Tongan paʻanga

The paanga is the currency of Tonga. It is controlled by the National Reserve Bank of Tonga (Pangikē Pule Fakafonua o Tonga) in Nukualofa. The paanga is not convertible and is pegged to a basket of currencies comprising the Australian, New Zealand, and United States dollars and the Japanese yen.

The paanga is subdivided into 100 seniti. The ISO code is TOP, and the usual abbreviation is T$ (¢ for seniti). In Tonga, the paanga is often referred to in English as the dollar, the seniti as the cent and the hau as the union. There is also the unit of hau (1 hau = 100 paanga), but this is not used in everyday life and can be found only on commemorative coins of higher denominations.

Paanga is the Tongan name for Entada phaseoloides, also called the box bean or St. Thomas's bean, a bean-like vine producing large pods with large reddish-brown seeds. The seeds are roundish, up to 5 cm diameter and 1 or 2 cm thick. When strung together they are used as anklets, part of the kailao dance costume. They were also used as playing pieces in an ancient disc-throwing game, lafo.

On 1 December 1806 Tongans attacked the passing ship Port-au-Prince near Lifuka in order to take it over. They failed, as the crew sank the vessel. The chief of Haapai, Fīnau Ulukālala, resorted to the next plan, to plunder whatever was worthwhile. On his inspection tour, he found the ship's cash. Not knowing what money was, he considered the coins as paanga. Finally, not seeing anything of value, he ordered the remains of the ship to be burned; most of the crew were also reported to be massacred. It was much later that William Mariner, the only survivor of this attack, told him that those pieces of metal were of great value and not merely playing stones. Mariner also passed down the following statement of Fīnau Ulukālala as he began to understand the value of these pieces to the European sailors:

* If money were made of iron and could be converted into knives, axes and chisels there would be some sense in placing a value on it; but as it is, I see none. If a man has more yams than he wants, let him exchange some of them away for pork. [...] Certainly money is much handier and more convenient but then, as it will not spoil by being kept, people will store it up instead of sharing it out as a chief ought to do, and thus become selfish. [...] I understand now very well what it is that makes the papālangi [white men] so selfish – it is this money!

When Tonga introduced decimal currency, it decided not to call the main unit the dollar because the native word, tola, translated into a pig's snout, the soft end of a coconut, or, in vulgar language, a mouth. Paanga, on the other hand, translated into money.

• Tonga

  Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga (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 750 km2, scattered over 700000 km2 in the southern Pacific Ocean. As of 2021, according to Johnson's Tribune, Tonga has a population of 104,494, 70% of whom reside on the main island, Tongatapu. The country stretches approximately 800 km north-south. It is surrounded by Fiji and Wallis and Futuna (France) to the northwest; Samoa to the northeast; New Caledonia (France) and Vanuatu to the west; Niue (the nearest foreign territory) to the east; and Kermadec (New Zealand) to the southwest. Tonga is about 1800 km from New Zealand's North Island.
  
  First inhabited roughly 2,500 years ago by the Lapita civilization, Tonga's Polynesian settlers gradually evolved a distinct and strong ethnic identity, language, and culture as the Tongan people. They were quick to establish a powerful footing across the South Pacific, and this period of Tongan expansionism and colonization is known as the Tuʻi Tonga Empire. From the rule of the first Tongan king, ʻAhoʻeitu, Tonga grew into a regional power. It was a thalassocracy that conquered and controlled unprecedented swathes of the Pacific, from parts of the Solomon Islands and the whole of New Caledonia and Fiji in the west to Samoa and Niue and even as far as parts of modern-day French Polynesia in the east. Tuʻi Tonga became renowned for its economic, ethnic, and cultural influence over the Pacific, which remained strong even after the Samoan revolution of the 13th century and Europeans' discovery of the islands in 1616.

  Map - Tonga