@awametal -
the pigs were already cooked in a ground oven when brought to the grounds, and stay out in the sun all morning till the ceremony finished at about 1pm. You can see their livers pinned to their chests with a stick and hibiscus flower. Then they were bundled onto the back of trucks and taken off somewhere, probably back to the villages that offered them, as I doubt even the royal family could work their way through 20 tonnes of pork before it went off.
Only the Nobles and clan leaders are invited into the kava circle, with invited guests who are not part of the ceremony sat round the outside. Spectators like myself were behind a fence at the back. The Tongan nobles come from the family lines of the more important chiefs at the time of the birth of modern Tonga in the 1800's, when all the previously in-fighting chiefs agreed to be united under a modern king, loosely based on the UK monarchy. All of the land in Tonga is owned by the King and these nobles.
There are quite a few people involved in making the kava in this highly ritualised ceremony, a different person for each activity. The kava root (dried) was pounded between stones to make the mix, rather than using ready-ground, and the kava roots were already in place when the ceremony started so I am not sure who supplied it. Once ready there is a strict order of events determining who drinks, when and how - its is a formal ceremony with the main aim in observing and preserving old protocol & tradition, so no-one is getting wasted (except some of the people outside the fence).
It started at 10am and was all over by 1pm, so 3 hours to serve everyone. A long time to sit down cross legged.
