Great families of Polynesia: Inter-island links and marriage patterns

Journal of Pacific History

Volumn 32, Issue 2, 1997, Pages

  Gunson, Niel ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0040199132     PISSN: 00223344     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00223349708572835     Document Type: Article

References (87)

1. For further discussion see Niel Gunson, 'Sacred women chiefs and female "headmen" in Polynesian history' ,Journal of Pacific History (hereinafter JPH), 22 (1987), 139-71.
2. See George Turner, Samoa a Hundred Years Ago (London 1884), 222-3. Pulotu was the mirror-image world of those from the west while Papa and Atea were the primal parents of those who returned from the east. Papatea was also the old name for Makatea in eastern Polynesia.
3. The Hawaiian word kahiki or tahiti usually referred to a remote country of origin not necessarily Tahiti in the Society Islands.
4. This is the theme of a song cycle recorded on the island of Hivaoa by Thomas Lawson in 1861-62. Wellington, Alexander Turnbull Library, Papers of the Polynesian Society.
5. Vavau was the old name of Borabora while Rotuma was the homeland of the Faanui people. See Tati Salmon, 'The History of the Island of Bora Bora and genealogy of our family from Marae Vaiotaha', MS 1904, copy in the Brisson Papers held by the author;
6. Teuira Henry, Ancient Tahiti (Honolulu 1928), 103, 122, 144, 262. Ra was the tutelary deity of Borabora.
7. See, for instance, Stephen Savage and Tamuera Te Rei, 'An Ancient History of Tangiia', MS, Canberra, Australian National University, Menzies Library.
8. For a clear expression of this view see A. Cooke Yarborough of Kohukohu, Hokianga, 'Notes on Maori Origins', copied June 1906, MS, Wellington, Alexander Turnbull Library, Polynesian Society Papers.
9. See particularly John Davies's account of the 'Out-Stations connected with those of Tahiti and Eimeo' in C.W. Newbury (ed.), The History of the Tahitian Mission 1799-1830 written by John Davies ... (Cambridge 1961), 269ff;
10. Niel Gunson, 'Pomare II of Tahiti and Polynesian imperialism', JPH, 4 (1969), 65-82.
11. The presence of two distinct political systems in the group (one closer to the Tongan) suggests that not all the settlers came from Samoa. Although linguistic evidence does not support settlement of Tuvalu from Tonga, Robert Langdon believes it can be demonstrated that Tuvalu was settled from Futuna as well as Samoa.
12. See, for instance, Edith Kawelohea McKinzie, Hawaiian Genealogies extracted from Hawaiian Language Newspapers, 2 vols (Laie, Hawaii 1983), I, 1. Truncated genealogies, most notably Samoan gafa, appear to follow these divisions: the god, the legendary national ancestor, the family ancestor and the family within living memory.
13. McKinzie, Hawaiian Genealogies, I, 1.
14. See, for instance, the 'Tree of Death' and the 'Lake of Death' in the cosmological diagram in William Wyatt Gill, Myths and Songs from the South Pacific (London 1876), 153. Note also the use of the term Hades to denote the 'Spirit-World'.
15. For such stories see Augustin Krämer (trans. Theodore Verhaaren), The Samoa Islands ... Volume I (Auckland 1994), 494-5;
16. Turner, Samoa, 301-3.
17. Krämer/Verhaaren, Samoa Islands, 401-3.
18. C. Stuebel (trans. Brother Herman), Myths and Legends of Samoa, Tala o le Vavau (Wellington 1976), passim. Fijian gods were credited with introducing tattooing into Samoa.
19. The oldest god in Tonga was said to be Hu Fonua who was appealed to if the early rains necessary for yam cultivation were withheld (John Thomas, Notebook, Canberra, National Library of Australia, and Journal entries, University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies Library, Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society Papers). Some attributes of this god may have been transferred to Hikuleo.
20. Hikuleo and Tane both preside over the 'waters of life' in their respective cosmologies. Tiki or Ki'i seems to have different legends from Maui Tikitiki or Ti'iti'i though some of them share an uninhibited erotic character.
