Ancient surfers

General Discussion
61

Hey there, just thought I’d throw my two cents in.

If you take the time to read Kon Tiki, And Aku Aku, Thor comes up with some interesting answers to the question of where the polynesians come from. According to the people of the south pacific, and Rapa Nui (Easter Island), their ancestors came from both South America and somewhere in South-East Asia.

As far as surfing goes, the people of Rapa Nui had been surfing on really cool looking reed craft that kind of look like half of a reed boat in a special yearly event involving a paddle race out to a rock off shore to collect an egg( i think it was the first of the season?) and racing back with it through the surf. There is a picture of contemporary examples of this type of craft in Peru on page 89 of the Surfers Journal issue 5 vol. 10. Also I just wanted to say that Thor discovered alot of information that has been ignored by the mainstream, and poo-pooed by people that have never read his work. A good example is the fact that the people of Rapa Nui had a written language at one time, but the modern descendants had lost the knowledge of how to read it.

Dave

62

Just a quick hit…

It ain’t nothin without the blessing/dance…

Ambrose… It wasn’t > DROPPING the super duper tanker to make wave/power.

It wasn’t SINKING it and FILLING it with air, it was a pendulum or two or three bolted to the deck, hard a port, hard a starboard, what light from yon star breaks through the clouds of sterility/misunderstanding < the coherence of waiting for ALL to see the VISION, no one/many left behind this time +not+ a far-right call for the end of public education with/for the teaching of the corporate funny business to the chosen sons and daughters, line forms to your left cause - we lost, man we lost, hosed in the streets for the umpteenth time and I just can’t see any point in going on.

We lost.

Lost we are. [pictures please…]

No more deep and meaningful

Drop the rocker (towards neutral) trust those that await the rest. Georgie Porgie sighting over transom of Polynesian (fill in the blank in the line at the Hall of chosen Higher Edumacation), render useful by the brain trust handed down through centuries of care and understanding. Dolphins surround and Crystal Voyage me to my happy hunting grounds. Pumping up the hill on my bike, I catch that tandem pair, and sight that fine ass on the rider of the second magnitude (better half) (the cup is half full or half empty?) and strike up a merry conversation… “Momentum working against you?” “Yeah, but you should see us going DOWNHILL!” I promptly pictured THE MANY in a dugout canoe of the design that was GIVEN to US for the paddle into way outside waves and then the travel points add up, cause lord, we is flying (fall line, Nat’s Nat and that’s that) Robert Redford remake of downhill racer, but more importantly - the Whale Rider, offshore - OFF the beach* don’t come back here unless invited, I can see by your coat, my friend, you’re from the other side.

Peer (group) deep within at the energy patterns that make up the you and I, and you will see a friendly and happy building/unit that awaits the order from headquarters to spin plus/negative… you decide… AllWays… and forever. BUT don’t expect me to carry your contraption on down to the beach, I’ve been waiting, forlorn, and I can’t pull me boot straps up any more, to be held accountable for history that was pumped into me through the electrodes implanted just for the rich and famous to watch in complete amusement, tears streaming down, cable spec-ta-call, download and show your friends as the monkey dances and picks his nose or smells his own butt. Magilla Gorilla for sale.

NEWS UPDATE… ANCIENT OCEANS. The Earth had WATER on it BILLIONS (4.5 billion) of years before previously thought. Hmmmmm… Life coulda, shoulda been here many years to the nth f–king power(?) Yeah man, we are right. Those zircons from Western Australia had rounded edges, not sharp and snappy, yess-ssir. So let’s just keep watching as the warlords dig those trenches that look more like self anointed holy grounds (or) burial grounds, pour me another cup of Joe, Joe. OVER simplification, over before ASSumed.

But you know all this.

I can feel in my bones. Olduvai Gorge. Picked through and screened. Or a truckload of beakless chickens deprived of that experiential top to bottom, slot in and burn, baby, burn.

Look out into/unto the stars. It is soooo slowed down. Aren’t we just the slice-o-life that is just the pre-configured pause between breaths of the real GOD’s-A-Poppin show. You know, the real showgirls - all naked and pretty, excited to be the chosen ones to fornicate with a god. Wouldn’t you if given a chance? No more of the waiting around smoking a cigarette with Sir Elton Raleigh, waiting to get into the REAL show. Finally on THE LIST. Comes every 2,000 years. The BIG BANG, you know what the hell I mean this time. It ain’t so very deep and meaningful, but it ain’t the latest Eff Cee Ess fin tab copy, I’m so bored, boo hoo.

