Peace Corp Volunteer in Tonga
A Putu (Funeral)

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This was the third funeral I have been to in Nakolo. It is amazing to me how this will take precedent over many things, but not everything, I don’t understand it. We had planned a regional sports day in Nakolo the same weekend, which had to be moved to Fua’amotu because of the putu, but we had school and it seemed like an average day.

There are several aspects of a Tongan funeral. One is the tea or meal. There was a tent with tables and chairs and several people handing out bags of food, which were filled with any combination of tapioca, chicken, pork, mutton and eggs. Also some folks were pouring drinks for everyone and as far as I could tell it was just whatever they had at the time. Once it was hot chocolate and the next time he came around it was juice. Not important, just a drink. This food and drink is all made by friends and relatives. It is common for some of the men to stay up all night preparing a huge umu (underground oven) and cooking meat and root crops all night and day.

Then there is an area for singing. Hymns are sung almost constantly during the whole funeral which lasts 4-8 hours. People come and go as they see fit and there is a constant rotation of singers. This is another situation where I never thought to bring my hymn book and when I found my friends and they asked where it was they looked at me like I was crazy (leaving a church hymn book at home and going to a funeral, ha) I quickly retrieved it and joined in the singing, or reading and hoping to get most of the words. Any actual tune escapes me at this point.

This singing is usually outside the house where the body is. Generally the body viewing is similar to funerals in the states. There is a coffin holding the body which is on several layers of woven mats and tapa cloth. There are also layers of cloth, mats and tapa wrapping and draped over the body, but the face is always exposed. Relatives sit with the deceased in this room and there is space for folks who want to sing and be with the family. Then there is the line to the body. This is the hardest part for me. In Tonga it is traditional to kiss the body. Now I saw my grandmother kiss my grandfather at his funeral and it didn’t seem normal, but he was her life partner, husband and father to her children. One last goodbye kiss is fine. But I never met this man, or most of his relatives and yet I find myself standing in line to kiss him. This is a telling point for me. I came here to learn and be immersed in another culture, but this is out of my comfort zone to say the least. Oh well just do as everyone else does. I followed as the line got closer and closer. Then my turn, I knelt and leaned forward to kiss his forehead. A quick peck and off I was. Erie how cold the body was. I walked out trying to hide my uneasiness and although I had the shivers for 5 minutes after, I did it.

Next is the church service. The body is carried to the church. This is where the many mats come in very handy as that is what the pallbearers hold while transporting the body from house to van and then van to church. One difference is the pallbearers seem to be whoever is around and strong enough. After the service there were only 5 men and a woman just leaned out the window, spotted an able bodied young man and told him to go help.

After the service the body is taken to the graveyard where it is placed in a large cement lined hole and covered with a cement slab. That is then covered with a big pile of sand. Once buried the body is actually surrounded by air, not directly covered with dirt. I have heard there are regulations as to how long a body must lay at rest before the same grave can be used for additional family. How Romeo and Juliet.

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