21. S. Craighill Handy, Polynesian Religion (Honolulu 1927), 323-8.
22. H. Driessen, pers. comm. For a development of this idea see Niel Gunson, 'Tongan historiography: shamanic views of time and history', in Phyllis Herda et al. (eds), Tongan Culture and History (Canberra 1990), 18.
23. D. P. Henige, The Chronology of Oral Tradition: Quest for a Chimera (Oxford 1974), 98-9.
24. For the return of Polynesians to Manu'a from the east see particularly 'Okusitino Māhina, 'Myths and history: some aspects of history in the Tu'i Tonga myths', in Herda, Tongan Culture and History, 44. Some Samoan Christians wish to replace Jehovah in the Bible with Tagaloa.
25. In the Sanguir language tangaloa simply means ocean, and the god would have been datu tangaloa or lord of the ocean equivalent to Te Fatu Moana in the Society Islands and Hea Moana uliuli in Tonga.
26. For a full account of this cult see H.A.H. Driessen, 'From Ta'aroa to 'Oro. An Exploration of Themes in the Traditional Culture and History of the Leeward Islands', PhD thesis, Australian National University (Canberra 1991).
27. Handy, Polynesian Religion, 117-18, 325.
28. E puta tapuna no te arii ra, o Tu-nui-e-aa-i-te-atua, MS previously belonging to Prince Hinoi Pomare, Honolulu, Bernice P. Bishop Museum.
29. Henry Nicholas (trans.), 'Genealogies and historical notes from Rarotonga, Part I' ,Journal of the Polynesian Society, 1 (1892), 20-9.
30. Krämer/Verhaaren, Samoa Islands, 644-7.
31. Edward Winslow Gifford, Tongan Society (Honolulu 1929), 52, 75;
32. Tongan Myths and Tales (Honolulu 1924), 25-9.
33. This Tangaloa was also known as 'Eitumatupu'a.
34. Genealogy from a MS book belonging to Ata submitted by Fetuani of Kolovai to the Tongan Traditions Committee. Copy in Bott Spillius collection, Auckland University Library.
35. In the Borabora genealogy (Tati Salmon, 'The history of the island of Borabora', 1904) the successive prefixes are Rai and Moe.
36. These myths may not be very old as the change from Rangiatea to Ra'iatea is thought to be quite recent.
37. John Fraser, 'Some folk songs and myths from Samoa' ,Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 25 (1891), 112-19;
38. Te-aia, 'Genealogies and historical notes from Rarotonga Part III' ,Journal of the Polynesian Society, 2 (1893), 271-8.
39. Cf Fraser, 'Some folk songs', 96-7, 116, 140.
40. 'The ancient history of Samoa: an excerpt', Wellington, Alexander Turnbull Library, Grattan Papers.
41. Pers. comm. Samuleataufa of Neiafu, 16 May 1970. Although there was no Tu'i Tonga Tokemoana, a brother of Tu'i Tonga Tu'i Pulotu I, named Tokemoana, did reign as king with the title Tu'i Ha'a 'Uluakimata. His name [tokemoana - sea worm/sea snake) suggests that he may have been more fecund than his brother and therefore better able to preside at yam harvests. This is circumstantially confirmed by the fact that Tu'i Pulotu I left no direct heir and the story that his Moheofo saved the succession by claiming she had adopted the son of her favourite fokonofo, perhaps sired by Tokemoana who was buried face down on top of his brother, her husband.
42. John Thomas, 3 June 1830, Journals vol. 3, 266, University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies Library, Methodist Missionary Archives (hereinafter MMA), box 654.
43. Elijah Hoole (ed.), Friendly and Feejee Islands: a Missionary Visit to Various Stations in the South Seas, in the year [1847] by the Rev. Walter Lawry ... with an Appendix ... (London 1850), 250.
