194 ' '^^^^ Ancient Hawaiian House. 



the}' have generally three instead of four legs; four legs, however, sometimes occur 

 on the American metate. 



As we leave the Hawaiian house after taking an inventory of its contents, we 

 shall probably see what we did not notice on entering, a rectangular flat stone lying 

 so low on the stone kahua that one may be pardoned for thinking it a part of the house 

 foundation, but a closer examination shows that its surface is marked with shallow 

 pits in regular order and of considerable number. This is the papamii, a sort of 

 checker board on which the game of konane was played, a game popular from ancient 

 times all over the group, but especially on Hawaii, and it was common enough forty 

 years ago to see two natives sitting on the stone platform near the house door intently 

 playing this interesting game which somewhat resembled the Japanese game of 

 gobang. The late King Kalakaua and his Queen Kapiolani were experts at konane, 

 and it is well known that the goddess Pele did not refuse to play the game with the 

 demigod Kamapuaa. 



We have now filled the phantom house of the perished past with so much furni- 

 ture that even the long house of the New Guinea Papuans would hardly contain it all, 

 but surel}- any reader who has come with me thus far should be able to select such 

 things as are needful for a primitive family even of an Alii. Unfortunately it is far 

 easier to assemble the utensils than to call back the forms that once made and used 

 them! The makaainana certainly lived a sordid life, without possessions, almost 

 without rights, their gods less merciful, if possible, than their human masters the Alii, 

 and yet they were never a gloomy or despairing people. Hard work they had, but 

 many a game, and even the sports that none but the chiefs might take an active part 

 in, they could and did enjoy as spectators. They were like children, and if their joyous 

 moments were short in our view, their sorrows were equally short-lived, and the people 

 who had a large-hearted chief had much reason to enjoy life and little to complain of. 



With the Alii life must have been strenuous at times, for we know that war 



and devastating war was the rule for long periods before the conquest of the petty 



kingdoms into which the group and even the different islands were divided. There 



are those that claim that bloodshed developes the powers of a nation, and they point 



to the undoubted fact that the Hawaiians reached their highest development as a 



people after a long series of bloody wars, and that since peace has been established 



over the group, and one form and another of the Christian religion impressed upon 



the people, the chiefs, whose occupation seemed to have been taken from them, have 



disappeared wholly from the earth, and their people has ceased to be a nation and is 



fast following the chiefs. 



[378] 



