Makahiki at Mälamalama By Stefan Verbano
Students at Mālamalama Waldorf
School in Kea‘au will ring in the Makahiki season a little differently this year. Gone will be the crowds of spectators, the buffet tables groaning under the weight of steaming pots of taro and breadfruit, and the raucous spectacle of the
school’s annual game of hukihuki—Hawaiian tug-of-war—which have all become fixtures of the ancient harvest celebration akin to Thanksgiving held every November at Mālamalama’s 26-acre campus in Hawaiian Paradise Park. Like tug-of-war, many of the other games closely associated with Makahiki have been cut from the school’s program, too: wrestling matches, foot races, spear sliding competitions, and ulu maika—a game resembling American bowling where players try to roll disc-shaped stones between stakes set in the ground. Planners had to make dramatic changes to the typical festivities this year due to coronavirus restrictions, choosing to
go a similar route as 2020’s scaled-down version. With so many of the usual “Makahiki Games” out, Mālamalama’s celebration now focuses on the one event that will remain largely unchanged this year: a part of the school’s Makahiki tradition that honors a living cultural heritage connecting modern Hawai‘i back through the ages to its ancient past. It is this ancestral connection that the school’s Hawaiian studies teacher Mahina Peleiholani BlankenfeldKaheiki hopes her students will experience firsthand during what she calls “the ceremony.” It starts with a three-tiered raised platform built by the 8th