# Tāufaʻāhau Tupou IV

Tāufaʻāhau Tupou IV (Siaosi Tāufaʻāhau Tupoulahi; 4 July 1918 – 10 September 2006) was King of Tonga from 1965 until his death in 2006. He was the tallest and heaviest Tongan monarch, weighing 209.5 kg (462 lb) and measuring 196 cm (6 ft 5 in).

## Biography

He was born to Viliami Tungī Mailefihi and Queen Sālote Tupou III. His full baptismal name was Siaosi Tāufaʻāhau Tupoulahi, but he was soon better known by the traditional title Tupoutoʻa, which was bestowed upon him in 1935 and subsequently became reserved for crown princes of Tonga. This title was supplemented by the one he inherited from his father, Tungī (or using both: Tupoutoʻa Tungī, in that time written as "Tuboutoʻa Tugi"). He kept the Tungī title until his death. From a traditional point of view he was not only the Tungī, which is the direct descendant from the Tuʻi Haʻatakalaua, but he was also, on becoming king, the 22nd Tuʻi Kanokupolu. The link with the Tuʻi Tonga line, however, was more indirect. He was not a Tuʻi Tonga in his own right (the office having gone over into the Kalaniuvalu line), but his grandmother Lavinia Veiongo (wife of George Tupou II) was the great-granddaughter of Laufilitonga, the last Tuʻi Tonga, and his wife Halaevalu Mataʻaho (not to be confused with the King's wife of the same name and same family), who was the daughter of Tupou ʻAhomeʻe, who was the daughter of Lātūfuipeka, the Tamahā (sister of the Tuʻi Tonga). By consequence, the King's daughter, Pilolevu, was the first Tongan woman to descend from the bloodlines of the three major royal dynasties and become the highest-ranking person ever.
Tāufaʻāhau was a keen sportsman and religious preacher in his youth. He was educated at Newington College and studied law at Sydney University while residing at Wesley College. His graduation from Sydney University was described as the first of any Tongan. He was appointed minister of education by Queen Sālote in 1943, minister of health in 1944, and in 1949, premier. During his tenure as education minister, he initiated reforms to standardise the Tongan alphabet.
He remained a lay preacher of the Free Wesleyan Church until his death, and in some circumstances, was empowered to appoint an acting church president.

## Reign

Tāufaʻāhau became King of Tonga on the death of his mother in 1965. His coronation took place on 4 July 1967, his 49th birthday, in Nukuʻalofa, with dignitaries including the Duke of Kent and New Zealand Prime Minister Keith Holyoake in attendance. On 4 June 1970, he presided over a ceremony marking the end of the British protectorate over Tonga and its transition to a sovereign state. He visited many far-flung countries during his reign.
At one point in the 1970s, he was the heaviest monarch in the world, weighing in at 209.5 kg (462 lb). For his visits to Germany, the German government used to commission special chairs that could support his weight. The King used to take them home, considering them as state presents. He was also very tall, standing at 196 cm (6 ft 5 in). Swedish shoemaker Per-Enok Kero reported that he "weighed 180 kilos and had shoe size 47 in length and 52 in breadth."
During the 1980s, his government adopted a tone of appeasement towards France in its Pacific nuclear tests at Moruroa, which he visited at the invitation of Gaston Flosse. When he was questioned by a journalist on this issue, the king said that "if France considered [the tests] necessary for its defence it was a choice which must be respected". His government's position put Tonga at odds with other Pacific countries which publicly opposed the conduction of the nuclear tests.
In the 1990s, he took part in a national fitness campaign, losing a third of his weight. By the 2000s, his great political authority and influence in Tonga's essentially aristocratic system of government, together with the country's nobles – who controlled seventy per cent of the Legislative Assembly of Tonga at the time – and the wealth accumulated by his children, renewed calls for a democratisation of the political system. The king himself had dismissed such demands, pointing to political crises in neighbouring Fiji. His involvement in an investment scandal in 2001, involving his American financial advisor Jesse Bogdonoff, attracted much media attention; the fact he had previously appointed Bogdonoff the official court jester, though likely only done as a joke for Bogdonoff's birthday on 1 April (April Fools' Day), compounded the scandal's embarrassment. In 2004, he was named a press freedom predator by Reporters Without Borders, a move which was criticised by the owner of an independent newspaper in Tonga.
In 2005, the government spent several weeks negotiating with striking civil service workers before reaching a settlement. The king's nephew, ʻUluvalu (the 6th Tuʻipelehake), served as mediator. A constitutional commission presented a series of recommendations for constitutional reform to the King a few weeks before his death.

