Milestones in Surf History Part Three (#09 - #14)
Milestones in
Surf History Part Three (#09 - #14)
by Sam Bleakley
#09 : 1830-32 The Great Wave off Kanagawa : Ever mind-surfed
‘The Great Wave off Kanagawa?’ There’s something very relevant and realistic
for surfers with Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai's woodblock print ‘Kanagawa
oki nami ura’ (also translated as ‘Under the Wave off Kanagawa’, ‘In the Well
of a Wave off Kanagawa’, or simply, ‘ The Great Wave’). Three ‘oshiokuri-bune’
fast boats (between 12 to 15 meters long) are transporting fresh fish back to
market under radical conditions. French writer Edmond de Goncourt described
that: “the wave is a deification of the sea made by a painter who lived with
the religious terror of the overwhelming ocean completely surrounding his
country; He is impressed by the sudden fury of the ocean's leap toward the sky,
by the deep blue of the inner side of the curve, by the splash of its claw-like
crest as it sprays forth droplets.” It is from the series ‘Thirty-six Views of
Mount Fuji’ and became Japan’s most iconic work of art. But it was a savvy
business move, easily mass-produced and sold at cheap prices to capitalize on
Mount Fuji’s sacred identity. Within Japan, woodblock prints were not seen as
art, merely a popular form of expression and commercial printing. Therefore
government officials and art historians were less than thrilled that such a
seemingly lowbrow art form had come to define them. 5,000 to 8,000 prints were
made. What would Hokusai have thought of the boom of surfing in Japan in the
1970s and ‘80s along a convoluted coast that, on its day, can deliver some of
the best waves in the Pacific.
#09 : 1830-32 The Great Wave off Kanagawa : Japanese artist
Katsushika Hokusai made a number of other works capturing the raw energy of the
Pacific in the early 1800s (pictured here). Hokusai studied European works in
addition to Japanese ones and was particularly inspired by the linear
perspective used in Dutch art, plus their use of Prussian blue. At the time,
Japan was not engaging culturally with other nations except for trade with
China and Korea, which was strictly controlled, and the Dutch, who were only
allowed to operate in Nagasaki. Soon, political pressure pushed Japan to open
up its ports and exports to foreign nations. In 1859, a wave of Japanese prints
flowed across Europe, winning adoration from the likes of Vincent Van Gogh,
James Abbott McNeill Whistler and Claude Monet. French composer Claude Debussy
shared the inspiration for his orchestral composition The Sea (La Mer) on the
cover of its 1905 edition’s sheet music. There, a sketch fashioned after The
Great Wave off Kanagawa gave music lovers an image to associate with his
symphonic sketches. For Japanese surfers today, Kanoa Igarashi is the new
heroic image. He is the first Japanese surfer to qualify for the Men’s World
Surf League Championship Tour. “I have dual citizenship with America and
Japan,” explains Igarashi. “Still, I hope that ... I .. will inspire … other
Japanese surfers to strive for the tour.”
#09 : 1830-32 The Great Wave off
Kanagawa : Currently Japanese surfer Nobihito Ohkawa is collating historic
images and researching a rich lineage of information on the history of Japanese
waveriding http://www.nobbywoodsurfboards.com/#id1 . The
oldest written document discovered by Ohkawa thus far is a diary from 1821 of a
haiku poet called Dokurakuan Kanrwho who
lived in Sakata on the Sea of Japan. He
would take hot-spring baths for medical purposes at nearby Yunohama Beach, and
described children playing “senoshi” (wave riding) using the “itago” (wooden
planks).「この辺の12,3歳位の子供達が10人ばかり、手に手に舟の板を持って、荒波の中へ飛び込んで沖へ沖へと乗り出していく。沖へ出たかと思うと今度は波に乗り岸に向かって戻ってくる。その早いこと、矢のようである、これを何回もくりかえしている。」 “Perhaps ten children of 12 or 13 are
there, Taking the
boat's planks they go, Embarking
and diving into the racing sea, Further
and further out they go, Then riding the waves they come back to shore, Fast, like an arrow, so many times
they go.” The Itago is a wooden plank from a fishing boat. But it was
not as popular as in Hawaii because the sea was considered a working environment
for fisherman. From the
1880's bathing beaches were opened for medical purposes, and soon pleasure and
leisure, with the Itako wave riding (Japanese
belly board surfing) on the rise, romantically advertised here…
#10: Early 1800s
Hawaiian Royal Style : King Kamehameha
II and Queen Kamāmalu: According to Hawaiian
historian John Papa I‘i, in the early 1800s King Kamehameha II and Queen Kamāmalu
were both talented and enthusiastic surfers who rode a break called Kooka, 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.” Tragically, in November
1823 Kamehameha II and Queen Kamāmalu commissioned the British whaling ship L'Aigle
to travel to London. They landed in Brazil, then Portsmouth in May 1824. They
toured London, but in late June Queen Kamāmalu caught measles, for which she
had no immunity. She died in early July, followed by her husband days later. In
September 1824 the bodies were returned to Hawaii. Kamehameha II was succeeded
by his younger brother Kauikeaouli, who became King Kamehameha III.
