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Above: Map of Honolulu in 1887.

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“Captain Cook said, ‘Well, they’re nice canoes, but they’re all bent out of shape. They don’t know how to make ‘em straight. They’re all bent crooked.’ He just didn’t understand it was an asymmetric hull. They made them that way on purpose! So, the Polynesians understood hydrodynamics, which we’d never heard of! Captain Cook never heard of that. The Polynesians were so far ahead of Captain Cook and yet he just said, ‘They’re dumb, they don’t know anything.’ We’re so arrogant and conceited, aren’t we?” – Woody Brown, inventor of the Catamaran, 19941 “I could not help concluding that this man felt the most supreme pleasure while he was driven on so fast and so smoothly by the sea...” – Captain James Cook2 “First came the explorers and traders, eager for food supplies. Sandalwood traders and whalers followed, and finally the settlers arrived to usher in a new era of industrial and commercial development with mammoth cattle ranches and sugar plantations. The rapid disintegration of traditional life during this period of expanding foreign contact amounted to a cultural revolution. Old ways were abandoned as the islanders copied the more sophisticated, technically-advanced Caucasians.” – Ben Finney and James Houston, 19663 “The sport of surf-riding possessed a grand fascination, and for a time it seemed as if it had the vitality of its own as a national pastime. There are those living... who remember the time when almost the entire population of a village would at certain hours resort to the sea-side to indulge in, or to witness, this magnificent accomplishment. We cannot but mourn its decline. But this too has felt the touch of civilization, and today it is hard to find a surfboard outside of our museums and private collections.” – Nathaniel Emerson, 18924

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s hard as it may be to imagine today, surfing as a sport, lifestyle and subculture declined from its Hawaiian “golden age” of the pre-European period to a near-fatal extinction in the mid-to-late 1800s. Even though it was once an integral part of Polynesian life, by the end of the 1800s, surfing as a practice was all but forgotten by the advent to the Twentieth Century. From the peak of development achieved by the ancient Hawaiians, “surfing suddenly and very rapidly began to decline,” wrote Professor Ben Finney and writer James Houston in their landmark history of surfing, Surfing, The Sport of Hawaiian Kings, originally published in 1966. “During the nineteenth

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century the sport almost completely disappeared, and by 1900 a wave, a board and a man were seldom seen together on the foamy edges of Hawaii’s green islands.”5 This turn of events was in stark contrast to the state of Hawaiian surfing as it had been at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century and before then. For example, in Polynesian Researches, published in 1831, William Ellis described how, in the late 1700s and beginning 1800s, whole villages would drop everything to surf.6 Yet, by 1844, in a work entitled Scenes and Scenery in the Sandwich Islands, James Jarves noted that surfing at Lahaina, on the island of Maui, was already a rare sight. Lahaina, in fact, was one of the few places where, “surfers still rode with the enthusiasm of former days.”7 By 1876, Hilo, on the island of Hawai’i, was also one of surfing’s last strongholds. At Hilo, waves remained ridden, but the surfers were primarily from the older generation, not the younger.8 The Nineteenth Century was a time when many Hawaiian recreational pastimes and customs – not just surfing – nearly faded into oblivion. Some, in fact, did. During the 1800s, an entire spectrum of ancient Hawaiian customs and aspects of traditional lifestyle declined dramatically or disappeared altogether due to the combined cultural, political and religious imperialism brought upon the Hawaiians by mostly well-meaning Europeans. This non-military assault damaged the entire traditional Hawaiian social fabric to such a degree that even today restorations continue and success at full restoration is slow. “Sports, games, Kapa-making, ritual dancing, canoe-building – all were to disappear,” wrote Finney and Houston, “just as the Hawaiian’s smooth dark skin disappeared under gaudy gingham from the holds of early trading ships.”9 What happened to the many hundreds if not thousands of olo, alaia, kiko‘o and paipo surfboards? What was it that caused the Hawaiians of the 1800s to cease the sport they alone had developed to such a high peak through so many generations?10

White Man Dreams

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ven before they ventured forth well beyond the coastlines they knew, Europeans had long speculated not only about a water route to the riches of Asia, but also about a mythical southern continent. For the ancient peoples of the Mediterranean, the world consisted of three landmasses: Europe, Asia and Africa. Greek and Roman geographers reasoned that the world was round and that the lands of the north must be balanced by equally massive lands in the south. The Egyptian Pharoah Nechos had sent out a Phoenician fleet, in the 5th Century B.C. that apparently circumnavigated Africa. While many learned scholars of the time and afterwards did not believe that the Earth was round, others were open to the idea. The great Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle entertained the possibility of a southern land, but it was the astronomer, mathematician and geographer Ptolemy, working in Alexandria, Egypt, in the mid 2nd Century A.D., who became the best known classical proponent of the theory.11 Arabs, Chinese and Indians also calculated that the Earth is round and speculated on unknown lands that must lay to the south. Had it not been for the “Dark Ages“ that set back intellectual development following the collapse of the Roman Empire, it’s possible that the “Age of Discovery“ – at least in European terms – could have come sooner than it did. As it was, it took thirteen centuries from the time of Ptolemy to the discovery of Terra Australis Incognia – the unknown land to the south: Australia.12

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Alongside the idea of a great southern land, the dream of a paradisiacal island had long held European imaginations dating at least as far back as the classical Greek myths of Atlantis and Hesperides and the various island communities described in Homer’s Iliad. Even Celtic legends spoke of the island of Avalon.13 One of the first literary works to depict a “dream island” in the Pacific was written by Portuguese traveler and poet Luis de Camoes (1524-80). In Camoes’ epic poem The Lusiads (1572), the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama and his crew are rewarded by the Greek god Venus for their discovery of a sea route to India. Venus’ reward to da Gama and his crew was taking them to a “love island” in the South Pacific. There, in lush forests, the men could frolic with nymphs and “all was forgotten in the ecstasy of love.” In a vision, da Gama is told of a time when Europeans would have commanding influence over the entire southern ocean. Curiously for Europeans, the Pacific would go on to represent both paradise lost and paradise regained.14 For the native peoples scattered across its vast stretches, the reality would be far different.

Foreign Landings

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t was the British arrival in 1778 that resulted in the greatest change for the Hawaiian people since the settlement of the Islands by the Polynesian Hawai‘iloa and his people approximately 1200 years before.15 However, the British had not been the first non-Polynesian people to reach Hawai’i after Hawai‘iloa. In very limited numbers, pther visitors had already touched upon Hawaiian shores.

Japanese

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irst and in greatest number must have been Asian people. Within Hawaiian oral history, there are tales of Asian arrivals who were absorbed into the race without leaving a trace. As if to prove this, there is evidence of Japanese vessels being blown off course over large stretches of the Pacific Ocean as documented in Kaigai Ibun (A Strange Tale From Overseas), originally written in 1844: “During Japan’s centuries of relative seclusion... Japanese fishing craft, coasting freighters, and transport ferries... were blown out to sea. While most of these were probably lost, some survivors were rescued from disabled hulks or from barren islands, and others drifted to Kamchatka, China, the Philippine Islands, Hawaii, and even the coast and offshore islands of North America.”16 These stories were told and often published in Japan, based on the accounts of those who eventually returned. A special group of Japanese researchers even formed, dedicated to this subject. They were called rangakusha, or “scholars of Dutch (Occidental) learning.”17 Early Twentieth Century archaeologist Kenneth Emory, an authority on Polynesian customs, even advanced the theory that Hawaiians learned gambling from contact with Japanese fishermen who had reached the Islands by shipwreck.18

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Spanish

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n addition to wayward Japanese, Spaniards had also visited the Hawaiian Islands before the British.

There are Hawaiian witnesses to the arrival of two ships off the coast of the Big Island in the early 1500s. Some accounts have these boats as Polynesian or Micronesian. Others say the ships were Spanish. At any rate, they were wrecked off the Kona coast in 1527, with only the Captain and his sister making it to shore alive.19 Documents found in Spanish archives indicate three ships were sent by the conquistador Cortez, from Mexico to the Malacca’s – known then as “the Spice Islands” and now part of present-day Indonesia. Only one reached its destination. The others may have been the ships that wrecked off Kona in 1527. Interestingly, Spanish maps from the 1500s show islands that could be Hawai‘i. While official British records state that Captain Cook knew nothing of Hawai‘i until his crew sighted the southwest shore of O‘ahu in early 1778, some claim Cook was steering north with the aid of a 200year-old Spanish map.20 The best documented account of a Spanish landing is that of Juan Gaetano. While sailing en route between New Spain (Mexico) and the Spice Islands (the Moluccas), Gaetano landed in the Hawaiian Islands in 1555.21

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Around 1900, Professor William Alexander, a missionary son and early member of the Hawaiian Historical Society wrote: “There is little doubt that these islands [the Hawaiian Chain] were discovered by the Spanish navigator, Juan Gaetano, in the year 1555.” Alexander was probably citing a document dated February 1865 from the Colonial Office at Madrid in Spain and addressed to the Governor of the Philippines: “By all the documents that have been examined, it is demonstrated that the discovery dates from the year 1555 and that the discoverer was Juan Gaetano or Gaytan. The principal proof is an old manuscript chart, registered in these archives as anonymous, and in which the Sandwich Islands are laid down under that name, but which also contains a note declaring that he called them Islas de Mesa (Table Islands) There are besides other islands situated in the same latitude, but 10 degrees farther east and respectively named La Mesa, La Desgraciade, Olloa or Los Monges. The chart appears to be a copy of that called the chart of the Spanish Galleon, existing long before the time of Cook, and which is referred to by all the national and foreign authors that have been consulted. Foreign authors say that It (the discovery) took place in 1542, in the expedition commanded by General Rui Lopez de Villalobo, while the Spanish chronicles denote 1555.”22 Later, critics asked how the name “Sandwich Islands” could have made its way onto Spanish maps centuries before the Earl of Sandwich bankrolled Captain Cook’s late-1700s expedition. It is possible that the name Sandwich Islands was added to the maps after Cook’s journals were published in 1784. Two island groups, called Los Monges d Los Bolcanos, appear on a great many maps of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, and may represent the Hawaiian archipelago, according to Hawaiian Roman Catholic historian Father Reginald Yzendoorn, writing in the 1920s: “The Los Bolcanos group, consisting of five islands, one of which is called Farfana (probably a misreading for La Tartana), appears for the first time in 1569 on Mercator’s map: Nova et aucta orbis description at between 22 and 26 degrees north latitude and about 176 degrees west longitude. “Los Monges are mapped for the first time by Abraham Ortelius on the map of America, made in 1587, and reproduced in the 1612 edition of his monumental atlas: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. There they are at between 20 and 22 degrees north latitude and 159 and 162 degrees west longitude. Various cartographers during the two following centuries have maintained the Los Monges group on their maps, until Cook rediscovered and renamed them; whilst Los Bolcanos are mapped for the last time by J. A. Maginus in 1617.” Yzendoorn concludes: “A complete study of all these maps leaves no doubt as to the identity of these groups with the Hawaiian Islands.”23 It is possible that other Spaniards, unrecorded, passed by or through the Hawaiian archipelago on their way between Latin America and East Asia during this period of Spanish dominance at sea.24 Certianly, the shipping routes they used pass within a few hundred miles of Hawai‘i. Accounts handed down and repeated to the early British explorers of the late 1770s claimed that more than one Spaniard had shipwrecked upon and later lived in the Islands. One account even tells of a “white woman” who was possibly Spanish, who was in the company of several men. Other Spanish adventurers reported finding the Hawaiian Islands but did not chart their location correctly.25 Another controversial piece of evidence of early Spanish discovery is a sculptured bust said to have been found on O‘ahu before Cook’s arrival. The white stone statue is now in Bremen, Germany but a cast remains at the Bishop Museum. The figure, legitimate or not, looks like a European of the late 1500s with a ruffled high collar, and a pointed beard. Perhaps a profile of a Spaniard, this carving was made before the arrival of the British.26

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Above: Cook in the Hawaiian Islands. Painting by Herb Kane.