## Death and funeral

On 15 August 2006, Tongan Prime Minister Feleti Sevele interrupted radio and television broadcasts to announce the king was gravely ill in the Mercy Hospital in Auckland and to ask the 104,000 people of the island chain to pray for their monarch. He died on 10 September at 23:34 NZST, after reigning for nearly 41 years. His daughter was reportedly by his bedside when he died. He was succeeded by his eldest son, George Tupou V.
The king was buried on 19 September 2006 at Malaʻekula, the royal cemetery in Tongatapu. Thousands of Tongans watched the funeral, which blended Christian and ancient Polynesian burial rites. The funeral was overseen by the royal undertaker and his men, known as the nima tapu.
Mourners included foreign dignitaries from 23 countries, including Japanese crown prince Naruhito; Australian governor-general Michael Jeffery; New Zealand governor-general Dame Silvia Cartwright and prime minister Helen Clark; Fijian vice-president Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi and prime minister Laisenia Qarase; Vanuatu president Kalkot Mataskelekele; governor of American Samoa Togiola Tulafono; Niue premier Young Vivian; president of French Polynesia Oscar Temaru; and the Duke of Gloucester, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth II.

## Marriage and children

He married a distant relative, Halaevalu Mataʻaho ʻAhomeʻe (1926–2017), on 10 June 1947, during a double nuptial ceremony with his brother Prince Fatafehi Tuʻipelehake. The couple had four children:
* King George Tupou V (Siaosi Tāufaʻāhau Manumataongo Tukuʻaho Tupou; 1948–2012), better known during his tenure as heir by the hereditary noble title Tupoutoʻa.
* Princess Royal Salote Mafileʻo Pilolevu Tuita (née Tukuʻaho; born 1951); Lady Tuita by marriage.
* Prince Fatafehi ʻAlaivahamamaʻo Tukuʻaho (1954–2004); stripped of his title after marrying a commoner, later bestowed with the hereditary title of Māʻatu.
* King Tupou VI (ʻAhoʻeitu ʻUnuakiʻotonga Tukuʻaho; born 1959), known prior to his ascension to the throne by his hereditary titles: ʻUlukālala Lavaka Ata, then after his elder brother's ascension, Tupoutoʻa Lavaka. As his brother died without legitimate issue, he became king in 2012.

## Honours
### National

* Sovereign Knight Grand Cross with Collar of the Royal Order of Pouono
* Sovereign Knight Grand Cross of the Order of King George Tupou I
* Sovereign Knight Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of the Crown of Tonga
* Sovereign Recipient of the Royal Tongan Medal of Merit
* Sovereign Recipient of the Tongan Red Cross Medal

### Foreign

* Denmark: Recipient of the Royal Medal of Recompense
* France: Grand Cross of the Order of the Legion of Honour
* Germany: Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, Special Class
* French Polynesia: Grand Cross of the Order of Tahiti Nui
* Japan: Knight Grand Cordon with Collar of the Order of the Chrysanthemum
* Republic of China (Taiwan): Grand Cross of the Order of Brilliant Jade
* United Kingdom: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George
* United Kingdom: Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order
* United Kingdom: Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire
* United Kingdom: Bailiff Grand Cross of the Venerable Order of Saint John
* United Kingdom: Recipient of the Medal of Merit of the Legion of Frontiersmen
* United Kingdom: Recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal

### Namesakes

* Tonga House at Newington College

## Family tree

vteTupou family tree :
Tuʻi Haʻatakalaua lineTuʻi Tonga lineTuʻi Kanokupolu line
Kalolaine FusimataliliGeorge Tupou IFīnau Kaunanga
Fifita VavʻauTēvita ʻUngaSālote Mafile‘o PilolevuFiliaipulotu
Fusipala TaukiʻonetukuFatafehi Toutaitokotaha
Lavinia VeiongoGeorge Tupou IIʻAnaseini Takipō
Viliami Tungī MailefihiSālote Tupou IIIVīlai Tupou (illegitimate son)Tupou Seini
Tāufaʻāhau Tupou IVHalaevalu Mataʻaho ʻAhomeʻeSiaosi 'Alipate Tupou, Baron VaeaTuputupu Ma'afu-'o-Tukuialahi
George Tupou VTupou VINanasipauʻu Tukuʻaho
Tupoutoʻa ʻUlukalalaSinaitakala Fakafanua
Taufaʻahau Manumataongo :
Reference:
Fox, James J.; Sather, Clifford (1996). Origins, Ancestry and Alliance: Explorations in Austronesian Ethnography. Canberra: Department of Anthropology, Australian National University. p. 252. ISBN 978-0-7315-2432-7. OCLC 245762652.
Kaeppler, Adrienne Lois; D.C. (2008). The Pacific Arts of Polynesia and Micronesia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 90. ISBN 978-0-19-284238-1. OCLC 236158882.
Völkel, Svenja (2010). Social Structure, Space and Possession in Tongan Culture and Language: An Ethnolinguistic Study. Amsterdam; Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing. p. 45. ISBN 978-90-272-0283-3.
Wood-Ellem, Elizabeth (1999). Queen Sālote of Tonga: The Story of an Era 1900-1965. Auckland, N.Z: Auckland University Press. p. front. ISBN 978-0-8248-2529-4. OCLC 262293605. :