STOCK episode of a kupua story is a riddling contest, called ho‘opa‘apa‘a, a term used to express the play of words back and forth in debate. The common situation is that of a famous riddler who has defeated all challengers but is finally outwitted and destroyed by an apparently mean antagonist. The most fully elaborated of these stories relates how a mere boy outmatches the most famous riddling chief of Kauai and avenges the death of his father in a similar contest. The event is commemorated in the name Kauai-of-Kaikipa‘ananea, which means “The expert in riddling,” from nane, “to riddle,” although the word is also used for other games of skill such as flourished especially in the courts of chiefs of the island of Kauai and were thence carried to other islands.

In such a contest high stakes are set, even to life itself. In more homely usage the art consists in betting on a riddle to be guessed, in a brag upon which the opponent has been induced to put up a bet, or in merely playing with language in a way to entangle the opponent with contradictory and seemingly impossible meanings. Puns were delighted in as a way of matching an opponent or fulfilling a brag. Taunts after the manner of “stringing” a less sophisticated rival must be met with a jibe more bitter. One series of objects of a kind must be matched with another, or a forgotten item, no matter how trivial, added. One object proposed must be met with another analogous in every detail, or its antithesis. A spider web is thus matched with the dodder vine, a kukui nut with a sea urchin as it is cracked and eaten with the use of thumb and fingers and a pinch of salt added, the contestant being careful in every case to follow exactly the words of his opponent, which he must show to apply equally well to the parallel he has chosen. Real knowledge is necessary for such a contest.

The contestant must be prepared to match his antagonist in material ways, and for this purpose he carried a calabash of the type used for traveling, in which were stored objects necessary for such uses. A famous riddler of the court of Keawe-nui-a-Umi was Kua-paka‘a who carried the bones of the wind ancestor in his calabash and knew how to summon each by name. Another was Pikoi-a-ka-alala who brags upon his rat shooting and wins by punning on the word rat (iole). He hits an old woman and claims to have “hit a rat” because of the name haumaka-iole (eyes like a rat) applied to the aged. He shoots at the topmost batten in the house, called kua-iole (back of the rat), and again scores. Folktales are told of Kapunoho the great riddler. Two brothers whom he encounters in the woods get him to put up losing bets against their brags, first by pretending to be just covering, instead of about to open, the oven of birds they are cooking; then by serving up chicken in an eggshell in answer to the riddle “chicken for the meat and chicken for the dish”; lastly, by licking fingers dipped in gravy to fulfil a bet upon “eating human flesh.” Sometimes court language is put to more serious uses. An uprising against a ruling chief is begun, according to tradition, while the chief and his rival are engaged over a game of checkers (konane). Using the language of the game, the rival’s kahu declares that he knows a move by which his master can “win the game.” When the chief and his master both give permission for him to “make the move,” he slays the chief who is his master’s opponent not only in the game of checkers but in that of politics as well. 

An example of the full riddling match from the Kalapana legend shows the child challenger of the chief’s riddlers playing upon the word hua, which refers to an offspring or fruiting as the result of the swelling out of inner forces. The rounding of the tuber or rootstock of the food plant is thus matched with the rounded egg of the fish or bird, the fruit of a tree with the rounded shapes of sun, moon, and stars in the heavens. Competitive claims apply in one case to the depth down to the underworld, in the other to the height into the upperworld.

The riddlers chant:The moon of Kaulua,
The moon that bore the first breadfruit of Lanai, . . .
The fruit of the taro swells down below,
The fruit of the sweet potato swells down below,
The fruit of the yam swells down below,
The fruit of the pia swells down below,
The fruit of the ape swells down below,
Down, down, down to Milu and below that!

The boy answers:The moon of Kaulua,
The moon that gave birth to the great turtle and placed it,
The fruit of the seaweed swells below,
The egg (hua) of the fish swells below,
The egg of the turtle swells below,
The egg of the chicken swells below,
(At) the foundation of the house of Milu below,
The foundation of the house of Milu, laid below, below, away below.

 The men then name the fruits that ripen above ground, banana, breadfruit, mountain apple, and a half dozen others, and conclude,The coconut (niu) puts forth fruit above,
Up to the flying clouds and above that.

 The boy answers:Kaulua is the moon,
The moon gives birth to a great turtle,
At Po-niu-lua (punning on the word coconut) on Lanai is my fruit,
The fruit is the sun that hangs above,
The fruit is the moon that hangs above,
The fruit is the stars that hang above,
The fruit is the cloud that hangs above,
The fruit is the wind that hangs above,
The fruit is the lightning that hangs above,
Up, up above the flying clouds and above that!

 The men jeer and say that their fruit still hangs above. The boy continues:There it is, there it is,
There hangs the great wind cloud,
The south wind is blowing,
The wind that goes roughly,
Beating the leaves of the trees,
Pushing against the trunks of the trees,
Making them fall below,
The trunk, the branches,
The leaves, the fruit,
Brushed off till they lie bruised and fallen below,
The breadfruit bears fruit above,
Struck by the south wind it falls below. . . .

and after enumerating all the other plants with fruit above ground which falls below he cries, “Eh! the men are defeated for lack of fruit that hangs above. Struck by the south wind it falls below. I have defeated you!”

The illustration is from the most complete story of a riddling match which has been described in Hawaiian legend, of which we have a number of variants. The competitors are a powerful riddling chief backed by skilled practitioners, and a mere youth who comes to avenge his father’s death in a similar match and who turns the old men’s jeers back upon themselves and matches their knowledge with a play of words always to his own advantage.