The games of the Makahiki.
What was played.
In your hands.
Printable kits for families and teachers, built on a 1978 doctoral dissertation documenting 101 traditional Hawaiian games.
Play a Hawaiian Game TodayEach week, one traditional Hawaiian game: its rules, history and legends. Free.
More issues to explore
One traditional Hawaiian game in every issue: its rules, history and legends. All free.
One traditional Hawaiian game, every week. Free.
Rules to play it.
Context behind the game and the Makahiki season.
Legends recorded by Hawaiian historians.
Every issue traces back to a specific page in the dissertation.
You don’t need to live in Hawaiʻi, speak the language or come from royalty to be part of our community. If you are here, it is already for you.
The scholarship behind every issue
In 1978, Dr. S. Wilfred Navalta, raised in Laupāhoehoe, Hawaiʻi, completed a doctoral dissertation at BYU. It documented 101 traditional Hawaiian games from primary sources like David Malo, Samuel Kamakau, Martha Beckwith, and Mary Kawena Pukui. The sports and competitions of the Makahiki festival include rules, mechanics, and cultural context.
This is one of the only peer-reviewed, comprehensive studies of its kind.
Dr. Navalta presented his findings at the Physical Education World Congress in London (1985), at Native American Studies in Oklahoma (1984), and at the International TESOL Conference in Toronto (1983). He published six works. Most of what he documents has existed nowhere else in accessible form until now.
Dr. Navalta is in his 80s. The dissertation has sat for decades. Makahiki Games exists to return the information transformed, accessible, authenticated, to the families it belongs to.
“The revival of the Makahiki games in Hawaiʻi could contribute to the enrichment of Hawaiian culture.”