44. A. Monfat, Les Premiers Missionaires des Samoa (Lyon 192S), 134-42.
45. Hellmut Draws-Tychsen, article trans. as 'A so far unknown legend about the origin of the Samoans', Ethnos, 4(1947), 137-40.
46. Poepoe et al., 'Papers on the priesthood of the gods: Principal Hawaiian Deities and their functions', MS, Honolulu, Bernice P. Bishop Museum.
47. Roland B. Dixon, Oceanic (Vol.IX), in Louis Herbert Gray (ed.), The Mythology of all Races, 13 vols (Boston 1916), 96-8.
48. Pers. comm. Sionatane Tonga Tu'i'āfitu of Makave, 15 May 1970.
49. Elizabeth Bott [and Tavi], Tongan Society at the Time of Captain Cook's Visits: Discussions with Her Majesty Queen Sālote Tupou (Wellington 1982), 76.
50. John Martin, An Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands ..., 2 vols (London 1817), I, 86, 160.
51. Vaetoe I faga, daughter of the Tu'i Tonga Fa'aulufanua. Krämer identifies him as Kau'ulufonua II. For Salamasina see Augustin Krämer, Salamasina, Scenes from Ancient Samoan Culture and History (trans. Brother Herman) (Pago Pago 1958, repr. 1970).
52. 'The Royal Family of Samoa', TS copy of original MS dated 1899 formerly in British Consulate, Tonga, in author's collection.
53. 'Samoa 1887. Genealogy of the Malietoas', TS copy of original MS 'from Public Archives of Hawaii' in author's collection.
54. Te-aia, 'Genealogical and historical notes'.
55. See Gunson, 'Sacred women', 148-9, 153-6.
56. For the matrilineal succession of the Picts see H. Pirie-Gordon of Buthlaw, 'The succession in the kingdom of Strathclyde', in.10 parts, The Armorial, 2:2 (1961), 96-7 (table 3).
57. A king-list for the family of Le Vao (fl. 1830) was collected by Thomas Powell and published in Fraser, 'Some folk songs', 138.
58. For the interpretation that the Tu'i Tonga were rois fainéants or even exiles in Samoa see Phyllis S. Herda, 'The Transformation of the Traditional Tongan Polity: A Genealogical Consideration of Tonga's Past', PhD thesis, Australian National University (Canberra 1988), 51ff.
59. Gunson, 'Sacred women', 150.
60. Krämer/Verhaaren, Samoa Islands, 394, 649. The classical matrilineal succession of three brothers contrasts with the otherwise rigid patrilinearity of Tu'i Tonga succession.
61. Although Kau'ulufonua II had more links with Manu'a than his half brother, Puipuifatu was his father's choice as successor and appears to have lived in Samoa. Tu'i 'āfitu claimed to be descended from both Puipuifatu and Tu'i Manu'a in alternate genealogies which otherwise appear to be contradictory.
62. Although the names of the wives of the first Tu'i Ha'a Takalaua title holders have been omitted from the genealogies their daughters were brought from Samoa to become Moheofo or royal wives to the Tu'i Tonga.
63. Taira Rere, Genealogy of the Papehia Family (Suva 1974);
64. Taira Rere, History of the Papehia Family (Suva 1977).
65. Henry, Ancient Tahiti, 121-2, 267ff.
66. War leaders also married the daughters of war leaders for the same reason. The missionary L.E. Threlkeld referred to 'the old heathen custom of taking the government from the father when the daughter became a wife, and giving it to her husband' (Reminiscences, 1853-55, p.50, TS from Sydney newspaper articles in author's collection).
67. Robert Langdon, The Lost Caravel (Sydney 1975), 159ff.
68. Stephen Savage, 'The period of Iro-Nui-Ma-Oata and Tangiia-Nui-Ariki' ,Journal of the Polynesian Society, 26 (1917), 52-3.
69. This scenario was developed in my paper 'Tu'i Tonga: the case for dynastic sequence', delivered at the Tongan History Association conference at Laie, Hawaii, in 1992. According to this reconstruction 'Uluakimata was the son of the 'Fijian' Tapuosi and a Tu'i Tonga Fefine while his Moheofo was the daughter of his defeated predecessor as Tu'i Tonga, a woman greatly humiliated by her husband yet required to bear his children and legitimate the succession.