Cook Landings, 1768-79

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ithout question, though, it was contact with the British and later the North Americans that were to reshape Hawaiian society. In the midst of this cultural upheaval, the Caucasians would help wield a near-death blow to surfing and other aspects of traditional Hawaiian culture. The British first came to Hawai‘i during the Cook Expeditions of 1768-79. British navigator and explorer Captain James Cook (1728-1779), began his first voyage to the Pacific in late May of 1768, returning to England in 1771. Thereafter, Cook made several more voyages; the second (1772-75) when he landed at Tahiti; and the fateful third (1776-1779), when he and his crew came upon the Hawaiian Islands.27 It was January 18, 1778 that the British ships Resolution and Discovery entered Hawaiian waters. “There was little difference in the casts of their colour,” wrote Cook of his initial impressions of the Hawaiian people, “but a considerable variation in their features, some of their visages not being very unlike those of Europeans.”28

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After an initial fear of the unknown, the “floating islands” (British ships) were welcomed by the kanaka maoli (indigenous people) and the visitors moved from one island to the next. “Chiefs and commoners saw the wonderful sight and marveled at it,” wrote the Hawaiian historian Samuel Manaiakalani Kamakau. “Some were terrified and shrieked with fear. The valley of Waimea [on Kaua‘i] rang with the shouts of the excited people as they saw the boat with its masts and sails shaped like a gigantic sting ray. One asked another, ‘What are those branching things?’ and the other answered, ‘They are trees moving on the sea.’ Still another thought, ‘A double canoe of the hairless ones of Mana!’ A certain kahuna named Kuohu declared, ‘That can be nothing else than the heiau of Lono, the tower of Keolewa, and the place of sacrifice at the altar.’ The excitement became more intense, and louder grew the shouting.”29 Upon seeing what surely must have been a culturally shocking sight, the Hawaiians first fled, hid, then prayed in fright. Becoming bolder, some began venturing closer to shore and the braver ones waved aloha to what were first thought to be visiting gods. Eventually, Hawaiians paddled out to meet the ships and the “gods” on board. Their means of transportation were outrigger canoes and surfboards. “The very instant I leaped ashore,” recollected Cook, “the collected body of the natives fell flat upon their faces, and remained in that very humble posture till, by expressive signs, I prevailed upon them to rise. They then brought a great many small pigs, which they presented to me, with plantain trees, using much the same ceremonies that we had seen practiced on such occasions at the Society and other islands; and a long prayer being spoken by a single person, in which others of the assembly sometimes joined, I expressed my acceptance of their proffered friendship by giving them in return such presents as I had brought with me for that purpose.”30 Perhaps the greatest irony of Cook’s “discovery” of islands within Polynesia was his failure to recognize that the seafaring people he met and their ancestors held formidable voyaging accomplishments in many ways surpassing his own – the most glaring of which was the widespread migration of the Polynesians via their double-hulled canoes over the previous two to three thousand years – the greatest dispersal of any nautically based culture ever to take place on the planet.31 The migration had begun well before the birth of Christ, when Europeans and Mediterranean-based cultures were still sailing close to coastlines and well before developing navigational instruments that ensured successful ventures out into the open ocean. While Europeans were still climbing out of the Dark Ages, voyagers from Fiji, Tonga and Samoa began to settle islands in an ocean area of over 10 million square miles. The settlement took a thousand years to complete and involved finding and fixing in mind the position of islands, sometimes less than a mile in diameter on which the highest landmarks were coconut trees. By the time guys like Cook and his predecessors came along, almost all of the habitable islands in the Pacific Ocean had been settled for hundreds of years.32 Polynesian canoes were paddled when there was no wind and sailed when there was. The sails were woven from coconut or pandanus leaves. The craft were seaworthy enough to make voyages over 2,000 miles along the longest sea courses of Polynesia. Although these double-hulled canoes had far less carrying capacity than the broad-beamed ships of the European explorers, the Polynesian canoes were faster. One of Cook’s crew estimated that a Tongan canoe could sail “three miles to our two.”33 “It would give the most skillful [European] builder a shock to see craft having no more breadth of beam than three [arm] spans carrying a spread of sail so large as to befit one of ours with a beam of eight or ten spans,” wrote Andia y Varela after a visit to the Society Islands in 1774, “and which, though without means of lowering or furling the sail, make sport of the winds and waves during a gale, their safety depending wholly on two light poles a couple of varas or so long (about eight feet),

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which, being placed athwart ships, the one forward and the other aft, are fitted to another spar of soft wood placed fore and aft wise in the manner of an outrigger. These canoes are as fine forward as the edge of a knife, so that they travel faster than the swiftest of our vessels; and they are marvelous, not only in this respect, but for their smartness in shifting from one tack to the other.”34 Twentieth Century pilot, surfer and sailor Woody Brown the man who adapted the traditional Polynesian double-hulled concept to modern sailing to create the first catamarans in the 1940s – scoffed at the general European tendency towards superiority and Cook’s specific failure to understand the Polynesian outrigger canoe: “Captain Cook said, ‘Well, they’re nice canoes, but they’re all bent out of shape. They don’t know how to make ‘em straight. They’re all bent crooked.’ He just didn’t understand it was an asymmetric hull. They made them that way on purpose! So, the Polynesians understood hydrodynamics, which we’d never heard of! Captain Cook never heard of that. The Polynesians were so far ahead of Captain Cook and yet he just said, ‘They’re dumb, they don’t know anything.’ “We’re so arrogant and conceited, aren’t we?”35

The First Writings & Drawings of Hawaiian Surfing

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ne of the first European accounts of Hawaiian surfing appears in the official journals of the Cook expeditions. In A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, Volume III, Lieutenant James King devoted two pages to writing about the Hawaiian surfers he saw. He noted that, “swimming is not only a necessary art, in which their men and women are more expert than any people we had hitherto seen, but a favorite diversion among them.”36 Surfing, though, “appeared to us most perilous and extraordinary.”37 In describing surfing techniques and preferred wave conditions King observed at Karakakooa Bay (Ke-ala-ke-kua Bay, southwest coast of Hawai‘i), he wrote that, “The surf, which breaks on the coast around the bay, extends to the distance of about one hundred and fifty yards from the shore, within which space, the surges of the sea, accumulating from the shallowness of the water, are dashed against the beach with prodigious violence. Whenever, from stormy weather, or any extraordinary swell at sea, the impetuosity of the surf is increased to its utmost height, they choose that time for this amusement which is performed in the following manner: twenty or thirty of the natives, taking each a long narrow board, rounded at the ends, set out together from shore. The first wave they meet, they plunge under, and suffering to roll over them, rise again beyond it, and make the best of their way by swimming out to sea. The second wave is encountered in the same manner with the first: the great difficulty consisting in seizing the proper moment of diving under it, which, if missed, the person is caught by the surf, and driven back again with great violence; and all his dexterity is then required to prevent himself from being dashed against the rocks. As soon as they have gained, by these repeated efforts, the smooth water beyond the surf, they lay themselves at length upon their boards, and prepare for their return. As the surf consists of a number of waves, of which every third is remarked to be always larger than the others, and to flow higher on the shore, the rest breaking in the immediate space, their first object is to place themselves on the summit of the largest surge, by which they are driven along with amazing rapidity toward the shore. The boldness and address, with which we saw them perform these difficult and dangerous

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maneuvers, was altogether astonishing...”38 James King noted that wipeouts in rocky areas were “reckoned very disgraceful” and were “attended with the loss of the board, which I have often seen, with great terror, dashed to pieces, at the very moment the islander quitted it.”39 An earlier description, attributed to Cook in Tahiti, recalls: “On our way we came to one of the few places where access to the island is not guarded by a reef, and consequently a high surf breaks upon the shore; a more dreadful one I have seldom seen; it was impossible for any European boat to have lived in it, and if the best swimmer in Europe had been by accident exposed to its fury, I am confident that he would not have been able to preserve himself from drowning; yet in the midst of these breakers were ten or twelve Indians [Tahitians] swimming for their amusement. Whenever a surf broke over them they dived under it, and to all appearances with infinite facility rose again on the other side.”40 Although no formal drawings of surfing were made during the Cook landings, the commissioned artist, John Webber included a surfer when he did one of his most famous scenic studies. Titled “A View of Karakakooa, in Owyhee,” a lone surfer can be seen in the foreground, paddling a bluntnosed surfboard alongside a group of outrigger canoes going out to greet the British ships Resolution and Discovery. Except for Polynesian petroglyphs, the Webber drawing is the first known illustration of a surfboard.41

Above: Engraving made from a sketch drawn in 1778. Cook’s third voyage to the Pacific.

