Pulotu

In the mythology of parts of western Polynesia (specifically Tonga and Samoa), Pulotu is the underworld, the world of darkness (as opposed to the human world of light). It may be represented as the paradise from which the gods came and to which the souls of diseased chiefs go. (Commoners were not supposed to have souls). In some accounts, according to Craig, Pulotu is a jumping-off place of spirits on their way to the underworld.

This word pulotu may or may not be related with the word purotu (and variants) found in many eastern Polynesian languages, meaning beautiful (person).

Tonga

In Tongan mythology, 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 at least, Pulotu refers to a real country, in fact Matuku in the Lau Islands, which is remarkable as the myths of Tonga are conspicious in their lack of references to Fiji. In about the 8th Century AD, Tonga would have been a vassal of the Tuʻi Pulotu empire in Fiji.

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 Sāmoa, Pulotu is presided over by the god Elo or Saveasiʻuleo, whose name reveals a similarity to the Tongan god Havea Hikuleʻo.

See also

• In Melanesia, a similar concept is part of Fijian mythology - see Burotu.
• The Māori goddess of death Hine-nui-te-pō who guards the entrance to the underworld te reinga wairua.

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.
• ʻO. Māhina, Ko e Ngaahi ʻAta mei he Histōlia mo e Kalatua ʻo Tongá: Ke Tufungaʻi ha Lea Tonga Fakaako, AU 2006, ISBN 978-0-908959-09-9

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