70. E.g., Edwin G Burrows, Ethnology of Uvea (Wallis Island) (Honolulu 1937), 163.
71. Almost certainly there was a large influx of maritime people into Fiji in the late 16th century as most of the Fijian dynasties appear to have been founded, by genealogical reckoning, from about 1584 onwards. Known as the 'people of the tapa cloth' (Ko ira na malo) they probably introduced the kalia and new bark cloth technology.
72. According to John Thomas the god's name was first taken as an additional dynastic name by the Tu'i Kanokupolu Mataeletu'apiko (Tongatabu or the Friendly Islands, MMA, TS extracts, 73).
73. In 'An account of the Tuikanokupolu', by Sakalaia Fusiuliuli recorded by the missionary J.E. Moulton (Anon MS, Notes on Tongan History, copy held in Records Room, Division of Pacific and Asian History, Australian National University) reference is made to a son of the Tu'i Ha'a Takalaua going to Samoa to bring his sister to 'sleep with' (wed) the Tu'i Tonga.
74. Niel Gunson, 'The Tonga-Samoa connection 1777-1845: some observations on the nature of Tongan imperialism', JPH, 25 (1990), 183.
75. For the French case see Documents relating to the leeward islands (14 items, 1849), Musée de Papéété, Socié té des Océanistes collection; for the British case, see documents prepared by L.E. Threlkeld in 1849 for the British Government, Sydney, Mitchell Library, Papers of the Congregational Church.
76. War leaders and district chiefs could often aspire to paramountcy through strength of arms while sacred chiefs or kings could also acquire paramountcy through the acquisition of titles and marriage alliances. Tupu in Samoa and Ari'inui in the Society Islands referred to such paramounts who reigned rather than ruled. The word for 'king' in Hawaiian (moi) is thought to be a late introduction though the individual island states of Hawaii were the closest political units to 'kingdoms' in traditional Polynesia.
77. William N. Armstrong, Around the world with a King (London [1904]), 62-3;
78. Kristin Zambucka, Kalakaua Hawaii's Last King (Honolulu 1983), 52.
79. Beatrice Grimshaw, 'Tonga and its Queen', ABC Weekly, 8 Apr. 1944.
80. Malietoa met Makea in Samoa in Oct. 1832 when genealogies were exchanged.
81. Two taupo of Sa Tupua sought royal partners: Taefali, daughter of Leutele Faletui of Falefa, married Ratu Ainiu of the Cakobau family of Fiji, and Lepetimalo, daughter of Lauluoa of Moata'a, married the widowed father of King George Tupou II of Tonga.
82. See entry for Jules William Salmon in Patrick O'Reilly and Raoul Teissier, Tahitiens. Répertoire biobibliographique de la Polynésia Française (Paris 1962), 420.
83. This announcement appeared in some court calendars for 1899 but was promptly replaced by his marriage to 'Lavenia psse de Tonga' on 1 June 1899 (Almanach de Gotha, Gotha 1900). Court poets had already linked his name with royal ladies from Fiji, Samoa, Rarotonga and Hawaii. See 'A Royal Marriage in Tonga', by 'a special correspondent', undated newscutting, Rodger Page Scrapbook, Records Room, Canberra, Australian National University, Division of Pacific and Asian History.
84. Sana Solia (1856-1923), said to be a niece of 'King Malietoa', married Frank Lascelles Jardine, of the Baronets of Applegirth, Dumfries, on 16 Oct. 1873 in Torres Strait Islands.
85. also entries for Brander and Salmon families in O'Reilly and Teissier, Tahitiens.
86. Princess Esther Kapiolani married the Marchese Filippo Marignola of Spoleto.
87. For her commoner status and Tongan background see Pacific Islands Monthly, Nov. 1980, 15; Mar. 1981,9; June 1981, 7.