Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/260

 cuun] HAWAIIAN GAMES 223

said to be derived from that of our " cradle," which is given that name. The cat's-cradle called po y or " darkness/' may have had the same significance as that of New Zealand described by Taylor. 1 He says : " He what or maui, a game very similar to our own, but the cord is made to assume many more forms, and these are said to be different scenes in their mythology, such as Hine-nui-te- po. Mother Night bringing forth her progeny, Maru and the gods, and Maui fishing up the land. Men, canoes, houses, etc., also are represented. Some state that Maui invented the game."

Codrington* says: "Cat's-cradle, in Lepers' island /e/egaro, in Florida honggo, with many figures, is common throughout the islands."

48. Pu-la-au : WOOD-PUZZLE. — A cord is doubled and passed with a noose through two or three holes in a block of wood (plate XII, d\ the object being to remove the block while another person holds the end of the cord. A variation in form is shown in plate XI, c, the pu-waa-pa, or " canoe " puzzle. Concerning this my in- formants stated that it illustrated the following story : " King Kamehameha had a daughter named Kea-hi, who became enceinte by a lover of low rank. The king ordered her to be placed in a canoe and taken out to sea and exposed to the elements to die- The canoe was secured by a long rope to the land. Her lover swam out to the canoe and unloosened the rope, and the two escaped in the canoe to another island." A puzzle precisely identical with the block with two holes exists in the writer's collection (16,065) from Saharanpore, India, while another (16,080) with two blocks (perforated canes) at each end of the cord was collected from the Accawais Indians of British Guiana. The last is duplicated by a modern French example (15,519) purchased in Paris.

49. O-ki-kau-la ; STRING-CUTTING. — One person prepares a string which another cuts at a place indicated, whereupon the first puts the two ends in his mouth and withdraws them united.

1 Op. cit., p. 172. * Op. clt., p. 341.

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