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During modern times, the sheer spectacle of surfing in Hawaii— and the associated glamour of being an accomplished surfer in Hawaii—has captured the collective fancy of sports enthusiasts, fashion trendsetters, marketing moguls and even intellectuals throughout the world in many special ways. All have been fascinated by what to them are otherworldly visions of brave young men (and sometimes even women) who regularly go to Hawaii to paddle out into the warm but fickle seas and attempt, almost irrationally and obsessively, to catch and ride what are perhaps the most challenging and dangerous ocean waves ever created by the forces of Nature.
Indeed, what adventurous person on Earth worth his or her guts wouldn't like to experience what all good surfers do when they dramatically take off and drop into a perfect Hawaiian wave vector? Who wouldn't want to be swept along so quickly by such a pure form of natural energy?
One can experience this phenomenon vicariously—by watching it on film, or even by traveling to Hawaii and studying it at beach-side through the lenses of a high-powered camera or a pair of binoculars—but, well, that's kind of cheating. It's like enjoying sex by only watching it. It's not quite the same, dude, unless you get to actually—and indeed very personally—do it all yourself.
Former Hawaiian surf champion Paul Strauch once confided to an interviewer that, to him, surfing in Hawaii—or surfing anywhere, for that matter—was as pleasurable— and sometimes even better— than sex. "Surfing," he mused during an interview about his surfing career in Hawaii, "is very much like making love. It always feels good, no matter how many times you've done it."
Strauch's words may seem farfetched to a non-surfer, but if you ask serious surfers whether they would rather have a day of perfect Hawaiian waves or a day of sex with someone gorgeous, they will invariably choose the former. After all, beautiful men and women will always be around, but perfect waves, well, they don't make their magical appearance very often.
Irrational Dedication
Strauch's ancient Hawaiian ancestors also had very similar feelings about their favorite oceanic sport, and they even used to chant poems about surfing's sublime pleasures. Though most modern-day surfers are probably unaware of its history, the aquatic pastime of stand-up boardsurfing has been enjoyed in Hawaii since perhaps as early as the Middle Ages, though it wasn't until the late 1770s that any haole (or outsider) had the opportunity to witness this uniquely Hawaiian watersport live. By this time, native Hawaiians had already organized themselves into serious surfing huis (or clubs) that were sponsored by royalty, and were meeting regularly to compete in what may well have been among the world's first athletic events. Indeed, long, long, long before anyone had even dreamed of the high-tech foam and fiberglass waveriding craft of today, the people of Polynesia—and particularly the Hawaiians—had been gathering at their favorite surfing beaches to have fun in the sun and to demonstrate their waveriding prowess. Meanwhile, the enthusiastic spectators onshore would cheer, have a feast and place bets on their favorite surfing heroes.
Even the typical 21st-century surfer's seemingly irrational and obsessive dedication to the sport is nothing new. Hawaiian chants recall fine surfing days when Hawaiian waveriders would drop whatever they were doing—work, family, everything—in order to ride good waves. When the surf was up and pumping, wrote the prominent Hawaiian scholar Kepelino Keauokalani (1830-1878), all responsibilities were put on hold: "All thought of work was at an end, only that of sport was left . . . all day there was nothing but surfing, Many [surfers] went out surfing as early as four in the morning."
A Magical Surfboard
If distant storms didn't generate suitable waves, anxious Hawaiian surfers would often enlist the aid of a kahuna, a sorcerer or shaman, to literally pray for good surf conditions. The kahuna would chant loudly to the sea gods and lash beach vines, "unitedly upon the water until the desired undulating waves were obtained." According to one chant, in some parts of Ha-wii, people would even build grand stone heiaus (or temples) at which they prayed and left offerings.
In the archives of Hawaii's Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, the world's leading repository of Polynesian history, there is a 1919 archeological study written by John Francis Gray Stokes (1876—1960) that describes an ancient seaside heiau at Kahaluu Bay on the Kona coast of the Big Island of Hawaii. This temple was identified by Kona Hawaiians as a "heiau for surfriders, where they could pray for good sport." Stokes doesn't write a great deal about this temple, which was known as Kuemanu, except to say that within its confines was a bleachers-like terrace, where spectators could sit and watch surfing, as well as a brackish stone pool where surfers could relax and bathe after a day of riding the waves.
In one chant that has been dated to the 12th century, Hawaiians celebrated the surfing prowess of a great chieftain, and in another mythic poem, poignant stanzas relate the story of a serpent-sorceress who fell in love with a handsome young surfer. To keep him as her lover, she gifted him with her long and passionate tongue, which she transformed into a magical surfboard.
Because early Hawaiian traditions were passed down orally in the form of a series of memorized chants, there are no early written accounts about surfing. However, archeologists and art historians have discovered ancient Hawaiian petroglyphs (or pictures incised into volcanic stone) that depict cartoon-like surfers on surfboards. These petroglyphic surfers may or not predate the arrival of the white man (or haole) in Hawaii during the late 18th century. Ancient surfing scenes (as recounted in recorded chant sequences) were apparently fun, bitchy, fanciful, and sometimes even violent. Woe betide the weaker of two surfers in one chant who became entangled in a love triangle involving a powerful woman chief. Even worse was the plight of an enthusiastic surfer of lower caste who dared to ride waves that were kapu-e d (declared off-limits or taboo) by an avid surfing alii (high-caste chief).
This earnest-looking Hawaiian man poses with his family alongside a grass shack in what may well be the first known photo portrait of a surfer and his surfboard. This superb study was taken by a photographer named Theodo P. Severin around 1890. It is now in the archives of Honolulu's Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum.
It was the legendary beach-boys of Waikiki who re-popularized and saved Hawaii's cultural heritage of surfing early this century, after it had endured years of discouragement and neglect. This early Hawaiian surfer was photographed by the Honolulu photographer Frank Davey at popular Waikiki Beach below the brow of Diamond Head around the 1900s. He is wearing a stylish loincloth and holding a short alaia surfboard that was the waveriding vogue in Old Hawaii.
A collection of these Hawaiian surfing stories—along with similar Polynesian lore from Samoa, Tahiti and New Zealand—would fill a medium-sized book. Such an anthology would firmly establish that surfing was indeed a very important part of day-to-day life in the middle and south Pacific islands inhabited by the seafaring Polynesians. Such accounts would also fuel speculation about the origin of surfing, since, despite the recorded oral history, nobody can quite pin down just where this maritime dance form was born. Who on this planet first meditated on the recreational use of gravity and moving-wave vectors? And who shaped the first surfboard, paddled into that first rideable wave, then actually stood up on that surfboard and rode it towards shore?
The First Surf Reporters
The great British explorer and navigator, Captain James Cook, wrote in his journal in 1777 about a curious Tahitian water sport called "choroee", in which Tahitians in small outrigger canoes paddled into and rode ocean waves. However, it wasn't until Cook visited Hawaii a year later that he saw actual stand-up boardsurfing.
Unfortunately, Cook did not get to write