Surfing in 1000 BC

Viva Caballito!

Out of the Blue

A Surfboard for Everybody

Lono Wept

The New God Doesn't Surf

A Sport in Decline

Syphilis and cholera, new laws and prohibitions, endless work hours, overthrow and annexation—all these things conspired to remove wave-riders from Hawaiian lineups throughout the nineteenth century; the era came to be known as surfing’s own Dark Ages. But just how bad did things get? Modern sources almost all put the sport’s low point on a narrow continuum ranging from dire (“surfers had become an endangered species”) to defunct (“surfing had vanished”). Nineteenth-century reports, though, are more mixed.

A Lahaina source in 1848 wrote that “every little idle imp and lounger about the town devotes time [to] sporting in the surf,” and another Lahaina visitor noted that “both men and women, girls and boys, have time for this diversion . . . and the chiefs [also] take a turn or two.” An American observer four years later declared that surfing was “rapidly passing out of existence” and was now practiced “mostly by children,” but when writer Mark Twain visited a Big Island beach in 1872, he found “a large company of naked natives, of both sexes and all ages” riding waves. In 1876, one report said that surfing was a “favorite game” of the natives,” while another noted that surfing was “fast dying out.” In the mid-1880s, someone described seeing a dozen surfers riding a break in Hilo before a sizeable beach crowd, and a Hawaiian Almanac notice around that time declared that surfing had survived where other ancient native sports hadn’t, adding that there “are a few localities on each of the islands where this sport can be enjoyed equally by spectator and participant.”

 published an article titled “Some Hawaiian Pastimes,” which presented the sport as “once universally popular, and now but little seen.” The writer had asked six surfers to perform for him, but they hadn’t seemed very enthusiastic. “After standing for their photograph, the men removed all their garments, retaining only the 

, or loin-cloth, and walked into the sea, dragging or pushing their surf-boards.” A few children turned out on the beach to watch, but they were only “mildly interested in the sport.” Other written accounts from the period also suggested that the islanders’ skill level had dropped off; most riding was now done either prone or kneeling. “Old surf-riders,” one writer noted, “will tell you that none of the present generation have the skill and courage displayed by their ancestors.”

Given the evidence, there’s no real way to make the case that surfing “vanished,” as later accounts would have it—not when six riders can be assembled together at short notice, on one beach, on one island. The sport indeed suffered a grievous loss in raw numbers. The Native Hawaiian population was cut by 90 percent in just over a hundred years, and the number of surfers was no doubt reduced by a similar amount and then some. But the sport was still pursued, especially in outlying areas less visited by missionaries, traders, and travelers. This impression is confirmed by a piece of mid-nineteenth-century travel writing by Englishman Samuel S. Hill, who describes King Kamehameha III taking his surfboard and venturing out from the Western-influenced towns that had taken shape over the past few decades. The king did this, Hill wrote, to “quit the scenes which continually reminded him of the decrease of nationality among his subjects, and the loss of independence of his race.” Surfing was apparently still popular in small, out-of-the-way villages. But, as Hill concluded, it was “no longer played with the same spirit among the islanders wherever the Europeans are mingled among them.”

By any measure, the nineteenth century was a disaster for surfing. By 1890, however, the worst was over. The Hawaiian immune system had toughened up. The missionaries were long out of power. The sport now entered a quiet but sustaining period, almost a second incubation. It lasted just a few years. There were no big changes in technique, or board design, or the number of participants. But the sport and its practitioners looked different somehow—at least to the world at large. Surfing had been described by Reverend Hiram Bingham in 1820 as the pastime of “chattering savages.” Now it was about to be reintroduced by swashbuckling writer Jack London as nothing less than “a royal sport for the natural kings of earth.”

The islanders' skill level dropped off; most riding was now done either prone or kneeling. “Old surf-riders,” one writer noted, “will tell you that none of the present generation have the skill and courage displayed by their ancestors.”

Chapter: 1

Out of the Blue

A Sport in Decline

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Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

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Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

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