As a sample of the stories illustrated in a performance of the hula ki’i the following may be adduced, the dramatis personae of which are four: 1. _Maka-kú_: a famous warrior, a rude, strong-handed braggart, as boastful as Ajax. 2. _Puapua-kea_, a small man, but brave and active. 3. _Maile-lau-lii_ (Small-leafed-maile), a young woman, who becomes the wife of Maka-ku. 4. _Maile-Pakaha_, the younger sister of Maile-lau-lii, who becomes the wife of Puapua-kea. Maka-kú, a rude and boastful son of Mars, at heart a bully, if not a coward, is represented as ever aching for a fight, in which his domineering spirit and rough-and-tumble ways for a time gave him the advantage over abler, but more modest, adversaries. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY, BULLETIN 38 PLATE IX MARIONETTE, MAKA-KÚ] [Page 93] Puapuakea, a man of genuine courage, hearing of the boastful achievements of Maka-kú, seeks him out and challenges him. At the first contest they fought with javelins, _ihe_, each one taking his turn according to lot in casting his javelins to the full tale of the prescribed number; after which the other contestant did the same. Neither was victorious. Next they fought with slings, each one having the right to sling forty stones at the other. In this conflict also neither one of them got the better of the other. The next trial was with stone-throwing. The result was still the same. Now it was for them to try the classical Hawaiian game of _lua_. This was a strenuous form of contest that has many features in common with the panathlion of the ancient Hellenes, some points in common with boxing, and still more, perhaps, partakes of the character of the grand art of combat, wrestling. Since becoming acquainted with the fine Japanese art of _jiu-jitsu_, the author recognizes certain methods that were shared by them both. But to all of these it added the wild privileges of choking, bone-breaking, dislocating, eye-gouging, and the infliction of tortures and grips unmentionable and disreputable. At first the conflict was in suspense, victory favoring neither party; but as the contest went on Puapuakea showed a slight superiority, and at the finish he had bettered Maka-kú by three points, or _ai_[205], as the Hawaiians uniquely term it. [Footnote 205: _Ai_, literally a food, a course.]