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Polynesian Sites
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Sites significant across Polynesian religious traditions, which share a broad common ancestry across the Pacific while differing considerably from island group to island group in their specific practices and deities. Sacred sites are grouped by tradition at a fine grain here, so a heading can be narrow without that saying anything about the tradition's own reach.
Facts
Overview
What Defines This GroupingMarae, heiau, meae and ahu: walled open-air courts with a raised stone platform, the characteristic ritual structure of East Polynesia. Ritual authority was physically transmissible, a new marae being founded by carrying a stone from an older one, so the sites form a traceable network. 2 Peoples and Traditions CoveredA cover term across the Polynesian triangle: Maori, Kanaka Maoli, Maohi of the Society Islands, Rapa Nui, Samoans, Tongans, Marquesans, Cook Islanders and others. They share an ancestral language and a common repertoire, and they are distinct peoples in what are now several separate states. 2 Origins
Whose Classification This IsThe division of the Pacific into Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia was proposed by Jules Dumont d'Urville in 1832 and rested in part on judgements about race. Polynesia has outlived that origin as a sound linguistic and genealogical grouping; the threefold scheme as a whole has not. 2 Learn More
Polynesian sacred sites
This small group gathers a sacred site of the wider Polynesian world, a marae, temple platform or sacred place of the island peoples of the Pacific, where the gods and ancestors were honoured.
The browser will find the site the atlas classes here. The entry describes its religious significance within Polynesian tradition.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Belongs to Tradition
Sites grouped for the Polynesian tradition.
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