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Because it is taboo for Tongan subjects to touch their king’s head, a foreign church minister will perform the coronation of their majesties King Tupou VI and Queen Nanasipau’u.
A retired Methodist minister, D’Arcy Wood, has been chosen to place the crown on the king’s head.
Wood lives in Gisborne, a town about 55 kilometers from Melbourne.
He was born in Tonga while his father A. Harold Wood was principal at the Free Wesleyan Church’s college in 1924.
He told the paper that “I know the king from his time when he was the high commissioner for Tonga in Canberra in the 1990s — he and his wife were among many Tongans who came to the church I was the minister at.”
The official eight-day coronation programme runs from 27 June till 7 July.
It will begin on Saturday with the king’s investiture as the 24th Tu‘i Kanokupolu at a royal kava ceremony, the taumafa kava, at the Mala‘e Pangai Lahi.
The coronation service and ceremony will be held on Saturday, 4 July at the Centenary Church.
Between 27 June and 7 July the program includes a military parade, cultural performances and feasting.
The coronation celebration ends with a Military Tattoo on 7 July.
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News category: Asia Pacific.