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Early Writings on Polynesian Surfing

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rior to witnessing stand-up surfing in Hawai‘i, Captain James Cook and his colleagues, while anchored at Tahiti’s Matavai Point, December 1777, observed the wonders of canoe surfing. Besides describing the endeavor, Cook commented on the therapeutic and aesthetic effects of wave riding. In writing of the Tahitians, Cook noted: “Neither are they strangers to the soothing effects produced by particular sorts of motion, which in some cases seem to allay any perturbation of mind with as much success as music.”42 Cook described how one local rode the waves at Matavai Point, nearly oblivious to the presence of his large European vessels. “I could not help concluding that this man felt the most supreme pleasure while he was driven on so fast and so smoothly by the sea; especially as, though the tents and ships were so near, he did not seem in the least to envy or even to take any notice of the crowds of his countrymen collected to view them as objects which were rare and curious. During my stay, two or three of the natives came up, who seemed to share his felicity, and always called out when there was an appearance of a favourable swell, as he sometimes missed it by his back being turned, and looking about for it.”43 Captain Cook’s life ended abruptly on February 14, 1779, during a return voyage to the Hawaiian Islands. A group of angry locals attacked and killed Cook and four of his men in the shallows of Kealakekua Bay on Hawai‘i’s Kona Coast.44 The writings of the Cook voyages were completed by Lieutenant James King. He was joined by Cook historian William Ellis, who was another of the first Europeans to describe surfing. Ellis described late 1700s Hawaiian surfing in his writings published in 1831: “Native men, and women alike, enjoyed it. In Kealakakua Bay the waves broke out about one hundred and fifty yards. Twenty or thirty natives, each with a narrow board with rounded ends, would start out together from the shore and battle the breaking waves to a point out beyond. The surfers would then lay themselves full length upon the boards and prepare for the swift return to shore. They would throw themselves in the crest of the largest wave, and be driven towards shore with amazing rapidity. The riders must ride through jagged opening in the rocks, and, in case of failure, be dashed against them.”45 William Ellis tried to describe surfing and was one of the first Europeans to treat the subject in depth. “The higher the sea and the larger the waves, in their opinion the better the sport,” Ellis wrote of surfers and wave riding circa 1820. “They use a board, which they call papa he naru (wave sliding-board), generally five or six feet long, and rather more than a foot wide, sometimes flat, but more frequently slightly convex on both sides. It is usually made from the wood of the erythina, stained quite black, and preserved with great care. After using, it is placed in the sun until perfectly dry, when it is rubbed over with coconut oil, frequently wrapped with cloth and suspended in some part of their dwelling house.”46 Early Twentieth Century surfer Tom Blake noted that, “The great regard of the ancient Hawaiian for his surfboard, displayed by his care in drying and oiling it and even wrapping it in tapa and hanging it in his house, gives some idea of the value and high place the surfboard had in his life.”47 As for where to surf, Ellis wrote that “They generally prefer a place where the deep water reaches to the beach, but prefer a part where the rocks are ten to twenty feet under water [coral

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reef], and extend to a distance from shore, as the surf breaks more violently there. When playing in these places, each individual takes his board and pushing it before him, swims perhaps a quarter of a mile or more out to sea. They do not attempt to go over the billows which roll towards the shore, but watch their approach, and dive under water, allowing the billow to pass over their heads. “When they reach the outside of the rocks [reef], where the waves first break, they adjust themselves on one end of the board, lying flat on their faces, and watch the approach of the largest billow; they then poise themselves on its highest edge, and paddling as it were with their hands and feet, ride on the crest of the wave in the midst of the spray and foam, until within a yard or two of the rocks or the shore; and when the observers would expect to see them dashed to pieces, they steer with great address between the rocks, or slide off their board in a moment, grasp it by the middle, and dive under water, while the wave rolls on, and breaks among the rocks with a roaring noise, the effect of which is greatly heightened by the shouts and laughter of the natives in the water. “Those who are expert frequently change their position on the board, sometimes sitting and sometimes standing erect in the midst of the foam. The greatest address is necessary in order to keep on the edge of the wave: for if they get too forward, they are sure to be overturned; and if they fall back, they are buried beneath the succeeding billow.”48 “There are few children who are not taken into the sea by their mothers the second or third day after their birth,” added Ellis, “and many can swim as soon as they can walk.”49 Archibald Campbell, in Voyage Around The World (1806-1812), refers to surfing by the “Sandwich Islanders,” who “often swam several miles offshore to ships, sometimes resting upon a plank shaped like an anchor stock and paddling with their hands, but more frequently without any assistance whatever. Although sharks are numerous in those waters, I never heard of any accident from them, which, I attribute to the dexterity with which they avoided their attacks.”50

Above: First known engraving of a man on a surfboard. A paddler on surfboard at lower left is heading out with other Hawaiians to meet Cook’s ship at Kealakekua Bay, 1778.

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Cultural & Political Imperialism

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ollowing Cook’s landings in the Hawaiian and Society Islands (Tahitian chain), other Europeans followed. Europeans and North Americans first came as explorers and traders and then, later, as missionaries and settlers. “Gradually this Western infiltration made its mark,” wrote Finney and Houston. “The fascinating features of a new culture penetrated the life of Hawaii and eventually disorganized and overwhelmed the old ways completely.”51 Politically, the arrival of foreigners contributed to the first unification of all the islands under Kamehameha I, following Kamehameha’s invasion of O‘ahu in 1795. However, the Caucasians who first were only advisors to the king soon were presiding as important ministers in the government. By the late 19th century haoles had grown politically so powerful that they were able to force the Hawaiian queen, Liliuokalani, from her throne and establish their own government throughout the island chain. “Economically,” wrote Finney and Houston, “the development of barter, trade, and industry undermined the traditional subsistence-based Hawaiian economy and thus displaced the Hawaiian in economics as well as in politics. “First came the explorers and traders, eager for food supplies. Sandalwood traders and whalers followed, and finally the settlers arrived to usher in a new era of industrial and commercial development with mammoth cattle ranches and sugar plantations. The rapid disintegration of traditional life during this period of expanding foreign contact amounted to a cultural revolution. Old ways were abandoned as the islanders copied the more sophisticated, technically-advanced Caucasians.”52

Kapu and Makahiki End

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uring this social upheaval, the point of no return was reached in 1819, when two devastating developments took place: First, because of Western influence and “a long-festering religious schism,”53 the traditional Hawaiian kapu system was abandoned. This took place following the death of King Kamehameha that same year. Kamehameha I, was not only a great lover of surfing, but a noted surfer, himself. His eldest son Liholiho succeeded to the throne. Influenced by his mother, he subsequently gave his endorsement to the kapu system’s departure from Hawaiian life.54 Duke Kahanamoku, the early Twentieth Century “Father of Modern Surfing,” referred to this act as “surfing’s kiss of death.”55 Kapu was a “network of rules and prohibitions [which] governed every phase of Hawaiian living,” wrote Finney and Houston. “Since these kapus, or taboos, were basic to religious practice, this announced a formal end to traditional Hawaiian religion. But because the ancient kapu system was also a regulatory code in Hawaiian life, the effects of its end reached much farther than native forms of worship. Religion had been the keystone of Hawaii’s cultural arch. With the removal of the gods and the power and stability of taboos, disorganization soon followed in the family, the class structure,

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farming and fishing, and in traditional crafts. Respect for all these institutions wavered, and the end of the kapu system in 1819 marked the beginning of the end of traditional life in the Hawaiian Islands.”56 The other development, which was directly related to the kapu system’s demise, was the lapsing of the great Makahiki festival, also in 1819. As Duke Kahanamoku explained, this “was the annual festival of three months duration where every Hawaiian sport, including surfing, had always been celebrated in tournaments.”57 With the passage of the Makahiki festival, interest in Hawaiian sports quickly declined in favor of activities promoted by the Europeans. The “Makahiki’s lusty stimulus,” wrote Finney and Houston, “had been one of prime importance in keeping sports and games alive and fresh and in maintaining public support. With the end of the festival the great tournaments were never organized again; never again were Hawaiian sports inspired by the mass enthusiasm of the Makahiki. As the culture of the islands was deteriorating, all recreation and amusements joined surfing in a race to disappear completely.” Specifically for surfing, “the abolition of traditional religion signaled the end of the sacred elements in the sport. With surf chants, board construction rites, sports gods, and other sacred aspects all removed, the once ornate sport of riding waves was stripped of much of its cultural plumage.”58

Religious Imperialism

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f all this wasn’t bad enough, a new religion arrived to replace the old. It had its own system of restrictions to replace the traditional.59 It was not long before activities like gambling, sexual freedom, nudity and even surfing met disfavor under the influence of Christian Puritanical60 teachings of the first wave of Christian missionaries – those of the Calvinist variety.61 These first Christian missionaries arrived in the Hawaiian Islands in 1820, the year after kapu became taboo. “Their efforts to stabilize and Christianize the Hawaiian society countered the disorganizing influence of adventurers, whalers and traders,” kindly excused Finney and Houston. “Nonetheless, their successful efforts to convert Hawaii into a Christian nation was destructive to all recreational activity,”62 not to mention other aspects of Hawaiian culture, lifestyle and society. The missionaries – like most evangelists – were unable to see past their own religion. Hiram Bingham was typical of the type and the leader of the first party of fourteen Calvinist missionaries to arrive in Hawai‘i in 1820. Upon his arrival, he wrote from shipside that “The appearance of destitution, degradation, and barbarism, among the chattering and almost naked savages, whose heads and feet, and much of their sunburnt skins were bare, was appalling. Some of our number, with gushing tears, turned away from the spectacle. Others, with firmer nerve, continued their gaze, but were ready to exclaim, ‘Can these be human beings?!... Can such things be civilized?’” Leonard Lueras, in Surfing, The Ultimate Pleasure, sarcastically wrote that Bingham “no doubt was describing a covey of laughing surfers – men, women and children – who had paddled out to meet the missionary ship Thaddeus.”63 One thing for sure was that the Hawaiian people were not about to get any respect for their indigenous culture at the hands of people with such perceptions. When the Protestant Christian missionaries discovered that the Hawaiians had just discarded their ancient religion and abandoned their ancient laws – the kapu system – they interpreted this as a sign that God was blessing their crusade. Immediately, they set about to convert the Hawaiians to

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Christianity. As part of this conversion, the missionaries hoped to remake the lives of the Hawaiians, which they saw as devoid of God and prosperity. Many of the missionaries later regretted the passing of the “noble pastimes” – including surfing – but they felt powerless to stop the cultural changes they had put into motion.64 The missionaries found an impressionable ally in their initial conversions. Kaahumanu, the favorite wife of Kamehameha the Great, had proclaimed herself kuhina nui, or prime minister of Hawai‘i. Although Kamehameha’s son Liholiho was titular head of the Hawaiian royalty, it was Kaahumanu who ended up actually ruling the kingdom. The missionaries were able to convert her quickly and, noted Duke Kahanamoku, “they soon had her inveighing against surfing”65 in addition to other traditional Hawaiian activities. Kaahumanu had great influence over her people and ruled with a stronger hand than Liholiho. With royal support for the “new tabus,” surfing began to decline throughout the island chain. Undeniably, missionaries were instrumental in the decline of native pastimes like surfing, but they were not the only factor behind the decline. They were more like agents of change in an environment already undergoing cultural upheaval. As agents, their role was nonetheless significant. Their severe criticizing of local sports and amusements were respected by the Hawaiian people who were only too eager to change.66 W.R.S. Ruschenberger was one of the first haoles to point to the missionaries in Hawai‘i as less than a positive force. Writing 18 years after the first Calvinists landed, Ruschenberger observed that, “A change has taken place in certain customs... I allude to the variety of athletic exercises, such as swimming, with or without the surfboard, dancing, wrestling, throwing the javelin, etc., all of which games, being in opposition to the strict tenets of Calvinism, have been suppressed.” In his Narrative of a Voyage Around The World, published in 1838, Ruschenberger asked, “Can the missionaries be fairly charged with suppressing these games? I believe they deny having done so. But they write and publicly express their opinions, and state these sports to be expressly against the laws of God, and by a succession of reasoning, which may be readily traced, impress upon the minds of the chiefs and others the idea that all who practice them secure themselves the displeasure of offended heaven. Then the chiefs, from a spontaneous benevolence, at once interrupt the customs so hazardous to their vassals.”67 Typical native Hawaiian over-reaction to missionary criticisms of traditional Hawaiian customs and sports is revealed in a letter written by Levi Chamberlain, an early missionary. He wrote that in 1825, certain Honolulu chiefs, acting under missionary-influence, had gone so far as to send “a crier through the streets telling the people to give up their sports and amusements, and turn to the Christian teaching.”68 Not surprisingly, Hiram Bingham was an early defender of missionary policy in the Hawaiian Islands. He claimed that representatives of the church were innocent of suppressing Hawaiian pastimes. Concerning surfing specifically, he wrote, “The decline and discontinuance of the use of the surfboard, as civilization advances, may be accounted for by the increase in modesty, industry and religion, without supposing, as some have affected to believe, that missionaries caused oppressive enactments against it.”69 What Bingham meant “By the modesty of a new life,” was the wearing of European clothing, which was totally unsuitable for fun in the ocean, where a loincloth is far more effective. To illustrate their increase in industry, Bingham praised the time-consuming process of earning or making a new cloth garment, and the chief’s demands on commoners’ labor for purchasing European merchandise. His reference to religion apparently meant that the requirement of the new faith left little time for leisure.70

