Note 124 — Chapter IV · AGRICULTURAL TRIBES.

Mariner states that in Tonga the esteem in which the different trades are held depends on their utility. Most people pursue the same trade as their fathers did before them, because they have learned it in their youth. This especially applies to those trades which are considered most difficult and therefore highly honoured. There is no law obliging a son to follow his father’s trade; but it is the custom; and the hope of a high profit stimulates the energy of those who pursue a difficult trade. The noblest trades are those of canoe-builder and undertaker of funerals. They are followed by none but mataboles and mooas (2nd and 3rd classes), the tooas (4th class) being excluded from them. All other trades are followed by mooas and tooas alike, except three which the mooas consider beneath their dignity and therefore leave to the tooas: those of barber, cook, and agriculturist. The latter two, the most despised trades, are hereditary. Neither cooking nor cultivating requires any particular capacities, everybody is capable of following these pursuits, and those whose fathers were engaged in either of them have no alternative but to continue in the same way. The esteem, however, in which an individual is held, does not only depend on the trade he follows, but on his ability in it. He who distinguishes himself in a lower trade enjoys more consideration than he who following a higher trade proves to be unqualified for it124.