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Hawaiian Draughts

Writers do not agree in their descriptions of the Hawaiian draughts board, as the following extracts will show. Prof. W. T. Brigham writes as follows:—"The game of Konane, a favourite one among the upper classes of old Hawaii, was usually played on a wooden board {papa mu) marked with spots arranged either in files or quincuncially, and of indefinite number. In some cases stone took the place of wood, as in a fine specimen in the Bishop Museum. Here a large flat stone 16x24 inches is dotted with depressions (about 120) in files…. The men used in playing were beach worn pebbles of black lava and white coral." He also states that some of the wooden boards were raised on stands, plain or carved.

The Hawaiian game of konane, explains Professor Brigham, derived its common name of mu from the Mu, or officer whose business it was to capture the man needed for sacrifice, or the ends of justice. Apparently this Mu of the far northern isles was a species of neolithic sheriff. If the above be correct, then it disposes of the theory that the common name of the game was derived from the English word 'move,' so far as Hawaii was concerned. The above authority also tells us that the Hawaiian game was played on a flat surface marked with points on which were placed black and white stones to serve as 'men,' the game resembling our draughts, or rather the game called 'fox and geese.' Photographs of some Konane boards kindly sent us by the above authority show the places for the men marked by small pieces of bone let in to the surface; the number of such places, however, on the different boards does not appear to correspond; one shows 180 such marks, others a much smaller number. See Fig. 27 (p. 115).

Lieut. Walpole speaks of a draughts board at the Hawaiian Isles, about a foot long, with eight or nine holes in two rows on one side, in which holes small round pebbles were adjusted, but he does not describe the game.

In Capt. King's account of the Sandwich Isles, we read—"They have a game very much like our draughts; but, if one may judge from the number of squares, it is much more intricate. The board is two feet long, and is divided into two hundred and thirty-eight squares, of which there are fourteen in a row, and they make use of black and white pebbles, which they move from square to square." Presumably this chequered board is a modern innovation, though Ellis, an early missionary, mentions it in the following paragraph:— "This place (Koroa) is also celebrated as furnishing the black and white stones used by the natives in playing at konane, a native game page 115 resembling draughts, and apparently more intricate. The konane board is generally two feet long, and contains upwards of two hundred squares, usually fourteen in a row. It is a favourite amusement with the old men: and we have known one game, commenced early in the morning, hardly concluded on the same day."

The following is taken from the Bishop Museum Handbook, Part I., 1915—"Konane was played on a flat surface of stone or wood, and somewhat resembled fox and geese, or gobang. Positions on the papa mu were marked by a slight depression on the stone, and often by the insertion of bone, usually chicken, or sometimes human, in wood. There seems to be no definite number of arrangement of places. Beach-worn pebbles, coral for white, lava for black, completed the equipment."

• Exhibit 866, Papa mu for Konane. Wood, 83 places.
• Exhibit 867, Papa mu for Konane. Wood, 180 places.
• Exhibit 5313, Papa mu for Konane. Stone, 112 places.

A belated note: I have been informed that in the Spanish game of draughts a great number of pieces are employed, and it is known that Spanish vessels visited the Hawaiian Isles as early as the sixteenth century.

When the Novara was lying at Sikayana Island in Melanesia, in 1858, the natives were found to be well acquainted with the the game page 116 of draughts:—"Our astonishment reached its height when one of these apparently savage children of Nature, happening to find on a table on the gun-deck a draught board lying open, immediately challenged one of the bystanders to a game, which it seems he understood so well that he beat his antagonist two games out of three. We afterwards heard that the natives at Sikayana have learned draughts, as also an English game at cards known as "odd fourth," of which they seemed passionately fond, from some English sailors, who several years before, had spent five months on these islands."

It seems not improbable that the Spanish form of the game of draughts was introduced into the Hawaiian Isles in the 16th or 17th century by Spanish voyagers, some of whom certainly visited the group. The Hawaiian tradition of shipwrecked white folk living among them many generations ago probably refers to Spanish folk. The late Professor Tylor thought that the Hawaiian form of draughts might be related to an old Chinese game of circumvention, and that it was in any case probably of Asiatic origin. Our game of draughts seems to be a modern form of a simplified form of chess, it differs much from ancient games of draughts of Egypt and elsewhere.

If the Hawaiian form of draughts was known in that region in ancient times, or was brought from Asia into the Pacific, how is it that it has not been recorded as known in other isles?