Reign 1788–1791 Successor Pomare II | Predecessor New creation Name Pomare I | |
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Burial Pomare Royal Cemetery, Papaʻoa, ʻArue Spouse Tu-ra’i-Ari’i Te-ra’i-manoTetua-nui-rei-a-ite Ra’iatea-i-Nu’uruaPateamai Vairareti TeanoPepiri (junior wife) | ||
Pōmare I (c. 1753 – September 3, 1803) (fully in old orthography: Tu-nui-ea-i-te-atua-i-Tarahoi Vaira'atoa Taina Pōmare I; also known as Tu or Tinah or Outu), was the unifier and first king of Tahiti and founder of the Pōmare dynasty and the Kingdom of Tahiti between 1788 and 1791. He abdicated in 1791, but remained in power as the guardian regent during the minority of his successor Pomare II from 1791 until 1803.
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Name
Outu is the phonetic English rendering of ʻO Tū, Tū being the name, ʻo the nominal predicate meaning that is. Older literature writes his family name as Tunuieaiteatua, which leaves incertainties about the proper pronunciation as Tahitian usually did (and does) not write macrons and glottals. Barring this incertainty, in the current proper orthography would be Tū-nui-ʻēʻa-i-te-atua meaning Great-Tū,-road-to-the-god. Tū (standing straight up) was a major Tahitian god.
Ariʻitaimai claims that this Tū is a contraction of atua (god), but that is unlikely. The name Pōmare was adopted later. Pō-mare means "night cougher", a nickname he took, as was common in that time, in honor of his daughter Princess Teri’inavahoroa who died from tuberculosis in 1792.
Biography
He was born at Pare, ca. 1753, second son of Teu Tunuieaiteatua by his wife, Tetupaia-i-Hauiri. He initially reigned under the regency of his father, 1753, and succeeded on the death of his father as Ariʻi-rahi of Porionuʻu November 23, 1802.
As king, Pōmare succeeded in uniting the different chiefdoms of Tahiti into a single kingdom, composed of the islands of Tahiti itself, Moʻorea, Mehetiʻa, and the Tetiʻaroa group. H thus became the first king of unified Tahiti in 1788. His service as the first king of unified Tahiti ended when he abdicated in 1791. He was succeeded by Tū Tūnuiʻēʻaiteatua Pōmare II, who reigned from 1791 until 1821: however, though no longer monarch, Pomare remained regent of Tahiti during the minority of Pomare II, from 1791 until 1803.
He married 4 times and had three sons and three daughters.
He died from thrombosis.