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31 Jan 2012
So Long, Farewell

31 Jan 2012
RC Flying People over New York City

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George Tupou V (Tongan: Siaosi Tupou V, full name: Siaosi Tāufaʻāhau Manumataongo Tukuʻaho Tupou V), (born 4 May 1948) is the current King of Tonga. The ceremonial aspects of Tupou V's accession to the throne took place in July/August 2008. These were initially to be held in 2007, after the official mourning period for his father (6 months for close relatives) and his own birthday but, after the 2006 Tonga riots, he decided to focus on the reconstruction of the destroyed capital. During a week of celebrations, two key ceremonies took place to mark Tupou's coronation. On 30 July 2008, a Taumafa Kava ceremony (royal kava ring) was held on Malaʻe Pangai, the open space to the east of the Royal Palace. During the ceremony the King sat on a pile of handwoven pandanus mats on an open pavilion facing the sea, while more than 200 Tongan nobles and chiefs dressed in woven skirts and sea shells circled him. He wore the traditional Tongan ta'ovala woven mat skirt and a garland of flowers. During this ceremony, Tupou V was formally recognised as the Tuʻi Kanokupolu, and the rightful descendent of King George Tupou I who united Tonga in the 19th century. The ceremony involved the presentation of kava to the King and assembled chiefs and nobles. Presentations of hundreds of baskets of food as well as 70 cooked pigs were made. School children held 30,000 torches on this night to proclaim Tupou V's coronation to the world. A tupakapakanava, or traditional torch spectacle, an ancient honour accorded only to the monarch and the royal family, was held later at a spot overlooking the Pacific. A formal, European-style, coronation ceremony took place on 1 August 2008 in the Centennial Chapel, Nuku’alofa. In an elaborate spectacle, the Anglican Archbishop of Polynesia Jabez Bryce invested Tupou V with the Tongan regalia, including the the Ring of Kingly Dignity, the sceptre and sword, and in the culmination of the ceremony, placed the Tongan Crown on his head.

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