Card Playing
Card games seem to have been introduced in Hawai‘i by foreign seamen in the 1790s or early 1800s. Historian Gavan Daws notes that Islanders were enthusiastic gamblers and took up card games with avidity, soon becoming quite skillful.
Card playing was especially popular among members of royalty. Agents of the Hudson’s Bay Co., visiting Kamehameha and his son Liholiho in 1816, taught the future king how to play whist, then new to Hawai‘i. The only card game previously known to the Hawaiians was something called “nu‘uanu.”
Six years later, Ka‘ahumanu, the widow of Kamehameha I, reportedly “would amuse herself for hours at cards.” Later royal card players included Prince Alexander Liholiho and his brother Prince Lot, who diverted themselves at cards during their 1849–1850 overseas trip, and David Kalakaua, whose passion for poker was legendary.