likewise the elder sister of a king, if he has one, has a higher blood rank the king himself. This was the so-called Tamahā (holy child) in pre-European times.

In practice high rank and high status always go together because no high ranking woman would ever marry a commoner, and no chief would ever marry a low ranking woman. In fact when prince ʻAlaivahamamaʻo eloped with the daughter of a low chiefess Tuʻimala, he was stripped from his royal status and had to flee to Hawaii. Children from that marriage, grandchildren of the king, would have obtained no significant rank. Albeit later, after a divorce, ʻAlai was reconciled with his father and married princess Alaileula from Sāmoa. He did not however become prince again and died in 2004 with only the noble title Māʻatu.)

Rank and status are fixed from birth. There is no way in Tongan society to climb up in rank. A low ranking chief will always remain the lesser of a high ranking chief, even though his lands may be bigger and richer and so forth. But he can try to marry a high ranking woman, for instance if she is interested in his rich lands, and so increase the rank of his children. Status on the other hand, although usually fixed too, can have some vertical movement. The second son of a noble, normally not in line for his father's title, may get it after all if his older brother dies prematurely. In addition to this sometimes, but very rarely, the king may elevate some person to high status.

Even more striking was the situation with Tāufaʻāhau, the later king George Tupou I. He was born in a chiefly family of lower rank, not belonging to the houʻeiki. As such he never could attend at the chiefly kava ceremonies as the equal of the high chiefs. By consequence he avoided them. Even after the Battle of Velata when he had defeated the Tuʻi Tonga and had become the most powerful man of the whole archipelago, he still remained a person of inferior rank. But then he had the power to take Lupepauʻu, who had been the wife of the Tuʻi Tonga and hence the highest ranking woman at that time as wife. Thus, paradoxically, his children were born into a higher 'status' than he had. Presently his descendants, the current royal family, are the highest ranking Tongans of all.