Tu'i Pulotu

The Tu'i Pulotu is believed to be the head of an ancient group of people that settled in Pulotu (Fiji) during the Lapita period (3500 BC to 2500 BC.). It was said that the Tui Pulotu originally came from the Fiji Islands and led the Pacific Islands from the early BC era to the first 800 years AD. Many people tried to associate Pulotu with Burotu because of the different pronunciations within Tonga, Samoa and Fiji. And we all know that Burotu in Fiji was the Burotukula (Spiritual island) which used to be seen near Matuku in Lau.

Etymology

However, that Burotu in Lau no longer existed physically within the first 800 years AD when the Tu’i Pulotu Empire was at its height of supremacy in the Pacific. If we see the meaning of the word Pulotu in its breakdown form, "pulo" in the Proto-Austronesian language means "island" or "to land" and "tu" means "sacred" or "high rank". Same meaning in the Polynesian region goes for the word Motu which means island or to land, and riki means a word of respect for the Fijian westerners used to address kings, chiefs (momo) or people with high rank. Also the word Ariki in the Polynesian region meaning chief or king.

So Motuariki in Polynesia would possibly means the island of chiefs or kings.

Theories of orgin

So,it would make sense,that the Tui Pulotu was originally came from Moturiki. If we look around the Fiji islands during the BC Lapita era, as the first paragraph said. The only island which can match the meaning of the word Pulotu, and where most archaeological discoveries for the so called Lapita civilisations, with the reconstructed woman's face, plus the 6500 years petroglyphed stone encrypted with concentric circles were found, was in Moturiki, Lomaiviti. There are also numerous small islands in the Pacific, named Motu. And a clear breakdown of the name Moturiki is in Tuamotu group of Islands. According to the Polynesian dictionary, a part of Tuamotus underworld is called Turikiriki. Again in Mamanuca, Malolo Fiji, they breakdown the word Moturiki by these names. Ra koi Motu, ra koi riki, Monuriki, Modriki, Tokoriki, and names which have links to Moturiki like Navadra and Vanuayalewa (female land-facts about Burotu in Lau). However Vanuayalewa is also known for the seafield outside Verata to the east which is Vuniivilevu or Davetalevu itself.

The island of Pulotu is an island located in Fiji, north-west of Tongatapu. It is referred to in Tongan oral traditions as "the motherland" or "place of origin". It is there that some believed that Tongan culture and its people developed and evolved out of the ancient Austronesian/Lapita culture (c. 1600 BCE - c. 500 BCE) that migrated from the South East Asian islands through Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Micronesia and Fiji about 8000 BC.

References

• Robert D. Craig (1 January 1989). Dictionary of Polynesian Mythology. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-25890-9.