UL UMAIKA. 



71 



Not only has this fine game faded from the memor}^ of the fading Hawaiians, but 

 the stones have become curiosities to them. I once asked an intelligent Hawaiian the 

 name of these stones, and his reply was, ^''Aolc ike iiuui; polialot kapili ivaa paha.''^ "I do 

 not know; perhaps a stone to pound a canoe." Indeed they have often been used as 

 hammers, and many have dents on the edge or sides. Another use for the rough, 

 poorly finished ulumaika I have noticed several times. In the sand burials at Koloa, 

 Kauai, and near Leahi on Oahu, they were placed under the chin of the corpse, which 



FIG. 69. PILE OF MAIKA STONES. 



was arranged in a sitting posture with the knees against the breast. Curiously enough 

 two of the three instances noted were female skeletons ; the other was not recorded ; but 

 as women did not play maika these were not cases of prized pos.sessions buried with the 

 dead, — rather a pillow for the tongue in the long sleep. 



Exadlly how the ulumaika were made I cannot say, for the methods told to nie (the 

 process ceased long before I came to the Islands) vary considerably, and I could not 

 regard my informants as very akainai or skilful in the matter. From the large collec- 

 tion at my disposal I have arranged the stages somewhat as follows, although the order 

 in any individual case might of course be varied : stone roughly rounded ; sides ground 

 flat; accurately rounded; sides made convex b}' grinding between grooved stones which 

 were held so that the grooves were at an acute angle with each other; polishing the 

 stone. Specimens of all these stages are in hand ; some are given in the figures, for the 



last two are sometimes omitted and we have simply a flat circular disk without polish. 



[403] 



