Customer Reviews

An Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands, in the South Pacific Ocean: With an original grammar and vocabulary of their language. Compiled and ... years resident of those islands. Volume 1

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For anyone interested in the history of the Pacific Islands, this book is a must read. It is a gripping true story of a young English sailor who was captured by the Tongans in 1806 when they attacked his ship, murdered most of the crew and then burned the ship. Mariner was "adopted" by one of the Tongan chiefs and used in the local wars to fire the cannons which were taken from the ship. Today you can still dive into Mariner's Cave in Vavau in northern tonga and visit many of the places named in this book.

This book was written almost 200 years ago and yet remains an essential historical text. As the most significant description of pre-Christian Tongan society, and also as an astonishing account of Britain's maritime tactics against competing empires, this book provides a broad backdrop describing how European empires moved into the Pacific.

Apart from this, William Mariner's story as a teenage castaway in Tonga is a riveting survival tale of a very resourceful young man.

It is still a popular book to this day for those interested in adventure tales, British privateers, early accounts of Tongan and Samoan cultures, and especially for William Mariner's many Polynesian and British descendants.