Rice — Hawaiian Legends 43 



opponents stretching at full length, face down, on the ground, with their 

 heads together, and their bodies in opposite directions. Each leaned on 

 his right elbow, and grasped the other's right hand, firmly. Then each 

 tried to twist the other's arm back, until the back of his opponent's hand 

 touched the ground, meantime keeping his own body flat on the ground. 

 This game could be played with the left hand, as well as with the right. 



They also played maika-, a game resembling discus throwing, played 

 with evenly-rounded, perfectly balanced stones, from two to eight inches 

 across, and thicker in the middle than on the edge. On Kauai the maika 

 were made of black stone, but on the other islands they were generally of 

 sand-stone. They were always highly polished. The maika were thrown 

 to see how far they would go, but sometimes the men would race with 

 the maika. 



Another game they played was ke'a-pita, in which they took the straight 

 .shafts of the sugar-cane tassels, and shot them like arrows from a whip- 

 like contrivance. This was made of a stick about three feet long, with a 

 string five or six feet long, attached. The end of this string, doubled 

 over, was folded around the shaft, and the remainder wound around 

 smoothly and evenly, so as not to catch. The shaft was laid on the 

 ground, with the point a little raised, and then whipped ofif. If it was 

 well-balanced, it flew several hundred feet. The person whose kea-pua 

 shot furthest, won, and he kept his arrow, which was called Hia-pai-ole, 

 the Arrow-which-could-not-be-Beaten. 



The queen's favorite game was puhcnchenc. This was played by placing 

 five piles of tapa on the ground. A little flat stone, called the noa, was 

 hidden in one of the piles, while the opponent watched the nimble fingers 

 and movements of the arm muscles of his rival. Then he had to guess 

 under which pile it was hidden, and point his stick at it. The queen usually 

 won from the king, laughing at him, thus giving the game its name, which 

 means "jeering." 



Another sport was the tug-of-war. When one side was about to be 

 beaten, others jumped in, and helped them. On the ninth and tenth nights 

 of their celebration the Menehune had foot-races. In these, two Mene- 

 hune raced at a time. The two last to race were Pakia and Luhau. These 

 were known to be so swift that they could run around Kauai six times in 

 one day. Pakia won the race, beating Luhau by three fathoms. The peo- 

 ple stood up and cheered when the decision was given, and picked up the 

 champion, and carried him on their shoulders. 



The next night they were to have sled races. They were to race down 

 the steep hill-side of a little valley that leads into Hanakapiai. If the course 

 for the races was not slippery enough, they covered it with very fine rushes 



