The Tongan Castaways

Several years ago my experiences of chaos and disorder in the workplace and people getting picked on reminded me of a book I had read many years earlier called 'Lord of the Flies' by William Golding.  

It is a fictional story about a group of children deserted on a island in the middle of nowhere and how, in the absence of adult supervision, they try to organise themselves, but over time they descend into chaos and disharmony.  Three of the children end up being killed or dying.  The story ends with the deserted children being found by a passing naval ship, and the adult presence restores order.

'Lord of the Flies' was written in 1954.  As chance would have it, there is a real life story in 1965 of a group of six school boys who were actually marooned on the island of Tonga for 15 months.  They were called the Tongan Castaways.  In this story of children deserted on an island things turned out differently to how they turned out in William Golding's story.  The Tongan Castaways were organised, well behaved and passed the time living in harmony.  They sometimes quarrelled but always managed to return to a state of harmony.  I noticed that there was one major difference in the way the Tongan Castaways lived compared to the boys in 'Lord of the Flies' that may help explain why their story went a different way - their days began and ended with song and prayer.

More information about this can be found here:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/09/the-real-lord-of-the-flies-what-happened-when-six-boys-were-shipwrecked-for-15-months

I think it is interesting to consider that Admiral Nelson observed something similar when trying to keep order on his ship 'The Victory':  

"In early September 1803 Nelson wrote to a society that had sent the 'Victory' bibles and prayer books, which had been distributed to the seamen:

 
'a ship where divine service is regularly performed is by far more regular and decent in their conduct than where it is not, and in this ship only 2 men have been punished for upwards of two months'. 

Public worship was necessary for welfare and good order."

(excerpt from 'The pursuit of Victory - The Life and Achievement of Horatio Nelson', by Roger Knight)