BOOK REVIEWS 2°9

community, and personhood, Kapinga ing modes to meet their needs in these found this intensified dilution of local changing times. authority disorienting. The extremely high quality of Recent political developments have Lieber's ethnography leads me to brought more confounding layers of accept his assessments and share in his power and authority, and thus have cautious optimism. While there might added to the deep anxiety with which be those who would have wanted a Kapinga regard the outside world. In more subtle, nuanced treatment of his­ place of the American Trust Territory torical change or greater attention to government headquartered on Saipan, contemporary gender relations against Kapinga now find themselves a part of the decline of a prominent, ritually the Federated States of , endowed sphere of male activity, I and the more immediate and frighten­ choose to focus on the different and ing State of . Lieber describes exciting kind of history that is More Kapinga as caught in a schizophrenic Than a Living. Anyone interested in double bind of sorts, in which they the possibilities of ethnographic his­ simultaneously acknowledge their tory in the Pacific will find the book a dependency on powerful outside profitable and provocative read. It is forces, the severe social dislocation this about so much more than just fishing. dependency brings, and the need to DAVID HANLON find appropriate local solutions to University ofHawai'i at Manoa externally induced problems. What is at stake, believes Lieber, is the survival >f of a monocultural community in a multicultural world. Island Kingdom: Ancient and Lieber finds-some hope-for the Modern; by-I c-Ca:mpbelt future in the 1982 decision by one Christchurch: Canterbury University group of Kapinga to return to more Press, 1992. ISBN 0-9°-8812-14-0, traditional ways of living. He also sees xvii + 257 pages, illustrations, maps, Kapingamarangi's current elected rep­ genealogical tables, notes, appendixes, resentative to the Legis­ glossary, bibliography, index. Paper, lature as dealing effectively with the Nz$29·95· outside world in behalf of the people of his . In his role as mediator and Ian Campbell is one of the few histori­ provider, this individual is accruing ans of Tonga who is familiar with the power and status similar to that of sources for both traditional and mod­ Kapingamarangi's first king, David, ern Tonga. He is a scholar of the con­ who emerged in 1917 to lead the temporary scene, able to analyze local island in an equally traumatic, trou­ politics and social trends, and steeped bling time. In effect, writes Lieber, the in the traditional lore, particularly as Kapinga are now engaged in looking understood by modern-day Tongans. both within and outside themselves to This overall familiarity has its advan­ select new organizational and govern- tages and disadvantages. The strength PPM .M'SUW?GiS

210 THE CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC· SPRING 1995 lies in his ability to understand modern beginning of a reign and that any Tonga in the light of its past. The changes to the quality or character of weakness is that the past comes across the social program must wait for as a largely uncritical representation of another reign. dynastic stories. That Campbell does not take the The contents of the book are nicely traditional material literally is indi­ balanced. Two chapters take us to the cated by his note (229) on the legend­ eighteenth century. The third concen­ ary Tu'i Tonga allegedly made of trates on the period of initial European wood, Tu'itonganui ko e Tamatou: contact. The fourth covers the period "Perhaps this story disguises an illegal 1777 to r820, described as "the long succession or a period of civil war civil war." Chapters 5 to 7 deal with which has been otherwise forgotten." the formative reign of Tupou I. Chap­ He might easily have gone further and ter 8 is a review chapter describing the questioned the origin of the 'Aho'eitu social revolution, followed by chapter myth. He accepts the virtually impossi­ 9 on the reign of Tupou II. Four chap­ ble patrilineal succession of the Tu'i ters deal with the important reign of Tonga for thirty-nine generations, Queen Salote, including the Second despite conflicting king lists, and he World War. Chapter 14, aptly titled defers to the prejudiced account of the "Tupou IV's Modernization," is fol­ missionary John Thomas in regarding lowed by another review chapter and Tupoumoheofo as a usurper and her a conclusion covering the more recent accession as Tu'i Kanokupolu as changes in the social climate. "shocking." He accepts without ques­ Although the history keeps close to tion Thomas's identification of Cook's what might be called the received ver- Flnau as Tui'halafatai though there are ·slan oTTongari·traoitioniltliistOfy, ··several-dfnet-cbnten·de-rs;-the·mostcon·~ - . . Campbell certainly brings his own vincing being Mariner's Flnau when interpretations to the record. He Tu'i Ha'apai. His understanding of the rightly questions the accepted versions role of hau seems also to be based on of the origin of the Tu'i Ha'atakalaua Thomas and fails to take notice of and Tu'i Kanokupolu titles, he dis­ indigenous accounts. misses (perhaps too unconditionally) Notwithstanding these criticisms it the notion of a Tongan empire, and he would be difficult to produce a popu­ questions the nature of the relationship lar history of Tonga for use in the of Tonga with and Fiji. He is a schools that called for a more complete partial apologist for that eminence revision of what is currently believed. grise, the Reverend SW Baker and­ Perhaps by casting doubts on just a although he does not use the term-he few current interpretations Campbell correctly identifies the kuonga of is opening the door for the acceptance Tupou Fa as a reign distinguished by of further revision. Certainly there is economic modernization. Political sci­ great scope for reinterpretation. entists should note that a Tongan Campbell's Appendix 4, listing "con­ kuonga, like other Polynesian regnal temporary titleholders," is a risky periods, tends to be determined at the enterprise as he fails to recognize that BOOK REVIEWS 211

