"Chief of War" goes downhill in episode five, and that's a good thing

No snow job; Hawaiians really, really sledded without it

Copyright © 2025 by Stephen Shender

In the fifth episode of “Chief of War,” Ka‘iana returns to Hawaii with his load of muskets, landing in the Kohala district on the Big Island, where he offers the district’s ali‘i moku (chieftain) Kamehameha his services. He’s not welcomed by Kamehameha’s council, who distrust him because of his previous alliance with Maui’s ruler Kahekili. Ka‘iana says he’s trying to “atone” for that. Kamehameha challenges him to a hōlua (sled) race, saying he’ll “let the gods” decide if Ka‘iana should join his council.

The ensuing hōlua race is at once the most thrilling and historically authentic scene in “Chief of War” to date. Thrilling, because Momoa and Hawaiian actor Kaina Makua (who plays Kamehameha) really rode handcrafted replica hōlua sleds down a track that would thrill an advanced snow skier; and authentic because Hawaiians of Kamehameha’s day did this for sport. Of course, the Hawaiians of the time didn’t have safety lines like Momoa and Makua, and they didn’t race to win their gods’ favor, but still…

When I was growing up in Chicago, I spent many happy winter-weekend afternoons joining other kids snow-sledding down a small hill in nearby Lincoln Park. So when I was  researching Once There Was Fire, my historical novel about the life of Kamehameha, I was excited to learn that Hawaiians sledded year-round without ice or snow. I was so entranced by the old Hawaiians’ sledding that I had to put a hōlua race between Kamehameha and his brother in my book. Unfortunately, when the time came to cut my draft manuscript down to a more readable (and portable) size my editor prevailed on me to lose the race.

My source for hōlua racing details and many other aspects of 18th-century Hawaiian culture was Hawaiian Antiquities, Mo‘olelo Hawai‘i by David Malo (Bishop Museum, 1951). Malo was a native Hawaiian born at Keauhou on the Big Island, roughly two years before Kamehameha’s climactic battle on O‘ahu for control of all the islands except Kaua‘i in 1795. Malo was a young man when the first Congregationalist missionaries reached Hawaii in 1820 and he learned to speak, read, and write English in a missionary school. He collected his people’s stories and recorded them in Hawaiian. His work, and the work others who added to it, was translated and published in English in 1898.

In Hawaiian Antiquities Malo describes “sliding downhill on the hōlua sled” as “a sport greatly in vogue among chiefs and people, and on the issue of which they were very fond of making bets, when the fit took them….The bets having been arranged, the racers took their stations at the head of the track; the man who was ranged in front gave his sled a push to start and mount it, whereupon his competitor, who was to his rear, likewise started his sled and followed after. He who made the longest run was the victor. In case both contestants traveled the length of the course [i.e., neither fell off their sled], it was a dead heat and did not decide the victor.” In that case, Malo says, victory went to the competitor who had “the best run.” He doesn’t say who the judges were; or what Hawaiians, who didn’t have coinage or currency, bet on these races.

The Hawaiians didn’t just slide down any hill. They constructed tracks for their sleds. “Rocks were first laid down,” writes Malo, “then earth was put on and beaten hard; lastly the whole was layered with grass, and this was the track for the hōlua sled to run on.” “Chief of War’s” producers built a hōlua track, based on historical descriptions, for episode five.

The Hawaiians built their tracks to last. On the Big Island, you can see a real hōlua track at the Kaloko-Honokōhau National HistoricPark, off Highway 19 just north of Kailua-Kona.

Kamehameha steals the show

The best thing about “Chief of War” to date is native-Hawaiian educator, taro farmer, and first-time actor Kaina Makua’s casting as Kamehameha. Makua, one of three “Chief of War” actors who speak Hawaiian, brings an expressiveness to his role, especially when delivering his Hawaiian-language lines, that the cast’s non-Hawaiian speakers, including Jason Momoa, lack. Moreover, Makua’s Kamehameha is true to history’s picture of him—a firm, thoughtful leader with a common touch; a warrior initially reluctant to fight, but ready to give battle if a fight comes to him.

A fight is coming to Makua’s Kamehameha. At the end of episode five, Keōua Kū‘ahu‘ula leads an unprovoked nighttime raid on Kamehameha’s village and sets fire to the village’s thatched-roofed long house. The conflagration marks the beginning of “Chief of War’s” buildup to its season finale in episode nine, when Kamehameha and Ka‘iana will face off against Keōua in a bloody battle on a Kohala lava field (already much ballyhooed in advance publicity, so no spoiler alert there). Assuming “Chief of War” keeps faith with Hawaiian history, that battle will be a climactic fight between Kamehameha and Keōua for undisputed rule of the Big Island. Unification of the rest of the islands under Kamehameha’s rule will have to wait until another season of “Chief of War.”

A jarring moment in episode five and a historical fact check

Episode five’s connection to Hawaiian history is jarringly disrupted when, after speaking Ō‘lelo Hawai‘i—Hawaiian—almost exclusively through “Chief of War’s” first four episodes, Hawaiian characters suddenly start speaking English—to each other. Presumably, they owe their newfound English fluency to John Young, who’s been running English classes for the Hawaiians since he was marooned in Hawaii several years earlier. (This, while Young’s simultaneously learning to speak Hawaiian himself.) 

I suppose this is acceptable as dramatic license, but do these Hawaiians really need to speak English among themselves? They don’t, of course. It’s certainly convenient however for viewers who’ve become tired of reading subtitles by episode five.

Factually, it’s entirely implausible. At this point in Hawaiian history only Ka‘iana, who’s returned from the Far East after a lengthy sojourn and a roundtrip on two different ships with English-speaking crews (the Nootka and the Iphigenia), has had the time and opportunity to learn English—by virtue of exposure alone. Meanwhile, John Young, who’s only just arrived in Hawaii at about the same time as Ka‘iana’s return, hasn’t had time to learn Hawaiian, let alone teach English to a single Hawaiian.

In any event, late-18th century Hawaii’s general population did not speak English. Hawaiians didn’t begin to gain English fluency until well after the first Congregationalist missionaries arrived in 1820. The missionaries taught Hawaiians to read in their own language (using a phonetic alphabet that differed from Hawaiian as it was then spoken). Hawaiians achieved the world’s highest literacy rate, in their own language, by 1840; English did not become a primary language in the Hawaiian Islands until the mid- to late-19th century.