The Local Surfer - University of Exeter

did not respect their Kapu system and therefore were easily won over by the
Christian missionaries (Finney and Houston, 1996). Surfing was discouraged in
their new religion on account of the nudity, gambling and neglect of religious
duties involved in the pursuit (Cook and Romeika, 1968, Dixon, 1966 and
Lueras, 1991, Pearson, 1979). One piece of literature written by a missionary
described the “evils” of surfing being the loss of life, severe wounds, maiming
or crippling, and poverty through gambling (Finney and Houston, 1966). In a
short time the missionaries had changed the way of life for most Hawaiians. A
visitor to Hawaii in 1838 noted that customs on the island had changed and
exercises such as surfing had been suppressed. The visitor blamed the
missionaries for impressing their opinions upon the minds of the chiefs that “all
who practice them, secure themselves the displeasure of offending heaven”
(Finney and Houston, 1996: 54). In retaliation to the comments made by the
visitor, Hiram Bingham, a defender of mission policy replied;
The decline and discontinuation of the use of the surfboard, as
civilisation 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.
(Bingham, 1847 in Finney and Houston, 1996: 54)
The missionary William Ellis also wrote an account of surfing in 1831, yet he
did so with little negativity. Ellis described how the surfers;
poise on [the waves] 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…frequently change[ing] their positions on the
board, sometimes standing erect in the midst of the foam.
(1831, pg number not stated)
However, outside forces continued a decline in Hawaiian ancestry and by the
19 th Century Hawaii had a western government, western beliefs and a new
Christian religion (Barr et al, 2005). It is not surprising that surfing, so deeply
rooted in the Hawaiian culture struggled to survive during this period.
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