A slim rod fifty inches long tips forward, a loop of interlaced vine fixed to its narrow end. Below the loop a ball of kapa swings on a cord, rising and falling with each turn of the wrist. A player watches its arc and reaches to catch it inside the ring before it drops. Two or more take turns at the handle, the score climbing until an agreed number decides the winner.
Pala'ie
Players: Two or more.
Objective: Swing the ball and catch it in the loop.
Equipment: A handle, a loop, and a ball on a string. Buck describes a Bishop Museum specimen with a handle fifty inches long and three-tenths of an inch thick at the butt end, and a loop of five segments of interlaced vine forming a ring four and eight-tenths inches long and two and three-tenths inches wide.
Culin describes a Berlin Museum specimen with a handle about eight feet long, made of twisted leaf-ribs with a loop at the end, and a string twenty-five inches long securing the ball to the handle about twenty-seven inches from the butt end.
The ball was made of kapa or coconut leaves; one Bishop Museum specimen measures two and three-tenths inches long with an end tuft of one and four-tenths inches.
Rules:
The handle was held with the loop opposite the player.
The ball was swung and the player attempted to catch it in the loop.
When a player missed, the next player took a turn.
A predetermined score decided the winner.
Captain King on the Children's Version
On his voyage to the Pacific Ocean with Captain James Cook, Captain King wrote in his journal about Hawaiian children playing a variation of the game.
They take a short stick, with a peg, sharpened at both ends, running through one extremity of it and extending about an inch on each side; and throwing up a ball made of green leaves molded together, and secured with twine, they catch it on the point of the peg; and immediately throwing it up again from the peg, they turn the stick around, and thus keep catching it, on each peg alternating, without missing it, for a considerable time.
Mitchell later described how to build a pala'ie: a length of bamboo about thirty inches long, tipped with a loop of six to ten twisted or braided coconut leaf midribs, three inches across, paired with a ball of tapa or cloth slightly larger than the loop, tied by a cord to the center of the handle. His directions for play: grasp the handle, swing the ball forward, and catch it in the loop. A point is scored only when the pala'ie is held horizontal.
Across these accounts, the materials and proportions vary, but the essential motion remains: swing, watch, catch, and try again. That enduring challenge inspired our pala'ie, created to bring the game from the historical record back into the hand.
Makahiki Games
Sources
Andrews, Lorrin. A Dictionary of the Hawaiian Language. Tokyo, Japan: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1974. (174, 333, 443, 483)
Buck, Peter H. Arts and Crafts of Hawaii. Honolulu, Hawaii: Bishop Museum Press, 1957. (376)
Cook, James, and J. King. A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean. 2nd Edition. London, Vol. II, 1784. (147)
Culin, Stewart. "Hawaiian Games." American Anthropologist. Volume 1, Number 2 (April 1899), pp. 201-247. (226)
Mitchell, Donald K. Na Pa'ani Kahiko O Hawaii — Ancient Sports Of Hawaii. Honolulu, Hawaii: Kamehameha Schools, 1952. (9)
Pukui, Mary K., and S. Elbert. Hawaiian Dictionary: Hawaiian English-English Hawaiian. 1st Edition. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1971. (283)
Navalta, Santiago Wilfred. The Sports and Games of the Makahiki Festival: A History and a Unit of Instruction. Doctoral Dissertation, Brigham Young University, 1978.