Are you looking at my membrane, buddy? We are just ripples in a galactic pond. Plenty of time on our hands. We can relearn the stone tools and the secrets in the blushing brides, i got wood, baby. Flex/spring. We named it right here. It’s our language, logged and lurking.

Warped space for the taking. IT CAN BE ANYTHING THAT WE DECIDE, the brain only marks concepts, not individual events and facts.

63

I have the feeling that the Hawaiian culture was fairly static. Nothing specific to support it, but if they had a life that allowed sufficient leisure, there would be no impetus for change, for modification, for shaping and reshaping boards.

Unlike today, with surfing having a substantial focus on competitiveness, and most of all, available technology to effect substantial changes, the Hawaiians didn’t (I don’t think) alter their lifestyle significantly from generation to generation. They hadn’t the need to; they hadn’t the technology to do so; they had a social/religious structure that didn’t encourage significant changes; in the era of the warring chiefs they quite likely didn’t have the life expectancy to do so.

So I don’t think surfboards evolved much. It might be nice to think that they did, but after 1000 or 1500 years look what they were riding, and how, and contrast that to the evolution that the older ones among us now have been part of. Look to at what and how many choices we have today. I think we have it ALL OVER a stone age culture, even the highest artistically developed such culture in the Pacific.

64

I was surfing at laniakea last fri. head high plus really fun waves, very ancient surf spot…surfing with my two adult “kids”, intoxicating… i hope the ancient surfers had as much fun as i had in those little waves… getting out of the water i looked over at the cow farm and wondered if there were any more mushrooms in the cow pies… i remember in the 70’s there were people picking them so regularly… i guess there still is some around?, sometimes it just doesn’t make sense…God bless …danny

65

Hello Honolulu- Did you actually read your reply before you posted it? Statements like"I have a feeling that…" or " nothing specific to support it…" are meaningless. They do nothing to add to the discussion. Several of your points are just not true and can be easily disproven.

I am not trying to pick a fight with you. What I <span style="font-style:italic">am</span> doing is challenging you to go out and learn more about surfing history and polynesian culture. You are just a short drive from the world's largest collection of Hawaiian culture and history at the Bishop Museum. I would also bet that your local library has many books on the subject available for free. Some good books to start with are "Surfing- The Sport of Hawaiian Kings" by Ben Finney and "The Hawaiian Canoe" by Tommy Holmes. Book reports due at the end of the semester.
66

I’ve only lived in Hawaii for 35 years, and i have the same “feeling” about the staticness of the Hawaiin culture… seems like cultures change because of need… NO NEED here! So many people from different places come here and complain about no change ( in seasons)…NO NEED CHANGE, so i have the same feeling that people just lived with no need to change… i’ve made “backyard” surfboards for 30 years here in Hawaii and watched all the “inovations” come and go and now i use my older templates to make my own boards cause they’re really fun…i don’t need a thruster so that i can make more succesful turns per wave to get more asp, wtc, bss points per wave, i’m not collecting points…any surfboard that i’m on , in the ocean on a beautiful day, with good friends around is an incredible surfboard design…it all depends on a person’s focus, the mentality of people here in Hawaii that really relax here is so fun, those of us that get caught up in the whirlwind of collecting points to store up for the winter are busting around chasing something that isn’t here…let us keep having fun… danny

67

Isn’t it true though that the Ancient Hawaiians surfed competitively. . . . the prizes including social status and women ?

If that is the case then perhaps there was some incentive for board design changes, but perhaps the judging system was one which rewarded long rides rather than radical turns. . . . in which case long and heavy would be a sign of ‘state of the art’ competitiveness !

( IMTIAKO of course )

:slight_smile:

68

I hope they didn’t have competitions… they must have though, the competition , i’ve changed my mind 3 times while writing this one sentence… the competition that they had was on land … kill the invading chief from the next valley… i don’t think they needed to fabricate artificial “competition”… the prize for winning their competition was life itself, the loser clubbed to death or blungeoned with a marlin nose?..i “feel” like we’re still a little twisted… but i’m not an anthro major, or history, or mitochondrial dna speciallist, so i can only feel things… thanks danny

69

One more time. From Ben Finney’s book- “Hawaiian surfers often exhibited their finest wave-riding skill in fierce competition. This was, in fact a major part of the game to early enthusiasts, and the betting that accompanied every contest was no doubt an important incentive for the practice of the sport.”

70

I believe such activity was a result of a pre-contact ever growing decadent and deviant society due to it’s absolute isolation in the middle of the pacific. Hawaiian society really represented the utmost decadent version of polynesia available at the time. And it’s a result of the isolation due to it’s geography.