#10: Early 1800s Hawaii Royal Style : Early 1800s Hawaiian Royal
Style : King Kamehameha II and Queen Kamāmalu: According to Hawaiian historian
John Papa I‘I, King Kamehameha II and Queen Kamāmalu were both fine surfers and
radical canoeists. Papa I‘i describes, “lele wa‘a, or canoe leaping, in which
the surfer leaped off the canoe with his/her board and rode the wave ashore.
The canoe slid back off the wave because of the force of the shove given to 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 centre. This was a
difficult feat and not often seen, but for Kamāmalu and Kamehameha 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 ...”
#10: Early 1800s Hawaiian Royal Style : King Kamehameha II and
Queen Kamāmalu: Kauikeauoli (Kamehameha III) was born March 17, 1814, at
Keauhou, in the Big Island. Kauikeauoli later became ruler of the entire island
chain and was renamed Kamehameha III after his parents died in London. In the
early 1900s Lorrin Thurston, student of Hawaiian culture, and renowned surfer,
told Tom Blake about sled sliding. Thurston said he had been told by the locals
of the Keauhou district of Hawaii 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. “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.”
#10: Early 1800s Hawaiian Royal Style : King Kamehameha II and
Queen Kamāmalu: Kauikeauoli (Kamehameha III) was said to have a holua slide was
over a half mile long. In the early 1900s Tom Blake explained, “In sliding, a
man/woman took up a position several yards back of the take-off, and held the
right rail in the right hand. He/she then ran forward, took hold of the left
rail with the left hand, and on reaching the brow of the hill threw him/herself
headlong on the sled. Of course, he tore down the slope with terrific speed. To
start the race a man flashed a white tapa flag from the building at the foot of
the slide. At this signal, high on the mountain side a young chief took a short
swift run, to gain momentum, and headed down the smooth grassy course on
his/her holua sled, while out at sea, at the proper place another
chief/chieftess caught a big comber on his/her surfboard and headed for shore,
both contestants racing, the first one to reach the grass house being declared
the winner. No doubt 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…”
#11 : 1831 Polynesian Researches : The
first published drawing of a surfer standing upright on a board (‘Sandwich
Island Surf-riders’ etched by F. Howard) appears in British missionary Reverend
William Ellis’s ‘Polynesian Researches: During a Residence of Nearly Eight
Years in the Society and Sandwich Islands, Volumes I to IV’ (printed by Fisher,
Son and Jackson in London, 1831). In the fantastic text, Ellis explains: “The
higher the sea and the larger the waves, in their opinion the better the sport.
