Fakafotu
Tokelauan · deity · Tokelauan traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Fakafotu was the Tokelauan god of storms and hurricanes; thunder was spoken of as the anger of Fakafotu, and he could appear in the form of a great tree. A coral slab was raised to him beside that of Tui Tokelau on Atafu, while at Fakaofo his god-house and slab were kept separate from those of Tui Tokelau and Te Moana. His name coincides with that of Fakafotu (Hakahotu), the primary female parent of gods and men in Tongareva and the islands of eastern Polynesia; but in Tokelau the figure is male and a storm-god, and none of the characteristics of the eastern-Polynesian goddess were remembered there.
Domains
- storms and hurricanes
- thunder
Powers
- to send storms, hurricanes, and thunder
- to appear in the form of a great tree
Sources
- Fakafotu is the Tokelauan god of storms and hurricanes, whose anger sounds in the thunder and who appears as a great tree, worshipped with a coral slab at Atafu and a separate god-house at Fakaofo.: Gordon Macgregor, Ethnology of Tokelau Islands, Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin 146 (Honolulu, 1937), pp. 62-63. (secondary); Judith Huntsman and Antony Hooper, Tokelau: A Historical Ethnography (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1996), pp. 141-144. (secondary)