Descendants

In Fiji, A Link With

The Romantic Past

She Has 128

Descendants

- And

Royal Blood

In his book, Tahiti—lsland of Love, Robert Langdon gives us an intimate glimpse of the very early life of Queen Pomare IV, of Tahiti. She was a 14-year-old hoyden, Aimata, when her brother died in an influenza epidemic, and she assumed the royal title. This was about 1826.

lays Langdon: “The new Queen 5 just at the age when Polynesian s go wild. . . Abandoning the 'eminent to the chiefs, she spent days and nights having fun with r s and girls of her own age”.

According to Langdon, it was arently about 1830-32 that isionary George Pritchard became uential in Tahiti and “the Queen > induced to give up her dissolute fs and take an interest in govern it”.

Romantic story

'his ties in with a romantic story nd in the memories of Mrs. Vai omoli Corrie, 86, of Suva, ording to data given by Mrs. rie to a PIM correspondent, Mrs. rie is a direct descendant of an gular union between Queen lare and a king of Tonga.

Irs. Corrie has all the genealogical tils. (ueen Pomare, while very young, pursuing pleasure rather than srnmental duties, visited Nukua . She then was about 17 years and she had a romantic affair i a Tongan noble, whom she Tibes as “Inoke Fotu, who later ime King of Tonga”.

Aimata Pomare bore Inoke a son, just before she was obliged to return home and begin her long, unhappy reign as Queen of Tahiti; and her son was brought up by relations at Holonga, in Tonga. Later, Inoke be came king of Tonga.

According to Mrs. Corrie, the

king on one occasion visited Holonga, and was introduced to his illegitimate son, and made a fuss over him.

The son’s name was Semisemilolo Oehau, and he married Akesa, who was half Tongan, half Rotuman.

They had six children, all born in Tonga.

One of their girls was named Analea, and she married, in Tonga, Charlie Knowle, who was the son of an Englishman and his Tongan wife.

The Knowles had four children, and the youngest of these, born in Tonga, in 1882, was Vai Lolomoli.

She married, first, in Fiji, a member of the Emberson family, of Fiji, and they had one son. She later married Alexander Corrie, and they had seven children.

Mrs. Vai Lolomoli Corrie’s descendants now number 128 (seven children, 35 grand-children, 84 great grand-children, and two great-great grand-children).

If the old lady]s memories are correct —and she is quite definite about her claim, and it has never been challenged—all of them can claim that they carry the blood of two royal families—namely, those of Tonga and Tahiti. The Tahitian royal family was pushed into discard by the French long ago, but the Pomare strain still is very much alive.

Mrs. Vai Lolomoli Corrie, 86, of Suva, and her grand-daughter, Mrs. Meta Hussain.