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QUEEN SALOTE OF TONGA. The Story of an Era, 1900-1965. By Elizabeth Wood-Mem Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. 1999. xix, 376 pp. (B&W photos, tables, maps.) US$22. 00, paper ISBN 0-8248-2522.
Much of the world first heard of Queen Sal lote when she attended the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. Her famous open carriage ride in the pouring rain secured a place for her in the hearts of British citizens; at home in Tonga it increased her mana (mana refers to the degree to which objects and person are endowed with extraordinary powers). At this point in her remarkable life, Salote was assured of the love and loyalty of her people, though this was something she had to earn during the early years of her reign. Salote was born in 1900 at a time when Tonga was hardly known to the outside world and foreigners in the country numbered only a few hundred. The social structure was (and is) dependent on rank, social obligation (fatongia), and to a lesser degree, on title, which are reckoned through genealogies. In parallel with Tongan historiography, the author, Elizabeth Wood-Ellem, begins this book with detailed genealogies of Salote's parents and ancestors to illustrate why there was such political and personal controversy over her right to rule. It was S51ote's belief in her manifest destiny, her skillful use of traditional knowledge, and equally impressive political acumen that helped her take the divided and unstable kingdom she inherited from her father and establish Tonga as a sovereign nation. Evidence of the Queen's knowledge of tala--fonua (oral traditions of land and its people) is provided by including examples of her poetic songs composed in heliaki forms (Tongan elliptical metaphors). These poetic songs invoked...