The Vavaʻu Code was instituted in

Vavaʻu Vavau is an island group, consisting of one large island ( ʻUtu Vavaʻu) and 40 smaller ones, in Tonga. It is part of Vavaʻu District, which includes several other individual islands. According to tradition, the Maui god created both Tongata ...

Tonga Tonga (, ; ), officially the Kingdom of Tonga ( to, Puleʻanga Fakatuʻi ʻo Tonga), is a Polynesian country and archipelago. The country has 171 islands – of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in ...

in 1839, by King George Tupou I. It contained the country's first ever written laws, and formed the bases of the first

constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When ...

of the Kingdom. It delineated an ordered society where the monarch, chiefs, and subjects live in mutual obligation and also guaranteed the rights of the commoners for the first time. Along with the legal system it set up, the Code established the sovereign's intention creating a government "by law", one that is respected by the Europeans.

Provisions

The Code instituted basic

human rights Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...

and limited the power of chiefs over their subjects: chiefs no longer had the right of life and death over their people, nor could they seize agricultural produce. Furthermore, chiefs could now be put on

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like any other Tongan. In its first clause, it declared: "The laws of this our land prohibit - murder, theft, adultery, fornication and the retailing of the spirits". A later law would provide three months of hard labor as penalty for each of these offenses. The Vavaʻu Code was strongly influenced by the George Tupou I's religious beliefs and was supported by the

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...

missionaries A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...

as the king was a convert. It banned traditional festivals seen by missionaries as encouraging sexual promiscuity.

Circumcision Circumcision is a surgical procedure, procedure that removes the foreskin from the human penis. In the most common form of the operation, the foreskin is extended with forceps, then a circumcision device may be placed, after which the foreskin ...

, tattooing and

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drinking were also outlawed. A provision banning the practice of tattooing, for instance, declared that "it is not lawful to ''tatatau'' or ''kaukau'' or to perform any other idolatrous ceremonies" and that "if one does so, he will be judged and punished and fined for so doing". Sundays became a compulsory day off work, to encourage Tongans to worship the

Christian God God in Christianity is believed to be the eternal, supreme being who created and preserves all things. Christians believe in a monotheistic conception of God, which is both transcendent (wholly independent of, and removed from, the material u ...

. Religion was also seen as a unifying factor that would help the king cement his position. The Code was able to demonstrate its benefits after the conversion of the heathen chieftains. The Vavaʻu Code was followed and completed by further laws, including a second Code in 1850 forbidding the sale of land to foreigners and proclaiming Tupou as supreme leader of Tonga.

Sources

* Huffer, Elise, '' Grands Hommes et Petites Îles: La Politique Extérieure de Fidji, de

et du

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'', Paris: Orstom, 1993,

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vava'u Code 1839 in law Law of Tonga 1839 in Oceania