On these occasions they use a board, which they call 'papa hi naru' (papa he'e
nalu - wave sliding-board)…Sometimes they choose a place where the deep water
reaches to the beach, but generally prefer a part where the rocks are ten or
twenty feet under water, and extend to a distance from the shore, as the surf
breaks more violently over these….When they reach outside of the rocks, 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 the
foam, till 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 (locals) 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…”
#11 : 1831 Polynesian
Researches : The first published drawing of a surfer standing upright on a
board (‘Sandwich Island Surf-riders’ etched by F. Howard) appears in British
missionary Reverend William Ellis’s ‘Polynesian Researches: During a Residence
of Nearly Eight Years in the Society and Sandwich Islands, Volumes I to IV’
(printed by Fisher, Son and Jackson in London, 1831). Ellis describes the
boards as being: “…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 of the wood of the erythrina, stained quite black, and preserved
with great care. After using, it is placed in the sun till perfectly dry, when
it is rubbed-over with cocoa-nut oil, frequently wrapped in cloth, and
suspended in some part of their dwelling-house….Sometimes the greater part of
the inhabitants of a village go out to this sport, when the wind blows fresh
toward the shore, and spend the greater part of the day in the water. All ranks
and ages appear equally fond of it…some of the highest chiefs in the island,
both between fifty and sixty years of age…balancing themselves on their narrow
board, or splashing about in the foam, with as much satisfaction as youths of
sixteen…” This is the first report confirming the wood used for Hawaiian board
construction, in this case willi willi (‘erythrina’), the preferred timber for
outrigger floats, noted for its light weight. Also, the dark stain was a
feature of ancient Hawaiian canoes that sealed the wood with a paint produced
from a variety of organic products, generally called pa'ele. The account
further reports the necessity to dry the board after use and the application of
oil, possibly to prevent the timber splitting and probably to act as a water
repellent when next immersed.
#12 : 1841
Incidents of a Whaling Voyage : Off the radar of the missionaries, on the
peripheral Hawaiian island of Kauai, American adventurer and author Francis
Allyn Olmsted (1819–44) described a thriving surf scene in the Kailua area of
the Kona Coast in 1840. Olmstead walked “down to the sea shore, where a party
of locals 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 Hawaiians.” This lithograph
by Olmsted was published in ‘Incidents of a Whaling Voyage’ by Appleton and Co.
in New York in 1841.
#13 : 1800s Indian Madrassan Surfers
: Groundbreaking new research by Geoff Cater at www.surfresearch.com.au has
revealed a hand coloured aquatint, ‘Madrassan
Men Surfing’ (originally entitled ‘Cattamarans’), engraved by
John Hassell, after a sketch by Charles Gold, printed by Bummey & Co in
London on the 15th of January 1800 and published by G & W Nicol
in 1806. It has been identified by the curators of the Australian National
Maritime Museum and is a significant contribution to the history of surfing.
The surfer rides a three-log catamaran,
parallel stance, holding a paddle. Two men are further out on a second wave. A
‘masula’ (also known as ‘masoola’ or ‘masulah’), a local surf boat with a crew of six, is heading over
the third wave, transporting freight for the ships of the East India Company,
awaiting off-shore at the Madras Roads.
#13 : 1800s Indian
Madrassan Surfers : Surf historian Geoff Cater has revealed that ‘Madrassan Men
Surfing’ is currently the earliest known image of stand-up wave riding. Based
on his personal observation and dated 1800, Charles Gold served with the Royal
Artillery and was stationed at Madras on India's southeast coast. He returned
to England in 1798 with a collection of sketches of views of life in the region
which were eventually published in London in 1806. In a volume titled 'Oriental
Drawings' this plate was indexed in the volume under the titled 'Cattamarans'.
Although the earliest illustration of a surfboard being paddled appears in
Webbers painting of Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii (1779) and a detailed sketch of a
surfboard was made by Alphonse Pellion during the visit of Freycinet's
expedition to Hawaii in August 1819, it was not until the 1830s that
illustrations of standing on the board began to appear. Geoff Cater explains,
“While Hawaiians had trees which yielded large slabs of relatively light but
very buoyant timber to make board from, the land around Madras was largely made
up of rice growing plains with poor soil quality. It is possible that the
Madrassans overcame this problem by lashing light, buoyant logs, such as
bamboo, together to provide a long narrow platform. It is evident from this
illustration that by the late 18th century they were employing freestanding
methods, with waves used for propulsion. It appears that instead of paddling by
hand, they used meter lengths of board to propel themselves from the shore to
beyond the breaks. The board could presumably have been used on the return
journey to achieve speed to catch a wave and possibly to steer. 'Surfing' of
this kind was probably for pleasure and recreation rather than for fishing or
trade, as the Madrassans were fully conversant with boats and boat-building
techniques that are still in use today. Although there is little doubt that
modern surfing derives from the Hawaiians, it would seem that they were
certainly not alone in mastering 'wave travel' by the late 18th century.
