The games of the Makahiki.
What was played.
In your hands.
In 1978, Dr. Wilfred Navalta finished a doctoral disseration documenting 101 traditional Hawaiian games.
We publish one issue pulling from the content each week.
3000 people watched a stone fly 400 yards
You don’t need to live in Hawaii, speak the language or come from royalty be part of our community. If you are here, it is already for you.
Every week, one issue. Delivered to your email.
The Makahiki Games newsletter give you something to learn and share - rules, mechanics, documented practice, pulled straight from the disseration. The cultural context behind the games and Makahiki season. And legends recorded by Hawaiian historians.
Every issue traces back to a specific page in the disseration.
Preserving Hawaiian culture and the games of the Makahiki.
The scholarship behind every issue
In 1978, Dr. Santiago Wilfred Navalta, raised in Laupāhoehoe, Hawaiʻi, completed a doctoral dissertation at BYU. It documented 101 traditional Hawaiian games from primary sources like David Malo, Samuel Kamakau, Martha Beckwith, and Mary Kawena Pukui. The sports and competitions of the Makahiki festival include rules, mechanics, and cultural context.
This is one of the only peer-reviewed comprehensive study of its kind.
Dr. Navalta presented his findings at the Physical Education World Congress in London (1985), at Native American Studies in Oklahoma (1984), and at the International TESOL Conference in Toronto (1983). He published six works. Most of what he documents has existed nowhere else in accessible form until now.
Dr. Navalta is in his 80s. The dissertation has sat for decades. Makahiki Games exists to return the information transformed, accessible, authenticated, to the families it belongs to.
“The revival of the Makahiki games in Hawai’i could contribute to the enrichment of Hawaiian culture.”
Start with the first issue.
3000 people watched a stone fly 400 yardsStart Here : Issue No. 1
3000 people watched a stone fly 400 yards
ʻUlu maika was a disc-rolling game, something like bowling, but played on courses that could stretch upwards of a mile.