Pigeon snaring was sport played exclusively by Tongan chiefs atop artificial mounds. The appearance of these mounds began in the 12th century but its popularity waned after centuries. By the 1700s, when Europeans began visiting Tonga and recording their observations, the sport was no longer played regularly. By the early 1800s, it was not played at all.
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The sport
All that is known about the extinct sport is comes from one written eye-witness account, one engraving, oral tradition and archaeology. An Englishman named William Mariner who lived in Tonga between 1806 and 1810 described:
A 1793 engraving by the French Captain D’Entrecasteaux corroborates Mariner’s story.
The mounds
In Tongan, pigeon snaring mounds are called sia heu lupe. The general shape of a pigeon snaring mound was described as “more or less circular platforms, 20-35 m wide and 0.6-5 m high, with a flat top. The characteristic feature of the Tongan pigeon mound is a circular central pit, 5—7 m in diameter, which has stone-faced walls. Some pigeon mounds in addition have large stone-lined pits filled with large boulders. The function of these structures is unknown.” The central depression puzzles archaeologists because it is not described in William Mariner’s account and no one knows how it was used to snare the pigeons. There are also many mounds, especially in Ha’apai, that do not have the depression.
While sia heu lupe can be found throughout Tonga, and even in American and West Samoa, the best studied are those in the Ha’apai Island Group, where many were constructed in the 15th and 16th centuries by the Mata’uvave line of chiefs. A 1990-1992 archeological survey of northern Ha’apai by Simon Fraser University identified two on Nukunamo island, one on the northern tip of Foa Island, none on Lifuka Island, eight on U’oleva Island, one on Tatafa Island and none on ‘Uiha Island. One of these mounds, called Sialufotu on U’oleva island, is known as the personal mound the Mata’uvave and is the largest known sia heau lupe in Tonga.
The Simon Fraser study classified mounds into one of three types: mounds with central depression lacking stacked-stone retaining walls, complex mounds with stone retaining walls and access ramps, and flat-topped mounds. As pigeon mounds were created not only for the sport but to project status, the second type would exalt the highest status of the three as it required the highest investment of labor.
The Simon Fraser study also found several characteristics of pigeon mounds. "First, they were situated in areas without a large, if any, human population and this would have facilitated an expansive cover of forest growth to which pigeons would be attracted… Second, the mounds were constructed in protected areas that, while within the proximity to the shore, tended toward the center line of the island upon which they were built… this pattern conforms to the expected flight path of a migrating pigeon flock as it might be pursued by hunters."
The culture of pigeon snaring
Constructing pigeon snaring mounds required substantial investments of labor from many people, but the sport was tabu, or forbidden, to all but the Tongan chiefs. Any pigeons captured by commoners were to be given to chiefs, and anyone caught eating a pigeon could be punished by "whipping or even death".
The sport could be played for rather basic, small mounds, so the variety in size ornamentation of the mounds is attributed to their projection of status for the chiefs who commissioned their construction. According to one historian, "pigeon mounds, together with the royal tombs (langi), can be considered as the highest ranking sites in Tonga." The larger one’s mound, the higher one’s status.