Tongan gift-givers and recipients are usually related as extended kin, or kāinga; branches of the kāinga normally constitute an immediate family (called a fāmili) related to the deceased through one member. In diaspora, funerals are a time to re-assemble far-flung kin, and people regularly travel between Tonga and diasporic communities to pay their last respects. A person’s funeral is often the last time that s/he is physically surrounded a by a large number of kin and the last event at which s/he will be honoured by the exchange of gifts in her/his name and memory. Thus, funerals are as much moments for reunion and pride as they are moments for grieving. The esteem for the entire kāinga rests on all constituent fāmili groups to perform their appropriate ranked roles correctly (Kaeppler 1978b).

Gifts of food and cloth are long-standing material relations through which families help one another to sustain themselves in times of life crises. A gift of textiles, called a teu, is typically presented by a group of women, usually members of a fāmili. As a representative of the gifting family makes an impassioned speech about the departed, the grieving family and the humble gifts the latter have brought, each piece of koloa is brought in and laid at the feet of a male representative of the receiving family, with cash in a sila pa’anga. Once presented, the cash and cloth gifts are removed to another room of the funeral venue, to be counted and noted along with the name of the givers. Friends, co-workers and kin members often bring gifts of food before the funeral; these are presented with prayers and sometimes with cash and cloth gifts. Traditionally, these gifts are considered necessary provisions for doing culture and, although they are wealth items, are also immediately useful.

Gifted food may be used to feed the mourners who come to pay their respects on the night of the wake or to sustain the bereaved family during its many days of preparation of and recuperation from the funeral; during this time, very little farming or fishing—and certainly no textile production—would be performed on estates and villages in Tonga. Because of the symbolism which koloa and feast foods maintain, to refuse a gift of cloth or food is seemingly to leave unrecognised another family’s sacrifice and generosity and a refusal to do tradition. In addition, requesting money in lieu of koloa can be read as a preference for non-traditional ways over engaging in acts that honour both the dead and Tongan notions of tradition. Even when the grieving family in my case study explained that they still believed in Tongan traditions, their actions may have spoken (more loudly) of their attempting to eschew it.