1942

I was born on December 20, 1942. It was a Sunday. My mother was Latu Nahau Pasi, the unwed daughter of Sione and Melenau Pasi. At the time of my birth she was about forty one years old. I was delivered by a midwife, Filisi, Latu Sei’s wife. She was a Fijian lady, living in our little village of Fotua, (approx. 300 people) in the island of Foa in the Ha’apai Group, in the Friendly Islands of Tonga.

Mother said that I was the biggest and healthiest of her four sons and two daughters. A son and a daughter were already dead before I was born. I was the last of her children. Mother withheld the identity of my father from everyone but my quivering chin revealed a strong family trait of my father, Tevita Ha’afuluhao (Fuao) Katoa. A carpenter and a farmer, my father was from the neighbor island of Pangai. He was very tall, maybe six foot eight, well built, bald and as handsome as he was tall. He was a lady’s man with many illegitimate children as well as legitimate.

A relative and next door neighbor, ‘Ana ‘Uhiua, named me Viliami Peila. Viliami means William and Peila, she said, came from Psalms in the Bible, but I have never found my name in the Tongan Bible.

I was born inside my family home named Tu’akolo, meaning “outside of town”. It was a one room thatched roof home, partitioned with tapa cloth. Friends and family expressed their love by bringing gifts of food and ngatu (tapa cloths) and mats for my mother and me.

I was five days old when I first tasted fish, pork and ufi (yams) at the Christmas feast. December is the middle of the summer in Tonga.

All six of my mother’s children were born out of wedlock, and all of us children had different fathers. My mother was taught by her mother not to trust men because my grandfather, Sione Pasi, was not very faithful to my grandmother. This is the order of birth for Latu’s children: “Inoke Fohe Vimahi, a son; Viliami ‘Utakileva, a son who died about age twelve; Lose Ngata, a daughter; Kesaia, a daughter who died about age five; Sione Takapu, a son; and me, Viliami Peila Pasi, a son.