The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-05-08
To REVIVE
Old SPORTS
Movement Started to Bring
Back Hawaiian Pastimes
Now Extinct.

Prince Cupid to have him take the lead
and John Wise is digging up the old
records at the archives building. Other
| enthusiasts are seeking to interest the
Queen, and it is expected that the
alumni of the Kamehameha Schools will
take the lead and carry the program
through to success.
There has been digging up of old
mountain sleds-and there. is more
| than one perfect koa specimen in the
possession of those interested in the
scheme. Chillingworth has dug up
some old natives vino remember how
the thing was done and can instruct the
rising generation in the sports of their
ancestors. Then, too, many of the once
| famous games and sports now obsolete
| in Hawaii are still actively practiced
in some of the South Sea Islands. In
the coming August number of ST.
Nicholas Magazine, Mr.. Ford will have
an Illustrated article on Boys Sports
in Hawaii, - showing how the sports of
the Hawaiians have descended in a
modified form to the school children of
today in the Paradise of the Pacific.
Since writing this article, Mr.. Ford has
spent some months in the South Seas
studying various Polynesian sports be-
low the line, and yesterday he and John
Wise spent a couple of hours over old
Hawaiian documents in the Archives
building.
Mr.. Lydecker and John Wise have
dug up one very interesting document
giving the list of the sports practiced
by the Hawaiians before the arrival of
Captain Cook 1t was over this list
| that Wise and Ford spent most of their
time and enthusiasm.
The most innocent sport named in
the long list was the simple game of
cats Cradle" which, after travelling
from India, thousands of years ago. is
still played by the solomon Islanders
From Hawaii Captain Cooks sailors
took the game to Europe, where it is
popular
The most dangerous sport recorded
was that of haihailua. native jiu-
jitsu long ago forbidden by law be-
cause invariably bones were broken,
and often death resulted. The SCI
crets of this sport are now entirely
forgotten, although when John Wise
was boy there were still living old
men who remembered seeing a man
held up in air by his opponent and
broken in two. So intricate were the
rules of haihailua that boys began
their training at the age of eight, and
every chief had to he an adept, for the
great challenge among fighting men
was to this test of skill and strength.
1t is claimed that there were men who
were so skilful in manipulating the
muscles that they could throw their
opponents into cataleptic fits, from
which they could not be aroused.
The pahee-or sliding sticks-de-
scribed in the quaint old document
came in for a heated discussion. These
Wise described as runners five to six
feet in length and four inches wide, on
which the skilful ones stood, much as
down almost perpendicular mountain
sides. In his day, the Pahee had de-
generated into a stalk of the cocoanut
leaf, and this is still in common use
among the native boys of Fiji and. the
schoolboys of Honolulu
Heeholua, or land sleighing, is the
chief sport it is proposed to revive by
the present generation of Hawaiians.
MI IL s,rt,e ia7 no
feet specimens in Honolulu, were built
of koa wood without the use of nails
and bound together with native cord
made from the cocoanut fiber. They
were perhaps eight feet long and less
than a foot wide, network of cords
between the upper poles serving as
restingplace upon which the expert lay
on his side as the sleigh dashed down.
hill over the long. smooth grass. Many
were hurt in this sport. for courses
were purposely selected broken by
boulders and cliffs, the game being to
avoid these by throwing the weight of
the body upon either one side or the
other of the swiftly descending cradle.
Back of Kamehameha Schools is one
of the most famous of these ancient
sIiding-plaees. abandoned, while the
QeSCSEudIlS OF f7dN dtldn NdfI1oES HOW
use modern wooden s1eds put together
with nails on which to slide down
Punchbowl hill.
Another of the old sports of official
record that has not quite died out il
1elekawa, or the art of jumping from
high cliffs into water. The highest of
these was the well known rock of PHI
kea, at Hilo. some 120 feet high, the
jumper having to run several PAGES
and leap far out to avoid a jutting
crag. Then there is foot diving at
which Prince Kuhio repuced to be very
clever. The object of this sport being
for the diver to jump foot foremost
and to strike the water far below so
as to skim just under the water.
The king of water sports, of course,
in the old days, as today, was surf
boar6ing-these were the heenalu, or
men who glided before the waves. mere
noydces, and the pakakanalu, or ex-
perts who took the waves on the bias.
skimming along from one dying wave
to another that was strong, back and