The Game That Was Playing When Everything Changed
Before 1822, there was no written Hawaiian language. Everything that mattered, the history, the legends, the genealogies, was held in memory and taught orally, generation to generation. The aliʻi, or noble class, high priests and the kahunas kept this tradition with particular care. That is how the story of the Makahiki games survived at all.
And one of those stories begins at a kōnane board.
Lonokaiwai and Lonoikamakahiki
To understand where the Makahiki games came from, you have to understand who Lono was.
Lono was the fourth of the four great gods that were worshipped throughout Polynesia. He had a separate order of priests and temples of a lower grade. Traditions connected with the ancient kings Lonokawai and Lonoikamakahiki, seem to have been mixed with those belonging to the primeval god Lono. Lonoikamakahiki is reputed to have instituted the games which were celebrated during the Makahiki festival. He is said on some account to have become offended with his wife and murdered her; but afterward lamented the act so much as to induce a state of mental derangement. In this state he travelled through all the islands, boxing and wrestling with everyone he met. He subsequently set sail, in a singularly canoe, for Tahiti, or a foreign country. After his departure he was deified by his countrymen, and an annual contest of boxing and wrestling were instituted in his honor.