I
was standing in a stranger’s home, surrounded by people I didn’t know, looking down
at a dead body. How I found myself in that situation in the beginning of just
my second week in ‘Eua is beyond me.
The
lined features of the middle-aged man, expressionless in death, looked waxen,
fake, as if his brown skin had been sculpted out of clay and carefully shaped
to resemble the living.
But,
that’s not what I was thinking about as I stood over him. It was more like, what the hell am I doing, kissing a dead
man?
I didn’t even know
the guy, and yet there I was getting ready to pucker up. (Like, at least buy me
dinner first, amirite?)
At my neighbor’s
encouragement, I’d stood up to join the line of people filing over to the
shroud. I thought that it might reflect poorly on me if I shunned someone who
had been a well-known and respected member of my community, after living here
for just one week.
I hadn’t thought
paying my respects would mean I’d have to kiss him though.
Shuffling behind
the other women in front of me, I hadn’t been paying attention to what they
were doing. I was too distracted by the piles of painted tapa cloth and woven mats donated by all the guests; by the clean, soft,
snow-white blankets that made up the man’s shroud, festooned with purple ribbons
and multi-colored needlework; by the fact that there was no coffin in sight.
Next thing I knew,
the woman in front of me was bending over him and just laying one on him. For a
drawn-out moment, I panicked internally, but it was too late for me to back out
without offending everyone and their dogs’ fleas, so I just mimicked what she
did.
I bent over him
and leaned to plant a kiss on his forehead, but at the last second I balked and
noncommittally reared my head back so that my lips hardly even grazed flesh.
I probably looked
something like a chicken does when it’s searching for crumbs of food in the
grass, pulling it’s head backward and thrusting it forward in that weird, tense,
jerky motion.
When the deed was
done, I turned quickly and restrained myself from bolting through the door. I
walked casually, with measured steps outside and across the lawn to an area
that had been prepared for the morning feast.
At 7 a.m. all the
guests that had attended the morning prayer service and wake, sat down on
wooden benches to feast on hot dogs in oversized buns, plain white cake
smothered in yellow custard, flattened corned beef sandwiches on white bread,
and roasted pig, washed down with hot coffee or black tea and lukewarm glasses
of Tang. Each person left with a
stack of plastic take-away boxes to bring home to their families.
Much like with
anything of importance here, two major things accompany funerals in Tonga: lots
of praying and lots of eating. And, out of respect for the suffering family,
most activities throughout the community that would make much noise—for
example, rugby games or other sporting events—are either canceled or moved to
another village.
With the burial
scheduled for Friday afternoon in Petani—one of the villages bordering my
home—prayer services began on Tuesday and were held once every evening leading
up to the actual day of the funeral, and then for three days after.
People from all
over the community dressed in black with various-sized ta’ovala wrapped around their hips. The size of each person’s ta’ovala depends on their rank in
relation to the deceased. So, for example, someone who ranks lower than the
deceased might wear a ta’ovala that
covered most of their body—the lowest ranking even wearing some that hooded
their heads. The higher-ranking family members wear smaller ta’ovala and kiekie to also show their rank.
On Friday, there
were three services: the morning prayers and wake, the afternoon formal church
service and burial, and the evening prayers at the mourning family’s home. Guests provide gifts and donations
(typically of the kind mentioned above) to show their love and support for the
mourners, but it’s the family of the deceased’s role to provide food for all of
the people—close and distant—who attend the different services.
At the afternoon
burial services, all of the guests first attended a formal religious service at
the Free Wesleyan (Methodist) church in Petani. Everyone stood, turned toward
the aisle, and watched as two rows of men carried the man’s lifeless body over
their shoulders—wrapped only in a mat woven from pandanus leaves—and laid it at
the foot of the alter in the front of the church. Singing, prayers and the
readings of hymns contributed to the blessing of the body before burial.
When the service
was finished, everyone filed out of the doors and made their way to the
cemetery, about 200 yards down a dirt and gravel path leading from the church.
The men followed in the rear, hoisting the body over their shoulders, and
heaving it onto the open flatbed of a waiting truck. The truck then followed
the procession of people to the cemetery.
People sat
anywhere and everywhere. Some people watched the proceedings from the shaded
front yards of families living adjacent to the cemetery. Some sat on the walls
making up its perimeter, while others sat at their base or on the grassy lawn in
between stone-covered graves. They shielded themselves with shawls, umbrellas
or wide-faced leaves—anything they could get their hands on to fend off the hot
sun beating down on us.
More prayers were said, then the same
men who carried him before, lowered the man’s body into the plot. Again,
everyone took to the path heading back toward the main road. In the crowds of
people, two columns started to form. We were sorted into lines: children on the
left, adults on the right. At first I couldn’t see anything over the heads of
the men and women in front of me, but as the cluster of people flowed steadily
forward, I could see two trucks parked on either side of the dirt road. A
couple of men had climbed onto each truck-bed to distribute plastic bags to
each person who passed. When it was my turn, I reached up to accept and to
investigate the contents of whatever it was they were handing out to everybody.
The plastic bags
were filled with raw chicken breasts and legs, and flanks of beef. They dripped
on the outside with the blood from the uncooked meat.
I held the bag in
both hands and made eye contact with Teisa and Linili (two of the women who I
work with at the high school, Hofangahau). The look on my face must have been
absurd—a mix of surprise, confusion and amusement at the ridiculousness of what
had just happened—because they burst out laughing at me.
“What? This isn’t
how you do funerals in
‘Amelika?”
they said to me.
Below is the link to a short video compilation from a different funeral I went to earlier this year in a village called Houma. It highlights some of the spiritual and food-related aspects of the
putu that I mentioned in the post above.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGDWd7TNVHY&feature=youtu.be
