HOME FOR BURIAL

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 184, 2 May 1933, Page 10

HOME FOR BURIAL

Tongan Princess’s Remains on the Niagara royal island obsequies Dominion Special Service. Auckland, May 1. In one of the holds of the Niagara, which arrived from Sydney to-day, repose the remains of Princess Fusibala of Tonga, who died in a private hospital in Sydney on April 21. They are being conveyed to Nukualofa, the Tongan seat of government, where they will be interred in the tombs of the kings with native pomp and ceremony. Princess Fusibala was the daughter of the late King George 11. of Tonga, and is a step-sister of the reigning Queen Salote. She was only 20 years of age, and was on a visit to Sydney when she developed a serious illness from which she did not recover. The very simplest arrangements for the carriage of the body have been made on the liner, as it was the expressed wish of Queen Salote that all ceremony should be reserved for - the return of the dead princess to the land of her people. The body was embalmed in Sydney, and reposes in a plain wooden coffin. Several Auckland friends _ot the royal family of Tonga visited the Hiier to-day, and asked for permission to view the coffin. Some, who expressed a desire to touch the royal remains in the manner adopted by sonic Europeans, were reprimanded, it being pointed out to them that the Polynesian custom holds the dead, and all that surrounds them, sacred or tabu. In Maori the custom is known as tapu. Even wreaths sent by friends of the dead princess were not permitted to lie near the coffin on account of this island custom. They included a floral emblem from the agents for the Tongan Government, in New Zealand, Messrs. Spudding, Limited, and another from the Methodist Church, of which she was a member. Accompanying the remains to Tonga is the Prince Consort, tlie Hon. Uiliamo (William) Tugi, who is the present Premier of Tonga.