What was life like during the Mongolian Empire?

Keiki can find out when they attend "Great Khan!" — the theme of this month’s Bank of Hawaii Family Sunday at the Hono­lulu Museum of Art.

The Khanate of the Golden Horde, a group dedicated to researching and re-creating the arts and skills of the 1200s-1500s Mongol Empire, will be on hand to demonstrate sword-fighting, including European fencing, with bamboo and rattan replacing real swords. Kids will not only get the chance to battle, but also try historical archery (with safe blunt-tipped arrows).

"The kids get to shoot, possibly even the fighters," joked Golden Horde founder Christopher Greywolf. He added there will also be a catapult to shoot pumpkins and a small camp demo with Mongolian tents.

Kids can also compare period weapons and armor from the West (Crusaders style) and the East (Japa­nese, Chinese, Korean, Mongol and Persian styles).

"That way we can kind of show people what both sides were doing at roughly the same time," Greywolf said. "It should be a lot of fun."

About 15 to 20 members of the Golden Horde, which has been around for more than 20 years and has more than 100 members in Hawaii and on the mainland, will be helping with the event.

The Lego Enthusiasts Association of Hawaii (LEAHI) will also be on hand, displaying castles built for the occasion. At last year’s medieval-themed event, LEAHI brought castles as large as 2 feet tall.

While LEAHI and the museum have worked together on these events for seven years, "Great Khan!" will feature a new twist with a castle drawing contest, says Spalding House museum educator Seng Pheng­sa­vath. LEAHI members will take the winning drawings and turn them into real Lego models, giving children the opportunity to see the products of their imagination come to life.

"If I was a kid, I drew something and then actually saw a 3-D Lego model of it, that’d be like, ‘Wow!’" Pheng­sa­vath said.

LEAHI plans to choose winners in December and have the models built and on display at the museum sometime in the first quarter of 2014.

Other activities include papermaking (turning recycled paper into pulp to make decorative paper) and cardboard loom weaving (making a coin purse out of yarn).

At 11:10 a.m. and 1 p.m. at the Doris Duke Theatre, there will be screenings of "Happily Ever After," an animated collection of fables, legends and fairy tales.