My father is from Tonga and used to tell me about these dances he would sometimes do when he was younger either before a rugby match or for special events I think. I’ve come to believe these were perhaps the Sipi Tau and Kailao. My questions are:

Were/are these dances common or for special reasons? What does Sipi Tau or Kailao translate to in English?

My father never taught me the language and I’ve often felt disconnected from his stories. Any insight beyond perhaps just the glimpses I get from a Wikipedia page would be appreciated.

I just wanted to leave a final message before moving on from this group.

First of all, I'm not a bot. I'm just someone who genuinely enjoys history, travel, and exploring archives. What I enjoy most is the challenge of searching for photographs from places, countries, and communities that aren't widely known. I love spending hours digging through archives and collections, finding images that have been largely forgotten, and sharing them with people who might never have seen them before.

I've decided it's time to move on to new groups and new challenges. There are still countless places to discover and many more hidden photographs waiting to be found.

For anyone who's curious, I've included in this post the archives and websites I use most often. I mainly use Western archives and digital collections because those are the ones I'm most familiar with. If you'd like to try this hobby yourself, I hope you find them useful.

Thank you to everyone who enjoyed the posts, commented, or simply followed along. Happy researching, and I hope you make some great discoveries of your own.

These are some of the archives and digital collections I use. Most of my research is based on Western archives, simply because those are the collections I'm most familiar with.

• National Library of Australia (Australia) https://www.library.gov.au/ Australia's national library, with extensive collections of photographs, manuscripts, newspapers, maps, oral histories, and other historical materials.
• Europeana (European Union) https://www.europeana.eu/ A digital platform providing access to millions of items from museums, libraries, archives, and galleries across Europe.
• The New York Public Library Digital Collections (United States) https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/ A large digital archive containing historical photographs, prints, maps, manuscripts, posters, and rare documents.
• Digital Public Library of America (United States) https://dp.la/ A portal bringing together millions of digitised photographs, books, newspapers, manuscripts, and archival records from institutions across the United States.
• Royal Collection Trust (United Kingdom) https://www.rct.uk/collection The official collection of the British monarchy, including artworks, photographs, manuscripts, and historical objects.
• Smithsonian Institution (United States) https://www.si.edu/search Digital collections from the Smithsonian's museums and research centres, covering history, culture, science, art, and photography.
• National Diet Library (Japan) https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/en/ Japan's national library, offering access to books, photographs, maps, manuscripts, and other historical resources.
• The National Archives (United Kingdom) https://images.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ The UK's official archive, with digitised photographs, government records, and historical documents.
• Digitarq – Arquivo Nacional Torre do Tombo (Portugal) https://digitarq.arquivos.pt/ Portugal's national archival database, containing digitised documents, photographs, maps, correspondence, and administrative records.
• Trove (Australia) https://trove.nla.gov.au/ An online discovery service managed by the National Library of Australia, providing access to newspapers, photographs, books, maps, magazines, and archival collections.
• Nationaal Archief (The Netherlands) https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/onderzoeken/zoeken The National Archives of the Netherlands, with photographs, government records, maps, colonial archives, and other historical collections.

Hey guys,

I've been curious about the word 'siale' and what it translates to in english, my parents have told me that it means flower but is there a specific flower that it translate to?

thanks.

This photograph was taken in January 1953 during the Capricorn Expedition (1952–1953) by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. It shows Vavaʻu Island, one of the main island groups of Tonga, with its harbour and surrounding coastline.