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Another aspect of this kind of “righteous attitude,”71 on the part of the missionaries, who came primarily from New England, was voiced by Sheldon Dibble. In A History of the Sandwich Islands, Dibble wrote about “rough” sports such as surfing and the need not to give into sexual urges: “The evils resulting from all these sports and amusements have in part been named. Some lost their lives thereby, some were severely wounded, maimed and crippled; some were reduced to poverty, both by losses in gambling and by neglecting to cultivate the land; and the instances were not few in which they were reduced to utter starvation. But the greatest evil of all resulted from the constant intermingling, without any restraint, of persons of both sexes and of all ages, at all times of the day and at all hours of the night...”72

Surfing’s Dramatic Decline

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he missionaries were not displeased, per se, with surfing and some of the other Hawaiian pastimes. It was mostly what went along with them that they did not like. These included gambling, the “immorality” of surfing together in “scanty costume,” sexual freedom, and whatever religious practices might have remained after the end of the kapu system.73 With such peripheral activities forbidden or highly discouraged, interest in surfing declined accordingly. Nathaniel B. Emerson was an anthropologist who took particular interest in “disappearing” Hawaiian cultural forms. In an 1892 article entitled, “Causes of Decline of Ancient Polynesian Sports,” Emerson attributed the drastic decline of surfing to the discouragement of the intermingling of the sexes. Specifically, “as the zest of the sport was enhanced by the fact that both sexes engaged in it, when this practice was found to be discountenanced by the new morality, it was felt that the interest in it had largely departed and this game too went the way of its fellows.”74 The suppression of gambling and wagering was also behind surfing’s decline. These had been integral parts of surfing’s culture. When surfing was stripped of these elements, a bit of the excitement of surfing was taken away. This is also true for the other Hawaiian sports in which competition and betting had been important aspects to their popularity.75 Trying to fill the void, the foreigners introduced new recreational activities that quickly got the attention of the Caucasian-conscious Hawaiians. These helped serve as substitutes for the traditional sports. Card playing probably influenced the early disappearance of konane, an indigenous game similar to checkers, and also puhenehene, a guessing game in which objects are concealed on a player’s body. Likewise, the introduction of horses brought about the end of kukini, or foot racing. Thereafter, horse riding and racing competed with swimming and surfing for Hawaiians’ leisure time and energy.76

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Working for The Man

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ore than just learning new games, however, the Hawaiians of the 1800s were preoccupied with understanding and adapting to a new way of life. The pursuit of European-oriented lifestyles was the biggest cause for the neglect and disappearance of the old Hawaiian ways. After the missionaries brought writing and reading to Hawai‘i, the ali‘i encouraged – and in many cases ordered – their people to learn to read and write. For their part, many Hawaiians rated learning above their traditional pleasures most of the time.77 Kenneth Emory wrote that, “The preoccupation of the Hawaiians in learning and adapting to the new social order in the nineteenth century contributed to the disappearance of their traditional pastimes – an imposing challenge to the Hawaiians.”78 The quintessential example of this was “In Kauai,” where, “surfboards were turned into seats and writing desks,”79 in at least one hastily constructed Nineteenth Century schoolhouse.80 Along with a new way of life, Hawaiians faced a complete change of their traditional economic system. The writings of the missionary James Jarves give us a dark picture of the financial reasons for surfing’s decline in the Hawaiian Islands of the 1800s: “A thirst for foreign wealth was developed by the chiefs. Ends were to be obtained regardless of the means used. The whole physical resources of the entire kingdom were overwrought. Men, women and children were taxed beyond their powers to collect sandalwood. Almost inaccessible mountains and valleys were penetrated and heavy loads were borne on bleeding shoulders to the seaside. “Cultivation was neglected and famine ensued. Multitudes perished under their burdens. Blind to the consequences, the chiefs continued the same policy – debts were contracted and increased taxes imposed. A native could neither hold nor acquire, all was his chief’s, even his children became a source of additional suffering, and every head was taxed. Infanticide greatly increased. “Life became a wearisome burden. Diseases increased in number and virulence, producing a deep and often fatal spirit of despondency. A great pestilence (similar to cholera) in 1803 destroyed multitudes. Large numbers of healthy Hawaiians left in whale ships and never returned while their wives and families fell into vicious habits. A destroying agent was the adoption of foreign clothes. Warm dresses would be worn for weeks. If it rained they would put aside, lest they spoil, and expose their naked persons to the peltings of the storm. When least needed it was worn, when most needed to keep warm, was laid aside. “Colds and fevers greatly increased and of a more fatal tendency. New modes of building houses from adobe caused cold, damp drafts and laid a foundation for much disease. The vicious land monopoly of the chiefs caused great discontent.”81 Despite all this, wrote Jarves – a Christian, himself – the life of the common Hawaiian supposedly improved under Christianity. By “1847 the scene greatly changed. Christianity has provided schools, medical science and churches. Moral stimulation is at work to elevate, preserve and arrest the obliteration of the Hawaiian race from the earth and give a pass port to futurity.”82 Wanting to do as the Westerners did, the Hawaiians worked with a previously unknown industriousness to purchase clothes and other foreign goods. “The chiefs, coveting foreign luxuries, contracted for more and more finery of increasing expense,” wrote Finney and Houston. “Debts

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incurred by these indulgences were paid off largely through the work of commoners who were taxed heavily by indebted chiefs. The time consumed in all these new, civilized activities left the people little time for recreation of any kind.”83 The evangelists and Protestant84 missionaries who swept across the Pacific during this era were determined to convert the Pacific Islanders to Christianity and they largely succeeded. The missionaries considered surfing a hedonistic pursuit and a distraction from the Christian religion. So, its demise was welcomed, not regretted.85 After looking at the engravings and drawings made of surfing during the 1800s, surf champion of the late 1960s Nat Young brought up a good observation: “If we are to go by contemporary artists’ impressions,” the “Europeans didn’t understand the technique and art of surfing; their drawings portray naked natives sitting on bits of wood on top of waves, and don’t display any real perception of what was going on.” Young noted, also, that “The repression of surfing in the Islands coincided with a general suspicion throughout Europe of bathing in the sea. For surfing to be accepted by Western culture it had to overcome a lot of prejudices... which, eventually, it did.”86

Diseases

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efore North American and European prejudices were to be overcome, however, the Hawaiian population itself was nearly decimated by the diseases brought to the Islands by foreigners. The changes wrought on the Hawaiian people in the late 1700s and throughout the 1800s were many: the demise of the kapu system, loss of leisure time, the attractions of a new culture, working for others in order to consume, and the restrictions of a new religion. These changes intensified their impact due to disease. European, North American and Chinese diseases resulted in an incredible population decline throughout the Islands.87 “This tragedy began,” wrote Finney and Houston in Surfing: A History of the Ancient Hawaiian Sport, “with the arrival of the British ships commanded by Capt. James Cook.”88 To Cook’s credit, he did take steps to contain the spread of syphilis coming from his own ships. At one point he wrote that he wanted to “do everything in my power to prevent the importation of a fatal disease into this island [Kaua‘i], which I knew some of our men now laboured under, and which, unfortunately, had been already communicated by us to other islands in these seas. With the same view I ordered all female visitors to be excluded from the ships… Many of them had come off in the canoes. They would have as readily have favoured us with their company on board as the men; but I wished to prevent all connection which might, too probably, convey and irreparable injury to themselves, and, through their means, to the whole nation.”89 “The isolated Hawaiians,” wrote Finney and Houston, “lacking any natural immunity to the infectious diseases carried by the British and the succession of seamen, whalers, and adventurers from many nations who followed, were struck down in great numbers by measles, small pox, and other diseases previously unknown in the Hawaiian chain. Imported venereal diseases then sterilized many of the survivors. By the 1890s, this biological onslaught had reduced the Hawaiian population from the 400,000 estimated by Lieutenant King in 1779 to around 40,000, a drop of 90 percent.”90 Of the kanaka maoli population, this number of Hawaiians (including part-Hawaiians) that dropped to 40,000, comprised only one fourth of Hawaii’s total population by the year 1900.91

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As noted Hawai‘i author and microbiologist O.A. Bushnell pointed out, the Hawaiians had a very small and focused gene pool. Sooner or later, the extremely isolated Hawaiians were bound to be exposed to foreign diseases. To lay blame on any one particular people or peoples’ doorstep would be counter productive in this case. “One of the worst of the scourges that the Hawaiians fell victim to was leprosy,” noted champion 1960s surfer and Hawaiian legislator Fred Hemmings. “This disease came from China and was called mai pake… pake being the Hawaiian way to say Chinese. Would it be proper then to ‘blame’ the Chinese for the spread of the disease? Of course not. Ignorance on everybody’s part and extreme vulnerability are the foremost reasons for the spread of many diseases from many sources.”92 Both seduced by the culture of the whites and forced to adjust to new social, political and religious environments, the Hawaiians let traditional pastimes fall by the wayside as they rushed to embrace the new order. One of a number of dying Hawaiian pastimes, surfing’s decline was only one part of a much larger and more complicated picture. Since surfing was so intimately connected with the traditional way of life and religion, it was inevitable that the abandonment would cause a corresponding decline. By the turn of the Nineteenth Century, surfing in Hawai‘i and in Polynesia was nearly nonexistent.93

Above: Waimea, Kaua’i, 1826.

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Nineteenth Century Surfers

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uring the decline of wave riding in the 1800’s, there were, nevertheless, standout surfers like the first man who unified the Islands – Kamehameha I – and his Queen Kaahumanu, who, after Kamehameha’s death, sold out to the Christian missionaries…

Above: Kamehameha I, the surfer king who united the Hawaiian Islands under one rule.

