This is a game that is quite known in Hawaii. I remember playing it a The Polynesian Cultural Center or Waimea Falls Park back in the 80’s. I might have even played it at Explorations. When I moved to the mainland, my dad gave me some maika so I could use as a decorative piece in my home to remind me of my culture. However, I didn’t realize how much more there was to this game.
Here's what I found:
THE GAME
‘Ulu Maika
ʻUlu maika was a disc-rolling game, something like bowling, but played on courses that could stretch upwards of a mile.
The stone itself was a biconvex disc, thick at the center, narrow at the edges, shaped like a wheel. The stones ranged widely in size: the smallest on record was under 2 inches in diameter and weighed just 3½ ounces. The most common were 5 inches across and about 44 ounces. The largest reached 10 to 12 inches in diameter and weighed up to 90 pounds which undoubtedly developed and tested a maika player’s strength. The Bishop Museum had maika stones made from wood, coral, conglomerate, limestone, olivine, and lava.
Worth noting: the original implement wasn't stone at all. It was the ʻulu (breadfruit) which was spherical enough to roll. The polished stone disc came later, as the game evolved.
Kahua maika
The course was called the kahua maika, a smooth, level, hard-packed track. One preserved course on Molokaʻi was examined and recorded in detail: a shallow trench, 35 feet wide, running 350 yards on a slight downgrade before curving slighting left for another 150 yards. The sides of the trench curved inward, not by accident. A disc thrown slightly off-line would be guided back toward the bottom. The earth excavated to build the course was likely carried out in baskets and scattered evenly nearby.
In some places, the trenches dug for the game ran upwards of a mile, three feet wide and two feet deep, with the bottom level, smooth, and hard.
Four documented ways to play:
Distance (most common): Roll the stone as far as possible. Where it stops, mark it with a flag or stake. The next player rolls. The player who rolls the farthest wins.
Precision: Two stakes driven a few inches apart. From thirty to forty yards away, roll the disc between the stakes without touching them.
Racing: Players roll simultaneously from opposite ends of the field toward each other's stakes. Timing and distance both count. First to reach the goal wins two points.
Collision: Players roll their stones directly against each other. The most durable disc wins. Hundreds of broken maika could be seen near Kalae on Molokaʻi.
Two techniques:
Face right, feet together. Hold the disc in the right hand, fourth and middle fingers underneath, thumb on top. Roll underhanded.
Stand facing the course, one foot slightly forward. Hold the disc in whichever hand is strongest, thumb on top along the edge, index and middle fingers underneath. Body inclines slightly forward as it is thrown along the course.
The grip is the same in both techniques. The difference is in the feet and the facing.
As the stone traveled, the crowd called out: nee! nee! (move on, move on) and wela! wela! (get hot, get hot).
THE CULTURAL LAYER
What ʻulu maika tells us about ancient Hawaiian isn't in the rules. It's in the scale.
Courses were constructed from Hawaiʻi to Kauaʻi. Not one course, enough across every island that the dissertation names them individually. Hina kahua at Kohala. The course at Kaluakoi on Maunaloa. And the mile-long trenches recorded. This was infrastructure. Someone chose the ground, organized the labor, carried the excavated earth away in baskets. ʻUlu maika was not a casual pastime.
King Kamehameha I played ulu maika. He loved to thrown the maika stone as well as hurling spears, parrying javelins thrown at his bare chest, and riding the waves. The games were part of how strength was developed, demonstrated, witnessed, and remembered.
ʻUlu maika was also considered one of the best exercises to strengthen the body. The player had to run fast and follow the rolling stone, sometimes pick it up on a run. Limbs strengthened. Speed developed. From these disc-rolling contests, professional runners were identified.
The crowds that gathered, two to three thousand people, documented by eyewitnesses, came to watch and to wager. Not small wagers. Charles Wilkes recorded what was staked on a single throw: property, wives, children, arm and leg bones after death, and people wagering themselves while still living. William Ellis witnessed the same, farmers with their tools, canoe builders with their adzes, a poor man with only a knife and his sleeping mat, all of it on the line. When they lost everything, some tore hair from their heads where they stood.
Courses engineered across every island. A king who played it. Thousands gathered to watch. Professional athletes identified through it. A civilization that staked everything, including themselves, on a single throw. That is what one game reveals.
THE LEGEND
A story is told about Maloi of Honolulu and Kanekoa of Waikiki who were the strongest maika players. Kanekoa played the regular method wheras Moloi threw the maika upward and made it soar inthe air for about ten fathoms from the point where it was thrown before it touched the ground. Both players had equal strength that neither won. Gamblers did not profit when these two competed against each other.
It was great to learn together. Malaho!
The Makahiki Games
SOURCES
Malo, David. Hawaiian Antiquities.
Culin, Stewart. "Hawaiian Games." American Anthropologist, 1899.
Wilkes, Charles. Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, 1850.
Ellis, William. Journal of William Ellis, 1823.
Kenn, Charles W. "Ancient Hawaiian Sports." The Mid-Pacific Magazine, 1935. (Including accounts from Becky Kanuha of Kohala and J. D'Arcy Northwood.)
Buck, Peter H. Arts and Crafts of Hawaii.
Bryan, Edwin H. Jr. Ancient Hawaiian Life.
Ii, John P. Fragments of Hawaiian History.
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