(, alternatively spelled ) is the name given to the royal burial grounds in central

Nukuʻalofa Nukualofa ( , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Tonga. It is located on the north coast of the island of Tongatapu, in the country's southernmost island group. History First western records of Nukualofa On 10 June 1777, British ...

Tonga Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga, is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania. The country has 171 islands, of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in the southern Pacific Ocean. accordin ...

. The monarchs of Tonga and their immediate family (wives, husbands, children) are buried there. Extended family members (cousins, nephews, nieces, inlaws) are buried elsewhere, in other chiefly cemeteries. Kings from older times (i.e. the

Tuʻi Tonga The Tuʻi Tonga is a line of Tongan kings, which originated in the tenth century with the mythical ʻAhoʻeitu, and withdrew from political power in the fifteenth century by yielding to the '' Tuʻi Haʻatakalaua''. The title ended with the dea ...

dynasty) are mostly buried in the langi in Muʻa. Malaʻekula is a short distance south of the

royal palace This is a list of royal palaces, sorted by continent. Africa Americas Asia Europe Oceania {, class="wikitable" width="95%" , - bgcolor="white" !align=center, Residence !align=center, Photo !align=center, City !align=cen ...

along the Hala Tuʻi, officially known as Kings Road. It is named as such because it is the last road every Tongan monarch travels through as they reach their resting place in Malaʻekula. This road is also known as the Hala Paini (''pine road'') because of the

Norfolk pines ''Araucaria heterophylla'' (synonym ''A. excelsa'') is a species of conifer. As its vernacular name Norfolk Island pine (or Norfolk pine) implies, the tree is endemic to Norfolk Island, an external territory of Australia located in the Pacific ...

(a royal tree in Tonga) which were planted by Europeans along this road but all have disappeared due to the deep roots reaching the underground seawater. The cemetery was established after the death of the first king of modern Tonga,

George Tupou I George Tupou I (4 December 1797 – 18 February 1893), originally known as Tāufaʻāhau I, was the first List of monarchs of Tonga, king of modern Tonga. He adopted the name Siaosi (originally Jiaoji), the Tongan language, Tongan equivalent o ...

. His tomb is positioned in the middle of the field, such that one can see it there when looking from the palace grounds straight along the Hala Tuʻi. The word ''malaʻe'' means in Tongan (village)-green, park, playground, etc. but it is also the royal word for ''cemetery''. ''Kula'' means ''red''. It is a reminder of the famous ''kātoanga kula'' (red festival) held there in 1885. The festival was a fundraising event for Tonga College (whose corporate colour is vermilion red, opened 1882), and everybody was dressed in red that day.

References

* Hixon, Margaret, 2000. ''Sālote, Queen of Paradise, A Biography''. University of Otago Press. * Wood-Ellem, Elizabeth, 1999. ''Queen Sālote of Tonga''. Auckland University Press. {{DEFAULTSORT:Mala'ekula Cemeteries in Tonga Nukuʻalofa Tongan monarchy