Pulotu is the resting place of those passed on in the

Polynesian narrative The Polynesian narrative or Polynesian mythology encompasses the oral traditions of the people of Polynesia (a grouping of Central and South Pacific Ocean island archipelagos in the Polynesian Triangle) together with those of the scattered cul ...

Tonga Tonga (, ; ), officially the Kingdom of Tonga ( to, 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 , scattered over in ...

and

Samoa Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa; sm, Sāmoa, and until 1997 known as Western Samoa, is a Polynesian island country consisting of two main islands ( Savai'i and Upolu); two smaller, inhabited islands ( Manono and Apolima); ...

, the world of darkness "lalo fonua" (as opposed to the human world of light).

Tonga

In the

Tongan narrative Tongan narrative (or Tongan mythology) is a variant of a more general Polynesian narrative in Tonga. Creation myth In the beginning there was just the sea and the spirit world, Pulotu, and between them was a rock called Touiao Futuna. On the rock ...

, Pulotu is presided over by Havea Hikuleʻo. In Tongan cosmology the sky, the sea, and Pulotu existed from the beginning, and the gods lived there. The first land they made for the people was Touiaʻifutuna "trapped in Futuna", which was only a rock. There are suggestions that for Tonga and

, Pulotu refers to a real country, in fact Matuku Island in the

Lau Islands The Lau Islands aka little Tonga (also called the Lau Group, the Eastern Group, the Eastern Archipelago) of Fiji are situated in the southern Pacific Ocean, just east of the Koro Sea. Of this chain of about sixty islands and islets, about thirty ...

. The old name of Matuku Island is Burotu. However, there is no signs of underwater civilization in the Matuku waters where they said that Burotu once laid. But new evidence suggest Pulotu is situated in

Moturiki Moturiki is an island belonging to Fiji's Lomaiviti Archipelago. Covering an area of 10.4 square kilometers, it is situated at 17.45° South and 178.44° East. In the proto-polynesian language, 'Motu' means 'island' and Riki' means 'small' hence ...

belonging to

Fiji Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consis ...

’s Lomaiviti Archipelago. After the independence struggle by Hikuleʻo and his cousins Maui Motuʻa and Tangaloa ʻEiki, they renamed Touiaʻifutuna into Tongamamaʻo. Only after that the other islands were made (the volcanic islands by Hikuleʻo and the coral islands by Maui). Finally Tongamamaʻo was renamed, for the last time, as Tonga. Hikuleʻo is supposed to have married a daughter of Tangaloa ʻEiki.

Samoa

In the mythology of Samoa, Pulotu is presided over by the god Saveasi'uleo (also referred to as Elo), whose name reveals a similarity to the Tongan god Havea Hikuleo. Saveasi'uleo is the father of Nafanua the Goddess of War in Samoa, from the village of Falealupo, the site of the entryway into Pulotu. Spirits enter Pulotu at ''Le Fafa''''Polynesian Reminiscences: or Life in the South Pacific Islands''
by William Thomas Pritchard, p. 401 at Falealupo village.

Notes

References

*R.D. Craig,
Dictionary of Polynesian Mythology
' (Greenwood Press: New York, 1989), 218; *E.E.V. Collocott, ''Tales and Poems of Tonga'' (Bernice P. Bishop Museum: Honolulu, 1928), 12–20. *O. Māhina, ''Ko e Ngaahi Ata mei he Histōlia mo e Kalatua o Tongá: Ke Tufungai ha Lea Tonga Fakaako'', AU 2006, {{ISBN, 978-0-908959-09-9 Polynesian mythology Samoan mythology Afterlife places Underworld

Tonga

Samoa

See also

Notes

References