ʻElisiva Fusipala Taukiʻonetuku

ʻElisiva Fusipala Taukiʻonetuku (18 May 1850 – September 1889) was the mother of King George Tupou II.

See also: ʻElisiva Fusipala Taukiʻonetuku (1912–1933)
ʻElisiva Fusipala Taukiʻonetuku
Princess Fusipala in a photograph taken by Josiah Martin, c. 1885
Born18 May 1850
Tonga
DiedSeptember 1889 (38-39 years)
Tonga
Spouse(s)Siaʻosi Fatafehi Toutaitokotaha (1842–1912)
ChildrenGeorge Tupou II
Parents

Biography

Born to Tēvita ʻUnga and his first wife Fifita Vavʻau, her father was, according to newly adopted Christian law, an illegitimate son of King Tupou I because his mother was a secondary wife of the king. Her family's luck changed when the king's only legitimate son, Prince Vuna Takitakimālohi, died, leaving her father as King Tupou's heir.[1][2][3]

She married her paternal first cousin Prince Siaʻosi Fatafehi Toutaitokotaha (1842–1912), the fourth Tuʻi Pelehake, grandson of Tupou I through his mother Princess Salote Pilolevu Mafileʻo, her aunt. They had one son, the future King George Tupou II. Her father died 1879, her elder brother ʻUelingatoni Ngū died childless in 1885 and the same fate befell her younger brother Nalesoni Laifone 1889. She became the heir to the throne after her last brother's death in 1889 and held the status of heir apparent for two months before her own death. Her son succeeded his great-grandfather in 1893. Thus the royal lineage passed through her.[4][5][6] Her son's second daughter Princess ʻElisiva Fusipala Taukiʻonetuku is named after her.

In July 1865, English explorer Julius Brenchley visited Vavaʻu for five days and met governor ʻUnga and his family including Fusipala. Brenchley noted that she was "twelve years old, is strongly built, and has her breasts perfectly developed, as is usual in a country where the women are generally mothers before they are thirteen. [7] However, Fusipala was actually fifteen at the time, being born in 1850, and not twelve as Brenchley claimed.

References
  1. Rutherford 1977, pp. 26–27, 173.
  2. Wood-Ellem 1999, pp. 19–21, 324.
  3. Rodman 2007, p. 79.
  4. Wood-Ellem 1999, pp. 309, 314, 322, 324.
  5. Biersack 1996, p. 274.
  6. Hixon 2000, p. 202.
  7. Brenchley 1873, pp. 94–95.

Bibliography
  • Biersack, Aletta (1996). Fox, James J.; Sather, Clifford (eds.). "Rivals and Wives: Affinal Politics and the Tongan Ramage". Origins, Ancestry and Alliance: Explorations in Austronesian Ethnography. Canberra: Department of Anthropology, Australian National University. ISBN 978-0-7315-2432-7. OCLC 245762652.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Brenchley, Julius Lucius (1873). Jottings During the Cruise of H. M. S. Curac̜oa Among the South Seaislands in 1865. London: Longmans, Green. OCLC 6749498.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Hixon, Margaret (2000). Sālote: Queen of Paradise. Dunedin, NZ: University of Otago Press. ISBN 978-1-877133-78-7. OCLC 247978391.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Rodman, Margaret (2007). House-girls Remember: Domestic Workers in Vanuatu. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-1856-2. OCLC 35760773.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Rutherford, Noel (1977). Friendly Islands: A History of Tonga. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-550519-1. OCLC 611102698.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Wood-Ellem, Elizabeth (1999). Queen Sālote of Tonga: The Story of an Era 1900–1965. Auckland, N.Z: Auckland University Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-2529-4. OCLC 262293605.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
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