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Featured Book Moon Handbooks - South Pacific |
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Guess there could have been a couple more Q words in this section, like Quarantine (don’t enter the country with any food products) and Qantas (doesn’t fly to Tonga) and Queues (the Tongan people take delays in their stride) but this section belongs entirely to the Queen of Tonga from 1918 to 1965. Her name is pronounced ‘salohtay’. Queen Salote Tupou IIIQueen Salote, by all accounts, was a marvellous person and a great monarch. Highly intelligent and well educated (in Auckland) she became Queen at the tender age of 18, the same age she married. This was, coincidentally, a very good strategic move for those who doubted that a young woman could carry on the duty normally inherited by men.Her marriage to Tungi Mailefihi brought together two of the three dynasties of kings in Tonga. While there may have been some politics involved it appears to have been a union built on love and respect. Salote looked upon the Tongan people as her children and was pretty fine ‘mother’. She brought stability to the country following World War II and introduced many programs in areas of education and health. She was a writer and poet (dance songs, love poems) and in some ways a bit like Britain’s Queen Victoria. She served as Chairman of the Tonga Traditions Committee, patronised the Tonga Red Cross, was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1932, advanced to Dame Grand Cross in 1945, appointed a Dame Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order in 1953 and was the first Dame Grand Cross to be appointed to the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George in 1965. Salote was an imposing figure (in old money, 6’ 3”, around 2m tall) and she put Tonga on the map with a simple but appreciated gesture at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1953. It was pouring with rain on the day of the coronation and Salote refused to close the top of her carriage as a mark of respect for the young Queen Elizabeth II.
How could you not fall in love with that smile? While a little politically incorrect these days, actor/writer/wit Noel Coward observed the parade and was asked who the diminutive sultan next to her in the carriage was. He quipped, “Her lunch.” In short (or tall), Salote was the right person at the right time. She died, in Auckland after a long illness, in 1965 and was succeeded by her son, HRH King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV.
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