Considering the age of south Indian civilisation, it may be that their ability
to surf predates that of Hawaii.”
#13 : 1800s Indian Madrassan Surfers : In
1946 James Hornell explained how the ‘catamaran’ was identified as an example
of Indian log rafts. Widespread on the Tamil coast of South India, they were
known as 'kaIfu-mar-am' meaning 'tied logs', which was anglicized into
'catamaran'. But this is an ancient water craft, virtually unsinkable, thus
great to use in the surf zone. In the 1670s, Tomas Bowrey, an English spice
trader, wrote of the "cattamaran" on which "they will boldly
venture out of sight of the shore, but indeed they swim (in general) as
naturally as Spaniel dogs." Subsequent accounts and illustrations indicate
that the crew was usually from one to three, and the paddlers sit, kneel or
stand. Adventurer and buccaneer, William Dampier, observing balsa rafts in Peru
in 1684, compared them to the craft he had seen ten years earlier in the Bay of
Bengal:
"On the Coast of
Coromandel in the East-Indies they call them Catamarans.” Further, a
watercolour drawing dated 1787 illustrates a masula boat and a catamaran, with
two kneeling paddlers, at sea, inscribed: "A Massula Boat, such as are
used at Madras for crossing the surf as no ship boat can weather it."
Another watercolour by J.B East from 1834 entitled "Catamarans and
Masoolah Boat, Madras" (with a later version known as “Madras, Embarking"
engraved in 1856) shows one upright rider in fine style tackling the
shorebreak.
#13 : 1800s Indian
Madrassan Surfers : Over time, the mixing of dialects and languages in India
gave rise to a unique ‘pidgin’ language as well as highly sophisticated forms
of non-verbal exchange and barter that worked through coded handshakes. It is
likely that the Portuguese coined the word 'surf' in the late 1600s, from the
Sanskrit 'suffe' meaning ‘the coastline’. This intermingling that cultures,
languages and traders shared along the Indian coastline led to a metaphorical
and literal common ground in the form of the beach – where water meets land,
the strip between high and low tides representing a zone of psychic
re-adjustment, where cultural habits had to be dropped, morphed, re-imagined
and re-invented in the name of exchange and trade. In this way, the beach zone
becomes a kind of cleansing area and a common ribbon of engagement. Southern
India is the home of many fine waves, and a vibrant emerging surf culture.
Pictured here is a montage from Soul & Surf photographer Pete Chamberlain
Down the line photography - Peter Chamberlain including Kerala fishing culture,
Varkala local Rakhul Shyamraj and Surf & Surf India surf manager Nick
Kelly.
#14 : 1851
Life in the Sandwich Islands : In contrast to his discerning contemporaries,
missionary Reverend Henry T. Cheever looked at Hawaiian waveriding with envy.
In “Life in the Sandwich Islands, The Heart of the Pacific, As It Was and Is”,
published in 1851, her wrote: “Many a man from abroad who has witnessed this
exhilarating play, 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 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 racehorse,
all the time enveloped in foam and spray, but without letting the roller break
and tumble over my head.” This illustration called ‘Surf Swimmers’ appeared in Reverend Isaac Taylor’s book ‘The Ship’ in 1830.
#14 :
1851 Life in the Sandwich Islands : In “Life in the Sandwich Islands, The Heart
of the Pacific, As It Was and Is”, published in 1851, Reverend Henry T. Cheever
described 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.” 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 surf-rider in its wary ruin.” Cheever added that it was 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.” Sadly, 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.” This illustration that appears
in Cheever’s book was titled ‘Hawaiian Sport of Surf Playing’.
