ABSTRACT
Though the Tonga have been known to Europeans since the time of Dr. Living stone’s journeys along the Zambezi in the mid-19th century, and British civil admin istration has been in existence in Tonga country for almost 50 years, little was known about the social, political, and economic life of this people until a few years after the Second World War. Our chief source of information is the published and unpublished work of Dr. E. Colson, who has made a number of field studies of the Tonga over several years.
