Tops, Stones, and a Pinwheel of Kapa

Several players stand in a row, hands out in front of them. A stone passes into one palm, hidden from the rest. A challenger studies the row and slaps down on the hand he guesses holds it. Nearby, a top spins inside a ring scratched into the dirt, struck at until it skitters past the line. Two boys pull opposite ends of a stick cut unevenly in the middle, waiting to see whose half is longer.

Pukui defines huila as "the appearance of the wheels," and makani as "wind, breeze. . ."

Culin briefly describes this game as a "feat of describing opposing circles with the hands and arms." He also states that it is a wind wheel, a pinwheel made of paper or kapa.

Andrews defines huki as "to draw, to pull," and lā'au as "a general name for what grew out of the ground."

A player made two slips of wood of uneven length, and two others pulled. The one who drew the longer slip won the game, and the other who pulled the shorter slip lost.

Andrews defines hū as "a top," and koa as "the name of a large tree growing on the mountains, good for furniture, of which canoes are made and instruments of war."

These wooden tops were made from the koa tree and had iron points. A wooden top was placed in the center of a ring on the ground. The object was to knock it out of the circle.

Andrews defines hūna as "to hide; to conceal; to keep from the sight of knowledge of another," and pōhaku as "the general name of stones, rocks, pebbles."

Hūna pōhaku, or stone-hiding, was participated in by several people standing in a row with their hands in front of them. A stone, or pōhaku, was hidden in one of their hands. A player slapped the hand where he thought the pebble was hidden. If he guessed right, the player who had the stone took his place.

The Hawaiian Games Scavenger Hunt pairs sixteen riddles with sixteen traditional Hawaiian games, each one found by solving the clue.

While little is known about Huila Makani, Huki Lā'au, Hū Koa, and Hūna Pōhaku, they are documented together among the children's games. Most of these games are recorded first in Culin's 1899 account and defined in Andrews' and Pukui's dictionaries of the Hawaiian language.

Sources

Culin, Stewart. "Hawaiian Games," American Anthropologist. Volume 1, Number 2, (April, 1899),

Andrews, Lorrin. A Dictionary of the Hawaiian Language. Tokyo, Japan: Charles E. Tuttle Co. 1974.

Pukui, Mary K. and S. Elbert. Hawaiian Dictionary: Hawaiian English-English Hawaiian. 1st. Edition. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii. 1971.