Malaʻekula

The Pine road towards Malaʻekula, with the tomb of Siaosi Tupou I in the background

Malaʻekula' or Malaʻe Kula (red square) is the proper name of the royal burial grounds in central Nukuʻalofa in Kingdom of Tonga in the southern Pacific Ocean. The kings of Tonga and their very close relatives (wives, husbands, children) are buried there. Those who are a little farther away from the mainline (cousins, nephews, nieces, inlaws) are buried elsewhere, in other chiefly cemeteries. Kings from older times, (i.e. the Tuʻi Tonga dynasty), are mostly buried in the langi in Muʻa.

Malaʻekula is on a short distance south of the royal palace along the Hala Tuʻi (kings road), also known as the Hala Paini (pine road) because of the Norfolk pines (a royal tree in Tonga) which were originally planted along this road (nowadays many have disappeared). The cemetery was established when the first king of modern Tonga died, Siaosi Tāufaʻāhau Tupou I. His tomb is positioned in the middle of the field, such that one can see it there when looking from the palace grounds straight along the Hala Tuʻi .

The word malaʻe means in Tongan: (village)-green, park, playground, etc. but it is also the royal word for cemetery. Kula means: red. It is a reminder to the famous kātoanga kula (red festival) held on that place in 1885. It was a fundraising for Tonga college (which corporate colour is vermilion-red, opened 1882), and everybody was dressed in red that day.

During the middle of the 20th century expatriats in Tonga used the area as a golf course. But once queen Sālote had died and was buried there, out of respect the area was never used anymore for such a mundane thing.