[Footnote 23:  No other intoxicating liquor save awa was known to the early Hawaiians, and this was sacred to the use of chiefs.  So high is the percentage of free alcohol in this root that it has become an article of export to Germany for use in drug making.  Vancouver, describing the famous Maui chief, Kahekili, says:  “His age I suppose must have exceeded 60.  He was greatly debilitated and emaciated, and from the color of his skin I judged his feebleness to have been brought on by excessive use of awa.”]

[Footnote 21:  In the Hawaiian form of checkers, called konane, the board, papamu, is a flat surface of stone or wood, of irregular shape, marked with depressions if of stone, often by bone set in if of wood; these depressions of no definite number, but arranged ordinarily at right angles.  The pieces are beach pebbles, coral for white, lava for black.  The smallest board in the museum collection holds 96, the largest, of wood, 180 men.  The board is set up, leaving one space empty, and the game is played by jumping, the color remaining longest on the board winning the game. Konane was considered a pastime for chiefs and was accompanied by reckless betting.  An old native conducting me up a valley in Kau district, Hawaii, pointed out a series of such evenly set depressions on the flat rock floor of the valley and assured me that this must once have been a chief’s dwelling place.]

[Footnote 25:  The malo is a loin cloth 3 or 4 yards long and a foot wide, one end of which passes between the legs and fastens in front.  The red malo is the chief’s badge, and his bodyguard, says Malo, wear the girdle higher than common and belted tight as if ready for instant service.  Aiwohikupua evidently travels in disguise as the mere follower of a chief.]

[Footnote 28:  In Hawaiian warfare, the biggest boaster was the best man, and to shame an antagonist by taunts was to score success.  In the ceremonial boxing contest at the Makahiki festivities for Lono, god of the boxers, as described by Malo, the “reviling recitative” is part of the program.  In the story of Kawelo, when his antagonist, punning on his grandfather’s name of “cock,” calls him a “mere chicken that scratches after roaches,” Kawelo’s sense of disgrace is so keen that he rolls down the hill for shame, but luckily bethinking himself that the cock roosts higher than the chief (compare the Arab etiquette that allows none higher than the king), and that out of its feathers, brushes are made which sweep the chief’s back, he returns to the charge with a handsome retort which sends his antagonist in ignominious retreat.  In the story of Lono, when the nephews of the rival chiefs meet, a sparring contest of wit is set up, depending on the fact that one is short and fat, the other long and lanky, “A little shelf for the rats,” jeers the tall one.  “Little like the smooth quoit that runs the full course,” responds the short one, and retorts “Long and lanky, he will go down in the gale like a banana tree.”  “Like the ea banana that takes long to ripen,” is the quick reply.  Compare also the derisive chants with which Kuapakaa drives home the chiefs of the six districts of Hawaii who have got his father out of favor, and Lono’s taunts against the revolting chiefs of Hawaii.]