Kamehameha & Kaahumanu

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amehameha the Great (1753?-1819) and his favorite wife Kaahumanu (1768-1832) by all accounts were both enthusiastic surfers. According to Hawaiian historian John Papa I‘i, they liked to surf Kooka, a break located at Pua‘a, in north Kona, “where a coral head stands just outside a point of lava rocks. When the surf dashed over the coral head, the people swam out with their surfboards and floated with them.”94 John Papa I‘i went on to make a description of a kind of tow-in surfing: “If a person owned a long narrow canoe, he performed what was called lele wa‘a, or canoe leaping, in which the surfer leaped off the canoe with his board and rode the crest of a wave ashore. The canoe slid back of the

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wave because of the force of the shove given it with the feet. When the surfer drew close to the place where the surf rose, a wave would pull itself up high and roll in. Any timid person who got too close to it was overwhelmed and could not reach the landing place. The opening through which the surfer entered was like a sea pool, with a rocky hill above and rows of lava rocks on both sides, and deep in the center. This was a difficult feat and not often seen, but for Kaahumanu and Kamehameha I it was easy. When they reached the place where the surf rose high, they went along with the crest of a wave and slipped into the sea pool before the wave rolled over. Only the light spray of the surf touched them before they reached the pool. The spectators shouted and remarked to each other how clever the two were...”95

Kauikeauoli (Kamehameha III)

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ollowing King Kamehameha’s death in 1819, the abolition of the kapu system, and the neglect of the Makahiki, the act of riding waves on a surfboard was seen less and less. However, surfriding never received the coup d’grace many other Hawaiian sports and leisure activities suffered. This was due to a relatively small number of non-conformist Hawaiians who kept it alive through its darkest days – guys like Kauikeauoli. Kauikeauoli was born March 17, 1814, at Keauhou, on the Big Island. Kauikeauoli later became ruler of the entire island chain and was renamed Kamehameha III. He was a great athlete and especially enjoyed holua sliding.96 Lorrin Thurston, early 1900s kamaaina (native born) resident of Hawai‘i, student of Hawaiian culture, and renowned surfer, told Tom Blake about sled sliding. Thurston said he had been told by the natives of the Keauhou district of Hawai‘i that Kamehameha III’s “holua slide was over a half mile long.” At the bottom of the long slide, on the shore, was a grass house, a public place. People would gather there to witness the contests between holua riders and surfers.97 “Coasting down slopes... Sliding on specially constructed sleds was practiced only in Hawaii and New Zealand,” wrote historian Kenneth Emory. “The Maori sled, however, was quite different from the Hawaiian... One of the Hawaiian sleds, to be seen in [the] Bishop Museum, is the only complete ancient sled in existence. The narrowness and the convergence of the runners toward the front should be noticed. Coasting on these sleds was a pastime confined to the chiefs and chieftesses. Before use the runners were oiled with kukui nut oil to make them as slippery as possible. The sliding course was carefully prepared by being made even, by paving with stones, then by a covering of hard-packed soil overlaid by a layer of slippery grass. A track was about eighteen feet wide, and might be from 150 to several hundred yards long. “In sliding, a man took up a position several yards back of the take-off, and held the right rail in the right hand. He then ran forward, took hold of the left rail with the left hand, and on reaching the brow of the hill threw himself headlong on the sled. Of course, he tore down the slope with terrific speed and ran the risk of severe injury if he got off the track or became upset.”98 “To start the race a man flashed a white tapa flag from the building at the foot of the slide,” wrote Tom Blake. “At this signal, high on the mountain side a young chief took a short swift run, to gain momentum, and headed down the smooth grasssy course on his holoa sled, while out at sea, at

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the proper place another chief caught a big comber on his surfboard and headed for shore, both contestants racing, the first one to reach the grass house being declared the winner. “No doubt,” suggested Blake, “the performance was started and the flag flashed when a good set of swells were rolling in, or possibly after the surfrider had caught a wave or reached a certain spot.”99

Above: Chief Abner Paki, famous surfer of the 1830s. His boards were later restored by Tom Blake in the 1920s and are viewable at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu.

Abner Paki (1808-1855)

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nother famous Nineteenth Century Hawaiian surfer was Chief Abner Paki. According to J.F.G. Stokes, Paki was born on Moloka‘i in 1808 and lived until 1855. It was probably around the 1830s that Paki was in his prime as a surfer.100 Duke Kahanamoku wrote that Paki “was reputedly a 300-pound man, six feet four inches tall, and had prodigious strength. He passed away in 1855, but he had used those long olo boards during the early missionary days.”101 Paki was wide of girth and his boards can still be seen at the Bishop Museum, in Honolulu, which was founded as a memorial to his daughter Bernice Pauahi Bishop, a descendant of King Kamehameha.102

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Tom Blake was instrumental in the restoration of two of Paki’s original olo boards, during the mid-1920s. Blake initially felt “that they are undoubtedly much older than anyone suspected. In fact, they were probably already antiques when Paki acquired them.”103 Subsequent restorations by Blake proved that the boards had a number of layers on them, indicating several lives in different hands. It is said that Paki would not go surfing, “unless it was too stormy for anyone else to go out,” wrote Blake, adding that, “His reputation of going out only in big surf is the natural thing when a man gets beyond his youth. Today [1930s], it takes big waves to get the old timers out on their boards.”104

Kaua‘i’s Famed Bodysurfer

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n the Hawaiian Annuals of 1822, Kaua‘i was credited as home – perhaps because of its cooler climate105 – of the Hawaiian surfing masters and at least one renowned body surfer whose name has been lost in time. In “The principal sport of surfriding... The people of Kauai generally held the credit of exceeding all others in the sports of the Islands. At one time, they sent their champion surfrider to compete with the chiefs in the sport on Hawaii, who showed them man’s ability to shoot, or ride with the surf without a surfboard.”106

Surfers Unnamed

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dventurer Francis Allyn Olmsted described surfing in the Kailua area of the Kona Coast in July 1840. In Incidents of a Whaling Voyage, Olmstead described a walk “down to the sea shore, where a party of natives were playing in the surf, which was thundering upon the beach. Each of them has a surf board, a smooth flat board from six to eight feet long, by twelve to fifteen inches broad. Upon these, they plunged forward into the surf, diving under a roller as it broke in foam over them, until they arrived where the rollers were formed, a quarter of a mile from shore perhaps, when watching a favorable opportunity, they rose upon some huge breaker, and balancing themselves, wither by kneeling upon their boards or extending themselves full length, they dashed impetuously toward the shore, guiding themselves with admirable skill and apparent unconsciousness of danger, in their lightning-like courses, while the bursting combers broke upon each side of them, with a deafening noise. In this way, they amuse themselves hour after hour, in sports which have too terrific an aspect for a foreigner to attempt, but which are admirably adapted to the almost amphibious character of the natives.”107 One missionary looked at wave riding with envy. “Many a man from abroad who has witnessed this exhilarating play,” wrote Reverend Henry T. Cheever, “has no doubt only wished that he were free and able to share in it himself. For my part, I should like nothing better, if I could do it, than to

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get balanced on a board just before a great rushing wave, and so be hurried in half or quarter of a mile landward with the speed of a race-horse, all the time enveloped in foam and spray, but without letting the roller break and tumble over my head.”108 Cheever wrote Life in the Sandwich Islands, The Heart of the Pacific, As It Was and Is, published in 1851. In it, Cheever observed surfing in the Lahaina area of Maui. “It is highly amusing to a stranger to go out into the south part of this town, some day when the sea is rolling in heavily over the reef, and to observe there the evolutions and rapid career of a company of surf-players.”109 Cheever was not afraid or embarrassed to admit that he wished surf riding a long life. To Cheever, surfing was “so attractive and full of wild excitement to Hawaiians, and withal so healthy, that I cannot but hope it will be many years before civilization shall look it out of countenance, or make it disreputable to indulge in this manly, though it be dangerous, exercise.” Riding the waves required “strength of muscle and sleight-of-hand, to keep the head and shoulders just ahead and clear of the great crested wall that is every moment impending over one, and threatening to bury the body surfrider in its wary ruin.” Cheever added that it was, indeed, a sport for both sexes. “Even the huge Premier (Ahuea) has been known to commit her bulky person to a surfboard; and the chiefs generally, when they visit Lahaina, take a turn or two at this invigorating sport with billows and board.”110 The surf scene at Lahaina, however, was not as healthy as Henry Cheever seemed to imply. Another observer noted only several years later, in 1853, that “Lahaina is the only place where surf riding is practiced with any degree of enthusiasm and even there it is rapidly passing out of existence.”111

Polynesian Wave Riding

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ilkes, one of the several Nineteenth Century writers who observed surfing with interest, wrote of Polynesian wave riding outside Hawai‘i. “The King’s Mile Islanders use a small board in swimming in the surf like that used in the Sandwich Islands,”112 Cordington, another 1800s writer, observed and then postulated that, “In the Banks Islands and Torris Islands, and no doubt in other islands, they use the surfboard.”113 Tahiti suffered the same kind of religious upheaval, population decline and cultural change as Hawai‘i and most of the rest of Polynesia.114 Wave riding in pre-European Tahiti had been a favorite recreation for children and adults of both sexes. As a site of Polynesian surfing, it ranked second only to Hawai‘i as the center of the sport’s refinement.115 Yet, even as recently as the mid-Twentieth Century, Tahiti was devoid of a surfboard. Even though surfing had been re-introduced there, it was not readily taken back. “Not a surfboard is seen on the waves that break around this fabled south sea island,” wrote Finney and Houston in their first book published in 1966. “The changes wrought by western civilization virtually eliminated a once popular recreation. In recent years a few surfers have traveled there with modern boards and have discovered good waves on many beaches. Tahitians are often encouraged to try a board or to build their own, but their reaction is almost always the same. It is a children’s pastime, they say. No one seems interested. Any type of ocean recreation, in fact, is considered to be for children only, and modern Tahitians rarely go near the beach unless necessity or livelihood require it.”116

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By 1891, surfing in Tahiti had disappeared completely. Perhaps coincidentally, “As for the Tahitians that have come within my acquaintance...” wrote North American historian Henry Adams, openly unimpressed with the Tahitian people he met in those days, “they have been the most commonplace, dreary, spiritless people I have yet seen. If they have amusements or pleasures, they conceal them. Neither dance nor game have I seen or heard of; nor surfing, swimming, nor ballplaying nor anything but the stupid, mechanical himene [hymn-singing].”117 Tahitian surfing eventually revived after the 1960s and, today, there are Tahitians who rank as some of the world’s best surfers.

