Hawaiian children played their own outdoor games. They let a pile of little splints fall and drew them out one at a time. They ran to hide and held their breath. They chased one another and tagged. They circled a blindfolded player. They twirled a disk of bark on a cord.
Pau Nauwe
Andrews defines pau as to be all, entire, or complete. Nauwe means to shake, to vibrate, to tremble.
Players: Two or more.
Objective: Separate the splints one at a time without moving the others.
Equipment: About twenty-five or thirty lāʻau, or little splints.
Rules:
About twenty-five or thirty little splints were allowed to fall in a pile or heap.
The players then attempted to separate them one at a time without moving the others.
Peʻe Peʻe Akua
Andrews uses the term hau peʻe peʻe and defines it as the play of children, hide and seek. Peʻe peʻe akua meant “hiding as a ghost.” The one who was "it" was called akua, ghost or god, and was determined by counting out.
The game was always played in the open, because hiding in the home from another who was out-of-doors, just for fun, became a sign of bad luck.
Players: A group of children, boys and girls, and one chosen master.
Objective: Reach a hiding place before the master finishes the chant, and stay hidden until the leader finds you.
Rules:
A player was chosen master. The girls lay down on their faces in one group and the boys in another.
The master thumped first upon the back of a boy, then a girl, reciting the following half chant:
Ku'i, ku'i hana pepe (Pound, pound, make a bell)
Holo iuka, holo i kai (Run inland, run seaward)
Holoi kahi epe'e ai (Run to a place where you)
A nalo. (are and hide.)
At the word "hide", the girl or boy would speed away to a hiding place. The formula used was, "Hold your breath so as no to be seen."
When all the players were in their hidden places, the leader went to find them, touching the pahu hopu, or goal, as each was discovered.
Pla pi o
Cullins references pla-pi-o as an adaption of the English word play, while the Hawaiian word is pa’ani.
Players: A group of children.
Objective: Avoid being tagged by the akua.
Rules:
The akua, or "it", was determined by a counting out method.
The akua then chased the other players.
The first one tagged then became the akua, or "it".
Pōʻ Ai Puni
Andrews defines pō as to be dark, to darken, to become night; ai as there, near by, but not in contact; and puni as around, on every side. Pō ʻai puni means to travel around, circumnavigate, go completely around, encircle.
Players: A group of children and one blindfolded player.
Objective: The blindfolded player catches someone in the ring and guesses who it is.
Rules:
All the children hold hands and form a circle.
One of the players is blindfolded and stands in the middle of the ring.
The children dance around the blindfolded player.
As the children danced, the makapo, or blindman, caught one of the players and tried to guess who it was.
Pōkakaʻa
Andrews and Pukui agree that pōkakaʻa was a wheel, something revolving, whirling, or spinning.
Players: One or more.
Objective: Spin the disk, or buzz.
Equipment: A disk of bark, probably hau wood, punctured with two holes through which a cord was passed.
Hawaiian games that are similar to pick-up-sticks, hide-and-seek, tag, blind-man's-bluff, and the twirling disk were played by children outside.
Makahiki Games
Sources
Lorrin Andrews, A Dictionary of the Hawaiian Language
Mary Kawena Pukui, "Games of My Childhood," California Folklore Quarterly
Stewart Culin, "Hawaiian Games," American Anthropologist
Mary K. Pukui and S. Elbert, Hawaiian Dictionary