'Uluakimata I and Ngata were more or Tongan history and enable the reader less contemporaries and that the to see which versions of Tongan his­ changes of that period were so far tory have influenced the selection. The reaching as to suggest a social revolu­ index, which is not exhaustive, will at tion or even an invasion by a claimant least help students find those topics to the kingship. they are likely to study. Island King­ Like most of the early historians of dom will fill a long-felt need in the Tonga, Campbell perpetuates the leg­ Tongan schools; already six booklets end of the golden age of the Tu'i Tonga for secondary school students based on followed by a period of civil war-a the book, prepared by Ian Campbell peculiarly Eurocentric notion. The and Helen Boutell, with the title Tuku­ dynastic history of Tonga was marked laumea, have been published in Tonga by warfare from early times and cer­ in 1992-1993. These are recom­ tainly from the time of Kau'ulufonua mended for wider use and should be in II. Significantly, Campbell omits the all school libraries in the Pacific. history of Tokemoana, holder of a NIEL GUNSON fourth royal title, Tu'i Ha'a'ulua- Australian National University kimata. . Known errors of fact are few and >, tend to occur in areas where the author probably felt he knew the facts with­ Islanders ofthe South: Production, out checking them. Campbell states Kinship and Ideology in the Polyne­ (42) that none of the London Mission­ sian Kingdom ofTonga, by Paul Van ary Society missionaries was a clergy­ der Grijp. Translated by Peter Mason. man, yet four ordained ministers sailed Verhandelingen 154. Leiden: KITLV in the Duffand another missionary, Press; 1: 9~9 3. ISBN 90-6718=058-0,- Kelso, was ordained in Tahiti to serve x + 264 pages, figures, tables, photo­ in Tonga. Whether or not Kelso had graphs, notes, bibliography, index. better educational qualifications than Paper, US$29. the others is not recorded, though cer­ tainly the majority of the missionaries Described as the first study to analyze were deficient in that respect. Rowland contemporary Tongan society "using Hassall (50) was never a missionary the concepts of the mode of produc­ in Tonga, but was at Tahiti. Also, tion and the mode of thinking" (2), William Shelley did nominally reopen Van der Grijp's ethnography promises the Tongan mission for several years much. The author, a social anthropolo­ before the Wesleyans, though his gist from the Netherlands, gathered action was not authorized from most of his material between 1982 and London. 1991 in Vava'u, the main northern The book is well presented, with group of islands in Tonga, and made maps, drawings, and photographs. A comparative studies in Tongatapu and useful feature is the short list of Ha'apai. His application of "the mode sources at the end of each chapter. The of thinking" in the analysis involves "a title lists provide a brief outline of specific concept of ideology" (2), one