The Writings of Malo

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ack on the Hawaiian Islands, David Malo became one of the most respected authorities on the Hawaiiana of the 1800s.118 This native Hawaiian historian, translated by Emerson, was born in 1793 and known to be writing as late as 1853. An honest and conscientious writer, Malo unfortunately devoted only a short chapter to surf riding as it existed in the Hawai‘i of the first half of the 1800s: “Surfriding was a national sport of the Hawaiians,” he wrote, “at which they were very fond of betting, each man staking his property on the one he thought to be the most skillful. “With the bets all put up, the surfriders, taking their boards with them, swam out through the surf till they had reached the waters outside the surf. “The surfboards were broad and flat, generally hewn out of koa. A narrower board was made from the wood of the wili wili. One board would be one fathom [six feet] in length; one, two fathoms; and another, four fathoms or even longer. “The surfriders having reached the belt of water outside the surf, the region where the rollers begin to make head, awaited the incoming wave in preparation for which they got their boards under way by paddling with their hands until such time as the swelling wave began to lift and urge them forward. “Then they speeded for the shore until they came opposite to where was moored a buoy, which was called a pau. If the combatants crossed the line of this buoy together, it was a dead heat, but if one went by in advance of the others, he was the victor.”119 Malo wrote a paragraph in his surfriding chapter which Emerson was unable to translate, but thought it might mean that the victor was declared only after more than one heat, or that the race consisted of several or many trips from outside to the buoy or finish line.

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Waikiki, Mid-1800s

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aikiki, one of the ancient meeting places of the Hawaiian royalty and surfing’s cultural center for much of the Twentieth Century, was probably one of the few Hawaiian locations where papa he‘enalu never fully died out in the 1800s. Yet, even here, surfing was an uncommon sight by the middle of the century. “Within a mile of the crater’s base (Diamond Head),” wrote G.W. Bates, in a work that was published in 1854, “is the old village of Waikiki. It stands in the center of a handsome coconut grove. There is a fine bay before the village, in whose water the vessels of Vancouver and other distinguished navigators have anchored. “There were no busy artizans wielding their implements of labor; no civilized vehicles bearing their loads of commerce, or any living occupant. “Beneath the cool shade of some evergreens, or in a thatched house reposed several canoes. Everything was so quiet as though it were the only village on earth; and the tenants, its only denizens. “A few natives were enjoying a promiscuous bath in a crystal clear stream that came directly from the mountains. “Some were steering their frail canoes seaward; others clad simply in Nature’s robes, were wading out on the reefs in search of fish.”120 Significantly, Bates made no mention of seeing any surfers.

Holua, 1872

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s had occurred for centuries previous, the Nineteenth Century saw its share of tidal waves hit the Hawaiian Islands. This time, however, there were Western writers around to document them. “At Bryon’s Bay, Hawaii, the village was crowded with people who had collected to attend a religious meeting,” wrote James Jarvis about one. “At half past six o’clock the sea retired at the rate of five miles an hour, leaving a great portion of the harbor dry, and reducing the soundings in other places from five to three and one-half fathoms (a receding of over ten feet). The multitude rushed to the beach to watch the novel sight; quickly a gigantic wave came rushing towards them at a speed of seven or eight miles an hour and rising twenty feet above high water mark, dashed upon the coast with stunning noise like a heavy crash of thunder... The people were buried in its flood; houses, canoes, fish ponds, animals were mingled in one common ruin; sixty-six habitations were destroyed and eleven lives lost.”121 Another tidal wave was described by Whitney. “The wave rolled in along Kau coast from forty to sixty feet high and receded five times, the first time returning in twenty-eight minutes. It covered the tops of the lower coconut trees, swept inland from five to six hundred yards and destroyed almost everything movable.”122 The riding of an epic wave was also documented by Whitney, in 1872. “In 1868 a man named

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Holua of Minole, Hawaii, was washed out to sea in his house as a tidal wave receded. Being a powerful man and one of the most expert swimmers in that region, he succeeded in wrenching off a board or rafter and with this as a ‘papa-hee-nalu’ (surfboard) he boldly struck out for shore and landed safely with the return wave. When we consider the prodigious height of the breaker on which he rode to shore (perhaps fifty feet), the feat seems almost incredible; were it not that he is now alive to attest it as well as the people on the hillside who saw him.”123

Mark Twain “Roughs It”

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he noted author Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain) was an influential writer who wrote

about his first attempt at surfing, which he referred to as “sun-bathing.” His first surf session also turned out to be his last – out of his own choosing. In chapter 32 of his 1866 book Roughing It, Twain wrote, “I tried sun-bathing, subsequently, but made a failure of it. I got the board placed right, and at the right moment, too; but missed the connection myself. The board struck the shore in three-quarters of a second, without any cargo, and I struck the bottom about the same time, with a couple of barrels of water in me.”124 Twain/Clemens was touring the Kona Coast of Hawai‘i when he tried surfing in shallow water. “In one place we came upon a large company of naked natives, of both sexes and all ages, amusing themselves with the national pastime of surf-bathing. Each heathen would paddle three or four hundred yards out to sea (taking a short board with him), then face the shore and wait for a particularly prodigious billow to come along; at the right moment he would fling his board upon its foamy crest and himself upon the board, and here he would come whizzing by like a bombshell! It did not seem that a lightning express train could shoot along at a more hair-lifting speed.”125

Hilo, Late 1800s

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uthor and adventuress Isabella L. Bird Bishop wrote, in 1874, that she “thoroughly enjoyed” the afternoon she spent watching surfers at Hilo Bay. Surfing “is really a most exciting pastime, and in a rough sea requires immense nerve,” she noted in her 1875 book, The Hawaiian Archipelago, Six Months Among the Palm Groves, Coral Reefs, & Volcanoes of the Sandwich Islands.126 Bishop described the surfboards used at Hilo as, “a tough plank shaped like a coffin lid, about two feet broad, and from six to nine feet long, well oiled and cared for. It is usually made of the erythrina, or the breadfruit tree.” After paddling out, surfers “reappeared as a number of black heads bobbing about like corks in smooth water half a mile from shore.” After paddling into a wave, “they rode in majestically, always just ahead of the breaker, carried shorewards by its mighty impulse as the rate of forty miles an hour, yet seeming to have a volition of their own...”127 Charles Nordhoff wrote briefly about the surfing he saw in Hilo at the end of the 1870’s in Northern California, Oregon and the Sandwich Islands. Nordhoff wrote that “Hilo is one of the

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very few places on these islands where you can see a truly royal sport – the surf-board. It requires a rough day and a heavy surf, but with a good day it is one of the finest sights in the world. “The surf-board is a tough plank about two feet wide and from six to twenty feet long, usually made of the bread-fruit-tree. Armed with these, a party of tall, muscular natives swim out to the first line of breakers, and, watching their chance to duck under this, make their way finally, by the help of the undertow, into the smooth water far off beyond all the surf. Here they bob up and down on the swell like so many ducks, watching their opportunity. What they seek is a very high swell, before which they place themselves, lying or kneeling on the surf-board. The great wave dashes onward, but as its bottom strikes the ground, the top, unretarded in its speed and force, breaks into a huge comber, and directly before this the surf-board swimmer is propelled with a speed which we timed and found to exceed forty miles per hour. In fact, he goes like lightning, always just ahead of the breaker, and apparently downhill, propelled by the vehement impulse of the roaring wave behind him, yet seeming to have a speed and motion of his own.”128 “It is a very surprising sight to see three or four men thus dashed for nearly a mile toward the shore at the speed of an express train,” continued Nordhoff, “every moment about to be overwhelmed by a roaring breaker, whose white crest was reared high above and just behind them, but always escaping this engulfment, and propelled before it. They look, kneeling or lying on their long surfboards, more like some curious and swift-swimming fish – like dolphins racing, as it seemed to me – than like men. Once in a while, by some mischance the cause of which I could not understand, the swimmer was overwhelmed; the great comber overtook him; he was flung over and over like a piece of wreck, but instantly dived, and re-appeared beyond and outside the wave, ready to take advantage of the next. A successful shot launched them quite high and dry on the beach far beyond where we stood to watch. Occasionally a man would stand erect upon his surf-board, balancing himself in the boiling surf without apparent difficulty. “The surf-board play is one of the ancient sports of Hawaii. I am told that few of the younger generation are capable of it, and that it is thought to require great nerve and coolness even among these admirable swimmers, and to be not without danger.”129 John Dean Caton also saw surfers on the Big Island and gave his observations on surfing at Hilo, Hawai‘i. This volume, published in 1880, “throws light,” emphasized Blake, “on the much argued points as to whether the old surfriders rode the waves at an angle, or slid them, and whether they stood upright upon the speeding surfboard.”130 “One instantly dashed in,” wrote Caton in 1880, “in front of, and at the lowest declevity of the advancing wave, and with a few strokes of hands and feet, established his position (on the wave). Then, without further effort, shot along the base of the wave to the eastward with incredible velocity. Naturally, he came towards shore with the body of the wave as he advanced, but his course was along the foot of the wave, and parallel with it, so that we only saw that he was running past with the speed of a swift winged bird. He kept up with the progress of the breaking crest, which moved from west to east, as successive portions of the wave took the ground (broke in shallow water).”131 Caton continued, “As the big seas chased each other in from the open ocean, the west end first reached the rocky bed, and the instant the bottom of the wave met this obstruction, its rotary motion was checked, and immediately, the comb on the top was formed, so that the foamy crest seemed to run along the top of the wave from west to east, as successive portions of it reached the rock bottom.”132 Obviously, the surfriders Caton saw had to “slide the wave,” as early Twentieth Century surfers called it, to get away from the break and keep away from the rocks. As for standing, “As soon as the bather had secured his position,” wrote Caton, “he gave a spring, and stood upon his knees upon the

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board, and just as he was passing us, when about four hundred feet from the little peninsula point where we stood, he gave another spring and stood upon his feet, now folding his arms upon his breast, and now swinging them about in wild ecstasy, in his exhilarating flight.”133 Caton described the boards he saw as being about 1 1/2-inches thick, seven feet long, coffin shaped, rounded at the ends, “chamfered” (beveled) at the edges; about fifteen inches wide at the widest point near the forward end, and eleven inches wide at the back end.134 Blake mentioned that the natives Caton observed, “were certainly of the old school, as he says they stripped to their breach cloths or malos, before going in the water.”135

Surfing’s Slight Comeback, 1874-1891

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urfing experienced a slight resurgence three-quarters of the way through the 1800s. “It was not until close to the end of the nineteenth century that surfing received anything in the way of a shot in the arm,” told Duke Kahanamoku to his biographer. “After a series of kings had held reign, a new king, David Kalakaua, was voted into power. This was February of 1874. Kalakaua was a fun-loving man, and he did much to lighten the many bans which the missionaries had brought on. In an effort to revive the ancient culture of the Hawaiian people, he encouraged all sports. Kalakaua gave the old songs, the hula dance, and other forms of Hawaiian cultural expression back to his people. He was a particularly strong supporter of surfing, and it enjoyed a renaissance during his reign.” Unfortunately, “Kalakaua died in 1891 and again surfing went into a steep decline...”136

