|
Last Updated: May 9th, 2011 - 08:37:04 |
Pallbearers carry Tonga king to his grave
By Simon Baker
Sep 19, 2006, 11:17
|
Email this article
|
NUKU'ALOFA (Reuters) - His coffin carried aloft by 1,000 pallbearers dressed in grass mats, Tongan King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV was buried on Tuesday in a ceremony combining Christian hymn-singing and ancient Polynesian ritual.
The streets of Nuku'alofa, capital of the South Pacific's last monarchy, were draped in the mourning colours of black and purple as thousands of tearful Tongans gathered to pay their respects to the man who had ruled them for 41 years.
Mourners were later to feast on pigs roasted in umu, or open pits, dug in the grounds of villages around the nation of 170 coral and volcanic islands before the start of a month of mourning during which dancing and loud music will be banned.
Tupou IV died in a New Zealand hospital on September 10 after a long illness.
The 88-year-old king, who entered the record books in the 1970s as the world's heaviest monarch, is succeeded by his son, George Tupou V, a 58-year-old bachelor whose coronation could be up to a year away.
Tupou V arrived at the funeral in a chauffeur-driven black London taxi wearing a pith helmet and one of the military uniforms for which he has a penchant.
One thousand pallbearers, dressed in black and wrapped in traditional ta'ovala grass mats, carried Tupou IV's huge wooden catafalque in relays of 150 from the palace where he had lain in state to the Mala'e Kula, the site of Tongan royal tombs.
A 21-gun artillery salute boomed across Nuku'alofa as the black-and-gold-topped catafalque made its way down the kilometre-long Road of the King flanked by hundreds of schoolgirls sitting cross-legged by the roadside.
The procession travelled down a path of woven mats, led by a detachment of soldiers in starched white trousers, tunics and pith helmets.
Foreign dignitaries including Japanese Crown Prince Naruhito, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and Australian Governor-General Michael Jeffery joined up to 10,000 ordinary Tongans in a Wesleyan Christian funeral service.
Tupou IV's mahogany, lead-lined coffin was then lowered into "the underworld" in Tongan tradition before the nima tapu, the royal undertakers called "sacred hands", began to fill the grave with sand carried in woven baskets.
He was buried next to the tomb of his mother, Queen Salote Tupou III, whom he succeeded in 1965.
The Polynesian nation, dubbed the Friendly Islands by British explorer James Cook, holds its royal family in deep esteem.
Praised in official biographies for leaving a "towering legacy", Tupou IV placed great emphasis on education.
As Minister for Education, he toured the country with a movie projector and charged a small fee at film showings to raise money for the impoverished nation's first high school.
The royal family controls a semi-feudal political system but the nation of some 105,000 people saw unprecedented protests in May 2005, when an estimated 10,000 took to the streets to demand democracy and public ownership of assets.
Tupou V, educated at Oxford and Britain's Sandhurst military academy, will give up all his business interests in Tonga's power company, brewery, a telecommunications company and an airline, the royal family has said.
|
Submit Articles
Author Login
