Folk Tales of Tonga (book reveiw)

Mana (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 14, 9 February 1978, Page 7

Folk Tales of Tonga (book reveiw)

The author, Tupou, and her publishers have succeeded in more ways than one in bringing out this collection of 12 folk tales from Tonga’s past. “Po Fananga” (‘stories to lull one to sleep’) aptly describes the contents of this 96-page book which also contains a four page glossary to help the readers who are foreign to Tongan mythology and placenames. Many Tongan “expatriates” will find this useful if not educational.

The publishers claim to “Po Fananga” being the first book of Tongan folk tales in

both English and Tongan is justified and will no doubt meet the increasing demand for variety in Tongan written material. In particular this book would be sought after by Tongans living abroad as it does provide them and their families with a link with ‘‘home’ as well as the past, and priced at NZ$7.3O it is not all that expensive.

The title itself should take one back ‘home’ to evenings when in a thatched Tongan fale (house), the elderly storyteller would tum down the kerosene lamp, and hud-

died on pandanus mats with a piece of tapa to help keep the mosquitoes at bay, a group of five or six children would stare quietly into the dark waiting for theirfavourite story to put them all to sleep.

This collection, is of course only a small part of Tongan folklore put in book form and in both the Tongan and English in a simple flowing style, it should serve as children’s bedtime stories for a family that have grown tired of the “Hansels and Gretels” of their adopted homeland. Social studies teachers at primary and intermediate level will find the ‘legend of the coconut’ will have a common appeal amongst their Polynesian pupils who see this item at home either as food or part of the furnishings.

In present-day Tonga, the advent of the transistor radio, the movies and, ironically, the written media itself have replaced many a storyteller except in isolated reaches of the group where Tupou and the Tofua Press may have to travel in order to record and survive the “fananga” for the metropolitan Tongan. In all, the author and her publishers have, in this book, shown their awareness of the present-day needs in Polynesian multiculturalism and have packaged the item accordingly. ‘lsa.’