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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, October 13, 2002

OUR HONOLULU
Holua ride like sled over rocks

By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

The most dangerous sport practiced in Hawai'i is holua sliding. The rider lies prone on a sled the width of a ski and hurtles down a chute made of lava rock.

Tom Stone, a university teacher, carries a foot-long scar attesting to his familiarity with holua sliding. He knows more about the ancient sport than a lot of people know about football. He has found more than 60 holua slides in Hawai'i and has a theory about how they originated.

"The papa holua (canoe sled) is a reflection of the double-hulled canoe," Stone said. "My theory is that the holua was first a tool before holua sliding became a sport. The sled was used to slide a hollowed-out tree log to shore during canoe construction."

Later, Stone believes, holua sliding became a ritual by which Hawaiians put their lives in the hands of the gods.

To illustrate his theory, Stone described the activities that went on during the construction of a double-hulled voyaging canoe. Cutting down the tree and roughing it out, difficult and tedious with stone tools, was only part of the job.

The entire community contributed food for the workers. One crew made sennit for lashing, miles of fibrous cordage. Another crew prepared the path down which the roughed-out canoe would slide from the tree line to the shore. Meanwhile, another gang built the sled.

Stone believes a tremendous amount of labor was involved in smoothing the path and laying down water-worn stones. Such paths later became holua slides, he believes. In those days, the tree line was closer to shore. Even so, a slide at Kahikinui on Maui is 5,000 feet long, nearly a mile, and one at Keauhou in Kona almost equals it.

The kahuna of canoe building — the priest devoted to that discipline — directed the work. Finally, the great roughed-out log was poised on the sled at the top of the slope, the kahuna astride the log. It began to slide, then gathered speed. The warriors on the ropes couldn't hold it.

The log hurtles downhill, directly at the great chief waiting below. The kahuna thinks he's going to die. But he doesn't. He lands at the foot of the chief, who is very annoyed.

The chief has never defied death by riding a log downhill. That means the kahuna's mana is greater than his. He gives the kahuna a choice: Either die or have the log hauled back up for the chief to ride.

So holua sliding, in Stone's opinion, became a sport, however dangerous. It is a common belief that only chiefs practiced holua sliding. Stone disagrees. What is more significant to him is that no foreigner has ever reported seeing the sport performed.

Stone thinks this is because it was not an exhibition but a ritual. The slide down the slope was between a Hawaiian and his god.

Reach Bob Krauss at 525-0873.