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The Honpa Hongwanji Mission of Hawaii recently presented its prestigious Living Treasure Award to Sione Tui’one Pulotu for his 40-plus years of excellence and creative contributions as a master Polynesian carver.
Pulotu was only 20 years old when he came from Tonga to help build additions to the campus of the Church College of Hawaii (which became BYU-Hawaii in 1974) and the brand-new Polynesian Cultural Center as a “labor missionary” for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which sponsors the both university and the Center.
Soon after arriving, he became intrigued with Hawaiian tikis he saw at the then-new Ala Moana Center in Honolulu and started to teach himself to carve. Before completing his labor missionary work almost four years later, Pulotu had already carved several heroic-sized tikis and went on to create many other tikis, numerous Polynesian buildings at the Cultural Center, and more recently a series of strikingly beautiful, traditionally styled Polynesian voyaging canoes.
For example he spent the year before New Year’s Day 2000 in Nuku’alofa, the capital of the Kingdom of Tonga, carving a 105-foot traditional double-hulled kalia (where one hull is smaller than the other and acts as an outrigger) — the largest-ever modern Polynesian voyaging canoe. Before dawn on Y2000 morning, Pulotu and the Mileniume sailed out of Nuku’alofa to watch the sun rise.
More recently Pulotu served as the primary carver for BYU-Hawaii’s 57-foot traditional twin-hulled Hawaiian voyaging canoe, Iosepa — a floating classroom that is part of the university’s Hawaiian Studies program. The Polynesian Cultural Center tentatively plans to complete a new home for the Iosepa later this year in the Hawaiian village.
Pulotu’s uncanny ability to use six-foot chain saws, a wide range of chisels including traditional Polynesian toki or adzes, to shape huge logs into beautiful, priceless yet completely utilitarian canoes — all without benefit of written plans — demonstrates why the Honpa Hongwanji Mission named him a “living treasure.”
He is currently raising funds to carve his final canoe in Suva, Fiji — a double-hulled voyaging vessel that will incorporate various aspects of ancient Polynesian designs.
Read more about Pulotu’s accomplishments…
