71. Pa-a-ni a-lu a-lu - Prisoner's Base

[Page 233]A number of boys play, half on a side, each with its base (pa-hu). A boy will run out from either side, and those opposite will try to catch him and bring him to their goal.

Stair¹ mentions a game played in Samoa by a given number of young men who chose sides, the game appearing to resemble the English game of prisoner's base.

J. Stanley Gardiner² says that in Rotuma "on moonlight nights the beach is alive with the girls and the boys, singing and playing all sorts of games. A favorite one of these is a sort of 'prisoner's base'; a kind of base is marked off, and then one side hides, while the other side searches for them; they have, if possible, to get back within this base."

1, Page 136.
2. Journal Anthropological Institute, vol. xxvii, p. 488.