Tupoutoʻa

This article is about the Tongan noble title. For people named Tupoutoʻa, see Tupoutoʻa (name).

Tupoutoʻa is a Tongan noble title. It is the most recent of the 33 hereditary titles and is principally used by crown princes of Tonga.

Queen Sālote Tupou III created the title in 1924, with a portion of land estate in Haʻapai, for former Prime Minister Sione Tupou Mateialona, a grandson of King George Tupou I. Mateialona died three years later without an heir, and the title thus reverted to the crown. It was not used again until the 1930s, when the then-crown prince Tāufaʻāhau was conferred with the title by the Queen. It has since become customary for the heir to the throne of Tonga to bear the title.^[1]

As with all titles of the Tongan nobility, the holder is responsible for the welfare of commoners residing on lands which are associated with the title.^[2][3][4] The holder of the title is also eligible to vote alongside other nobles during legislative elections, and can be elected to the Legislative Assembly of Tonga as a representative of the nobility.^[5]

References

1. Marcus, George E. (1978). "The nobility and the chiefly tradition in the modern Kingdom of Tonga". The Journal of the Polynesian Society. 87 (1): 41. ISSN 0032-4000.
2. "Mailefihi becomes 7th Tuʻipelehake", Islands Business, 2 August 2006
3. Reuter, Thomas Anton, ed. (2006). Sharing the earth, dividing the land: land and territory in the Austronesian world. Comparative Austronesian Series. Canberra: ANU E Press. ISBN 978-1-920942-69-4.
4. "Royal Tongan Celebration". dl.nfsa.gov.au. National Film and Sound Archive (Australia). 1994. Retrieved 2 September 2024.
5. "Nobles prepare for Elections of district electoral representatives". Government of Tonga. 22 April 2012. Archived from the original on 22 April 2012. Retrieved 2 September 2024.