First Surfing on the U.S. Mainland

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t was inevitable that surfing would spread outside the boundaries of Polynesia. The first place it was to do so was Santa Cruz, in north central California, on the U.S. mainland. Here, Hawaiian Queen Kapi‘olani‘s nephews surfed redwood boards at the San Lorenzo River mouth in 1885.137 Jonah Kuhio Kalaniana‘ole (Prince Kuhio) and his brothers138 David Pi‘ikoi Kupio (“Cupid”) Kawananakoa and Edward Kawananakoa had been sent to attend St. Matthew’s Military School in San Mateo, south of San Francisco.139 During the summer time, they were guests of the Swan household of Santa Cruz. Mrs. Swan had once been a chambermaid to the Hawaiian Queen at Iolani Palace in Honolulu.140 While in Santa Cruz, the young men made or had constructed for them surfboard planks made from redwood and surfed in the waves off the mouth of the San Lorenzo River.141 The Hawaiian surfing influence in Santa Cruz is documented in a Monday, July 20, 1885 local newspaper article. “The breakers at the mouth of the river were very fine today. Three young Hawaiian princes were in the water, enjoying it hugely and giving interesting exhibitions of surfboarding and swimming as practiced in their native islands.”142 Over a decade later, in a July 23, 1896143 edition of the Santa Cruz newspaper called The Daily

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Surf, there appeared to be local Santa Cruzans surfing. “The boys who go in swimming in the surf at Seabright beach use surfboard to ride the breakers like the Hawaiians.”144

Always Darkest Before the Dawn, 1891-1900

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amehameha the Great had managed to unite the Hawaiian island chain in the 1790s, ending the constant wars that had taken place for political control. The Kamehameha dynasty – complete with queens, princes and princesses – thus became the monarchy that ruled Hawai‘i for 88 years. In 1893, the ruling monarch of the time, Queen Lili‘uokalani was imprisoned in her own palace and illegally overthrown. North American businessmen executed this political coup in order to install a more stable, business-friendly government.145 When Lili‘uokalani formally relinquished her throne, Hawai‘i was soon annexed as a territory of the United States of America. The monarchy’s overthrow, while not directly linked to surfing, was testimony to how thoroughly Hawaiians had lost control of their own socio-political environment. A year before the overthrow, in 1892, author and anthropologist Nathaniel Emerson wrote a death knell for surfing in Hawai‘i. “The sport of surf-riding possessed a grand fascination,” noted Emerson, “and for a time it seemed as if it had the vitality of its own as a national pastime. There are those living... who remember the time when almost the entire population of a village would at certain hours resort to the sea-side to indulge in, or to witness, this magnificent accomplishment. We cannot but mourn its decline. But this too has felt the touch of civilization, and today it is hard to find a surfboard outside of our museums and private collections.”146 Two years before the overthrow, in 1891, Bolton wrote of “The sport of surfriding, once so universally popular, and now but little seen.”147 Even so, surfing refused to die like many other Hawaiian pastimes had done during the cultural upheaval of the 1800s. As evidence of this, while on the island of Ni‘ihau, Bolton observed “Six stalwart men assembled on the beach, bearing with them their precious surfboards. These surfboards, in Hawaiian, ‘papahee-nalu,’ or ‘wave sliding boards,’ are made from the wood of the wili wili or breadfruit tree. They are eight or nine feet long, fifteen to twenty inches wide, rather thin, rounded at each end, and carefully smoothed. The boards are stained black, are frequently rubbed with coconut oil, and are preserved with great solicitude, sometimes wrapped in cloths. Children use similar boards... Just as a high billow was about to break over them, [the surfrider] pushed landward in front of the combers. They drove him forward onto the beach, or into shallow water.”148 Although virtually ceasing to exist in both Tahiti and New Zealand, surfing in Hawai‘i, fared better than all the other traditional Hawaiian sports and games. Most of the others had disappeared early in the period of European contact. Importantly, while even on its death bed, surfing was still practiced in its darkest hour by the very few. For instance, Tom Blake recalls early Twentieth Century Waikiki kama‘aina and surfer Dad Center saying that when he was a boy on the island of Maui in the 1890s, “a native took a long board out in storm surf and rode the swells till they broke near shore.” Unfortunately, “That... was about the finish of the long board on that island. They were occasionally used, however, more as a novelty at Waikiki, until around 1900.”149 So, amazing as it may seem to us, today, there was a point in time when surfing nearly died out; a time when perhaps less than fifty – maybe less than 25 – people on the whole planet practiced it –

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and then, probably irregularly. It was a time when surfing held on by a thread.150 Yet, that thread was strong enough to inspire a new generation of surfers who became interested in the old ways. This new generation took hold of the surfing calabash at the very end of the Nineteenth and the beginning of the Twentieth Century, “when what little that remained of the old world was almost unrecognizable,” as Finney and Houston so eloquently put it.151 This new generation would be the one to revive the sport of surfing and resurrect elements of its culture. It was a generation made up of very different people; a mix of Hawaiian natives, Hawaiian native born haoles, and haoles interested in Hawaiian culture as well as surfing. Its resurrection spot was Waikiki and it would be lead by people like George Freeth, Alexander Hume Ford, Duke Kahanamoku and members of the various Hawaiian swimming clubs then in existence in the Honolulu area. From Waikiki, surfing would quickly spread to Southern California, on the U.S. mainland, and then out to the rest of the world from there. Today, the sport continues to spread into all corners of our ocean-rich planet.

The End of Chapter 6: Surfing’s Darkest Days

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Surfing’s Darkest Days - Sources Chapter 6 Endnotes

1 Gault-Williams, interview with Woody Brown, November 22, 1994, Pa‘ia, Maui. 2 Cook, Voyages, Volume II, Chapter IX. Quoted in Lueras, p. 46. 3 Finney and Houston, 1966, p. 58. 4 Emerson, 1892, p. 59. See also Finney and Houston, 1966, p. 64 and Lueras, 1984, p. 54. 5 Finney, Ben R. and Houston, James D. Surfing, The Sport of Hawaiian Kings, ©1966, C.E. Tuttle Company, Rutland, Vermont, p. 57. 6 Ellis, William. Polynesian Researches I-IV, 1831, Fisher and Jackson, London. 7 Jarves, James J. Scenes and Scenery in the Sandwich Islands, 1844, London, p. 298. 8 Finney and Houston, 1966, p. 57. 9 Finney and Houston, 1966, p. 58. 10 Finney and Houston, 1966, p. 57. 11 Nile, Richard and Christian, Clark. Cultural Atlas of Australia, New Zealand and The South Pacific, ©1996, pp.98-99. 12 Nile and Clark, ©1996, pp.99-101. 13 Nile and Clark, ©1996, p. 109. 14 Nile and Clark, ©1996, p. 109. 15 See Chapter One: “The First Surfers.” 16 Kaigai Ibun, A Strange Tale From Overseas, compiled by Maekawa Bunzo and Sakai Junzo from the narrative of Hatsutaro, a Japanese castaway. Translated by Richard Zumwinkle, assisted by Tadanobu Kawai, ©1970, Dawson’s Book Shop, Los Angeles. 71-103407, ISBN 0-87093-220-9. Introduction, p. 11. 17 Kaigai Ibun, 1970, Introduction, p. 11. 18 Blake, Thomas E. Hawaiian Surfriders 1935, ©1983, Mountain and Sea, Redondo Beach, California, p. 8. Emory quoted. 19 Cook, Chris. “How Spain Cast Its Spell on Hawai’i.” From: http://www.islander-magazine.com/ spanish.html. 20 Cook, Chris. “How Spain Cast Its Spell on Hawai’i.” From: http://www.islander-magazine.com/ spanish.html. 21 Fornander, Abraham. An Account of the Polynesian Race, Its Origin and Migrations, Volumes 1-3, 1878-1885, Trubner and Company, London, Vol. 1, p. 158. See also “The Friend,” Honolulu, October 1873. 22 Cook, Chris. “How Spain Cast Its Spell on Hawai’i.” From: http://www.islander-magazine.com/ spanish.html. 23 Cook, Chris. “How Spain Cast Its Spell on Hawai’i.” From: http://www.islander-magazine.com/ spanish.html. 24 Fornander, Abraham. An Account of the Polynesian Race, Its Origin and Migrations, Volumes 1-3, 1878-1885, Trubner and Company, London, Vol. 1, p. 158. See also “The Friend,” Honolulu,

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October 1873. 25 Muirhead, Desmond. Surfing in Hawaii, A Personal Memoir, With Notes on California, Australia, Peru, and Other Surfing Countries, ©1962, Northland Press, Flagstaff, Arizona, p. 135. 26 Cook, Chris. “How Spain Cast Its Spell on Hawai’i.” From: http://www.islander-magazine.com/ spanish.html. 27 Grun, Bernard. The Timetables of History, A Horizontal Linkage of People and Events, Simon and Schuster, ©1991, p. 355-361. 28 Fornander, p. 160. Cook quoted from his own writings in Vol. II, p. 192. 29 Kamakau, Samuel Manaiakalani. Ruling Chiefs of Hawaii, quoted in Lueras, Leonard. Surfing, The Ultimate Pleasure, Workman Publishing, New York, ©1984, p. 43. 30 Fornander, p. 160. Cook quoted from his own writings in Vol. II, p. 199. 31 Craig Stecyk. “Hot Curl,” The Surfer’s Journal, Vol. 3, No. 2, Summer 1994, p. 64. 32 Kawaharada, Dennis. “The Polynesian Settlement of the Pacific,” Section 3.1.2. Polynesian Voyaging Society. 33 Kawaharada, Dennis. “The Polynesian Settlement of the Pacific,” Section 3.1.2. Polynesian Voyaging Society. 34 Kawaharada, Dennis. “The Polynesian Settlement of the Pacific,” Section 3.1.2. Polynesian Voyaging Society. Andia y Varela quoted in Corney, Volume II, p. 282. 35 Gault-Williams, interview with Woody Brown, November 22, 1994, Pa‘ia, Maui. 36 Cook, James. A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, I-III, with atlas, (Volume III by Lieutenant James King), 1784, London, p. 147. Quoted in Dixon, Peter, The Complete Book of Surfing, ©1967, Coward-McCann, New York, p. 13. 37 Cook, Volume III by Lieutenant James King, p. 147. Quoted in Lueras, p. 49. 38 Cook, Volume III by Lieutenant James King, p. 147. Quoted in Dixon, p. 13. 39 Cook, Volume III by Lieutenant James King, p. 147. Quoted in Lueras, p. 49. 40 Bloomfied, John. Know-How in the Surf, ©1965, C.E. Tuttle, Rutland, Vermont. Cook quoted, p. 1. 41 Lueras, 1984, p. 49. 42 Cook, Voyages, Volume II, Chapter IX. Quoted in Lueras, p. 46. 43 Cook, Voyages, Volume II, Chapter IX. Quoted in Lueras, p. 46. 44 Lueras, 1984, p. 49. 45 Ellis, 1831. See Blake, 1935, 1983, p. 33. Probably alaia surfboards. 46 Ellis, 1831. See also Ellis quoted in Blake, 1935, 1983, p. 36. 47 Blake, 1935, 1983, p. 36. 48 Ellis, 1831. See also Ellis quoted in Blake, 1935, 1983, p. 36. 49 Ellis, 1831, quoted in Blake, 1935, 1983, p. 36. 50 Campbell, Archibold. Voyage Around The World, 1806-1812, quoted in Blake, 1935, 1983, pp. 33-34. 51 Finney and Houston, 1966, p. 58. 52 Finney and Houston, 1966, p. 58. 53 Finney and Houston, p. 58. 54 Kahanamoku, 1968, p. 28. 55 Kahanamoku, 1968, p. 28. 56 Finney and Houston, 1966, pp. 58-59. See also Finney, Ben R. and Houston, James D. Surfing: A History of the Ancient Hawaiian Sport, ©1996, Pomegranate Artbooks, Rohnert Park, California, p. 53.