Similar to what happened to and destroyed Rapa Nui but not as drastic.

The growing chasm between the alii nui, the makaainana and the untouchable slave classes would’ve eventually torn the place apart without the opportunity for outside contact.

Surfing, sex, the blank arts are all ego centric activities that helped the alii nui bide time in their ever growing boring isolated lifesstyle. Without the inter-village clan clashes to occupy their lives they might as well have eventually bored themselves into non-existance.

For there really was no where else to go once they got to Hawaii other than to go back from where they came. And since they had come to Hawaii in an effort to escape persecution island hopping by island hopping, there really wasn’t any incentive to go back.

Surfing is a one of the net results of it all

Maybe in some ways it really hasn’t changed just the participants and their motives…

71

Oneula- Whoo! That is an interesting twist to the story. Instead

of surfing being the highest representation of their culture it

may have had more in common with the rise of the gladiator games that

preceded the decline of Roman civilization. I bet Timothy Leary

wouldn’t like to hear that. If you extrapolated on that theory you

could argue that the arrival of the Europeans saved the Hawaiians from

themselves. That would be contraversial. Is there more info about that

somewhere?

72

Well I hate to dig out my anthro books from 75-77 but I believe it represents the education I was provided by my reknown forensic anthropologists at the time…

As a native hawaiian it not easy to admit such things about your cuture but where there’s beauty there’s also the beast. And you can only inter-marry and propagate among your direct relatives so long before things start getting a little weird. I don’t see any difference between what my ancesters went through or the Mayans or Aztecs, or even Romans to say the least… Almost similar stories when you have such a dominant hierarchal culture.

Bored out your mind and locked into a system of complex rules that protected a few for the sake of the many.

Probably also explains why Hawaiians gobbled up everything that came into their path once contact was established so much so that the ali’i learned to become more western than the westerners sent here to “rescue” them… ie the adoption of neo-classic european royal culture… It happens to the best of them. Even the poor innocent ones we leave machete’s and iron pots and pans for in the rainforests of the Philiipines, South America and Borneo…

When you think about the pure joy and selfishness of surfing you’ve got to admit that it has nothing to do with providing the next meal for you family or your ali’i. It has no religious value other than expressing your said ability to master a difficult thing that really doesn’t bring any value to the sea or the land. So in the end you do it for no other benefit than your own pleasure. How that fits in to an ecologically driven island culture would have to be at best an anomally other than maybe you’ve got nothing better to do (like foraging for food)…

73

Hello Oneula- Thanks for your (and everyone elses) replies. A lot of thought provoking things to consider.This a great thread.

74

There was an article that went into the language of Hawaii and the Chumash, it seemed the word for wood and canoe were the same, from what I remember

75

Aloha Jim

If you ever find that article or where it was published I would love to read it. I am glad you brought it up.

Like I said before, any culture like the Hawaiians that had the exporation bug would likely continue it and eventually run into the west coast as it is pretty hard to miss! Getting back from there to Hawaii is an easy downwind slide but hitting that small dot of islands in the huge Pacific might be a challenge that even the best ancient Navigators would struggle with. But if enough tried, and probably did, there was probably more contact then we might imagine.

Makes you wonder what the Hawaiians might have thought when they first saw Rincon reeling off!

76

Aloha! I recall reading in King Kalakaua’s book “Legends and Myths of Hawaii”, about a great chief who was a major traveler. (I don’t have the book on hand right now, so I can’t look it up) He took many trips south to Tahiti, and also traveled to mainland America. On one trip to the mainland, he brought back two or three ‘red’ natives, who it said, willingly came back to Hawaii with him. Also in the book, Kalakaua mentioned that, as for the makaainana, “the Alii enslaved their bodies, and the Kahunas enslaved their minds.” Aloha…RH

77

That’s interesting Rick

I didn’t know there was any written record of any ancient travels by Hawaiians to the mainland.

78

I’ve been reading about ancient surfboars, hot curls and the early years. So armed with the knowledge I could get I’ve just finished this board an alaia type… about an 1 1/2" thick 6’6 long 16 1/2" wide, convex bottom.

79

Meant to reply earlier, but your alaia looks beautiful. Much too pretty to ride but I hope you ride it any way and tell us what it is like. You should put that in the resource page. What type of wood did you use?

80

Oh yeah going to ride it soon! swells are looking good for tomorrow… I used paulownia doesn’t weigh much. problely change it a bit later on pull the tail in and a bit more vee in the tail.