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57 Kahanamoku, 1968, p. 28. 58 Finney and Houston, 1966, p. 59. 59 Finney and Houston, 1966, p. 59. 60 Puritan, n. - a member of a 16th and 17th century English Protestant group advocating simplification of the ceremonies of the Church of England, esp, one who advocated or practices a strict moral code and regards luxury or pleasure as sinful. 61 Calvinism, n. - the doctrine of John Calvin (1509-64), esp. his affirmation of predestination and redemption by grace alone. 62 Finney and Houston, 1966, pp. 59-60. 63 Lueras, 1984, p. 54. Hiram Bingham quoted. 64 Finney and Houston, 1966, p. 60. 65 Kahanamoku, 1968, p. 28. 66 Finney and Houston, 1966, p. 60. 67 Ruschenberger, W.R.S. Narrative of a Voyage Around The World, I-II, London, 1838, p. 373. See also Finney and Houston, 1966, pp. 60-61. 68 Kahanamoku, 1968, p. 29. See also Finney and Houston, 1966, p. 61. 69 Bingham, Hiram. A Residence of Twenty-one years in the Sandwich Islands, New York, 1847, pp. 136-137. See also Finney and Houston, 1966, p. 61, and Lueras, 1984, p. 54. 70 Finney and Houston, 1966, p. 61. 71 Finney and Houston, 1966, p. 61. 72 Dibble, Sheldon. A History of the Sandwich Islands, 1909, Honolulu, p. 102. 73 Finney and Houston, 1966, pp. 61-62. 74 Emerson, Nathaniel B. “Causes of Decline of Ancient Polynesian Sports,” The Friend, L, viii, 57-60. Honolulu, 1892, p. 59. See also Finney and Houston, 1966, p. 62. 75 Finney and Houston, 1966, p. 62. 76 Finney and Houston, 1966, p. 62. See also Finney and Houston, 1996, p. 56. 77 Finney and Houston, 1966, p. 62. 78 Kahanamoku, 1968, p. 28. Kenneth Emory quoted. 79 Kahanamoku, 1968, p. 28. Kenneth Emory quoted. See also Finney and Houston, 1996, p. 56. 80 Finney and Houston, 1966, p. 62. See also Finney and Houston, 1996, p. 56. 81 Blake, 1935, 1983, pp. 49-50. James Jarves quoted. 82 Blake, 1935, 1983, pp. 49-50. James Jarves quoted. 83 Finney and Houston, 1966, p. 63. 84 Protestant, n. A Christian belonging to a sect descending from those that broke away from the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century. 85 Young, Nat. History of Surfing, Palm Beach Press, 40 Ocean Road, Palm Beach, N.S.W. 2108, Australia, ©1983, p. 32. 86 Young, 1983, p. 32. 87 Finney and Houston, 1966, p. 63. 88 Finney and Houston, 1996, p. 51. “Estimates of the pre-European population of Hawai‘i range from as low as 200,000 to as high as 800,000; whatever the figure, the reduction to 40,000 was catastrophic.” 89 Fornander, p. 161. Cook quoted from his own writings in Vol. II, p. 195. 90 Finney and Houston, 1996, p. 51. 91 Finney and Houston, 1966, p. 63.

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92 Hemmings, Fred. Email to Malcolm, 28 April 2000. 93 Finney and Houston, 1966, p. 63. 94 I‘i, John Papa. Fragments of Hawaiian History, translated by Mary Kawena Pukui, ©1959, Bishop Museum Press, Chapter X, “Life in Kona.” Quoted in Lueras, 1984, pp. 42-43. 95 I‘i, John Papa. Fragments of Hawaiian History, ©1959, Bishop Museum Press, Chapter X, “Life in Kona.” Quoted in Lueras, 1984, pp. 42-43. 96 Blake, 1935, 1983, p. 35. 97 Blake, 1935, 1983, p. 35. 98 Emory, Kenneth P. Ancient Hawaiian Civilization, A Series of Lectures Delivered at the Kamehameha Schools, ©1965, C.E. Tuttle Company, Inc., Rutland, Vermont. Ninth printing, 1981, p. 150. 99 Blake, 1935, 1983, pp. 35-36. 100 Blake, 1935, 1983, p. 38. See also Stokes, J.F.G. “Heiaus of Hawaii,” 1919, Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawai’i. 101 Kahanamoku, 1968, p. 18. See also Gault-Williams, Legendary Surfers, Volume 1, Chapter Three, “Ancient Hawaiian Surfboards.” 102 Finney and Houston, 1996, pp. 43-44. See photo of Paki on page 44. 103 Blake, 1935, 1983, p. 38. See Gault-Williams, “Ancient Hawaiian Surfboards.” 104 Blake, 1935, 1983, p. 38. 105 Hawaiian Annuals, 1822, quoted in Blake, 1935, 1983, p. 43. 106 Hawaiian Annuals, 1822, quoted in Blake, p. 43. 107 Olmstead, Francis Allyn. Incidents of a Whaling Voyage, 1841, quoted in Lueras, pp. 51-52. 108 Cheever, Henry T. Life in the Sandwich Islands, The Heart of the Pacific, As It Was and Is, 1851, quoted in Lueras, 1984, pp. 50-51. 109 Cheever, 1851, quoted in Lueras, 1984, pp. 50-51. 110 Cheever, 1851, quoted in Lueras, 1984, p. 51. 111 Haole, p. 299, quoted in Emory, p. 148. See also Blake, 1935, 1983, p. 39. 112 Wilkes quoted in Blake, 1935, 1983, p. 38. 113 Cordington quoted in Blake, 1935, 1983, p. 39. 114 Finney and Houston, 1966, p. 63. 115 Finney and Houston, pp. 63-64. 116 Finney and Houston, 1966, p. 64. The state of Tahitian surfing in the early 1960s. 117 Adams, Henry. Letters of Henry Adams, Boston, 1930, p. 476. Quoted in Finney and Houston, 1966, p. 64. See also Finney and Houston, 1996, p. 57. 118 Kahanamoku, Duke with Brennan, Joe. World of Surfing, ©1968, Grosset & Dunlap, New York, NY, p. 22. 119 Blake,1935, 1983, pp. 36-37. A Fathom is six feet. Emerson felt Malo overestimated distance and size on at least two occasions - Blake note on p. 37. 120 G.W. Bates, 1854, quoted in Blake, 1935, 1983, p. 39. 121 James Jarvis quoted in Blake, 1935, 1983, p. 57. 122 Whitney quoted in Blake, 1935, 1983, p. 57. 123 Whitney quoted in Blake, 1935, 1983, p. 57. Wave size estimate is, nevertheless, subject to speculation. See also Finney and Houston, 1966, p. 90. Painting by C.P. Cathcart in the Bishop Museum, Honolulu. Picture of painting by Ron Church. 124 Twain, Mark. Roughing It, 1866, quoted in Lueras, 1984, p. 52. 125 Twain quoted in Lueras, 1984, p. 52. See also Gault-Williams, “The Revival.”

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126 Bishop, Isabella L. Bird. The Hawaiian Archipelago, Six Months Among the Palm Groves, Coral Reefs & Volcanoes of the Sandwich Islands, 1875, quoted in Lueras, 1984, p. 52. 127 Bishop, 1875, quoted in Lueras, 1984, p. 52. 128 Nordhoff, Charles. Northern California, Oregon and the Sandwich Islands, originally published in the late 1870s; republished in 1974 by Ten Speed Press, pp. 51-52. 129 Nordhoff, Charles. Northern California, Oregon and the Sandwich Islands, originally published in the late 1870s; republished in 1974 by Ten Speed Press, pp. 51-52. 130 John Dean Caton quoted in Blake, 1935, 1983, p. 41. 131 Caton quoted in Blake, 1935, 1983, p. 41. Probably Tom’s parenthesis. 132 Caton quoted in Blake, 1935, 1983, p. 42. 133 Caton quoted in Blake, 1935, 1983, p. 42. 134 Caton quoted in Blake, 1935, 1983, p. 42. 135 Blake, 1935, 1983, p. 42. 136 Kahanamoku, 1968, p. 29. 137 Junod, Michel. “Santa Cruz: A Longboard Legacy,” Pacific Longboarder, Volume 1, Number 3, ©1997, p. 42. Queen Liliuokalani corrected to Queen Kapi‘olani, based on Finney and Houston, 1996, p. 81. 138 Finney & Houston, 1996, p. 81. See also Gault-Williams, “Surfing’s Darkest Days.” 139 Duane, Dan. “The Fertile Crescent, A Journey into the Cradle of Coldwater Surf,” Surfer, Volume 38, Number 7, July 1997, pp. 73-74. Kawananakoa spelt “Kawanakoa” in original. See also Junod, 1997, p. 42, who has the spelling “Kawananakoa” and all brothers by the same last name. 140 Junod, Michel. “Santa Cruz: A Longboard Legacy,” Pacific Longboarder, Volume 1, Number 3, ©1997, p. 42. Queen Liliuokalani corrected to Queen Kapi‘olani, based on Finney and Houston, 1996, p. 81. 141 Santa Cruz Surfing Museum exhibit, March 3, 1994. According to local historian Mac Reed, Duke Kahanamoku‘s brother David Kahanamoku was named after David Pi‘ikoi. Conversation with Mac Reed, March 3, 1994. 142 Duane, 1997, pp. 73-74. Newspaper article quoted. Duane has “surf board swimming.” This has been replaced with Junod’s “surf-boarding and swimming.” See Junod, 1997, p. 43. 143 Duane, 1997, pp. 73-74. Newspaper article quoted. 144 Santa Cruz Surfing Museum, March 3, 1994. Mistakenly marked July 20, 1885, according to Mac Reed. 145 Public Broadcasting Corporation, “Hawaii’s Last Queen,” ©1998 stated that Lorrin Thurston was the key man involved in overthrowing the Queen. 146 Emerson, 1892, p. 59. See also Finney and Houston, 1966, p. 64 and Lueras, 1984, p. 54. 147 Bolton quoted in Blake, 1935, 1983, p. 60. 148 Bolton quoted in Blake, 1935, 1983, p. 60. Original has “veri veri” and “breakfruit.” Typos. 149 Blake, p. 60, quoting Dad Center. 150 See classic photo “Surf Rider, ciaca 1890,” photographed by Theodore P. Severin; Severin Collection at the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii. Reproduced in Lueras, 1984. 151 Finney and Houston, 1966, p. 65.

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