Model Student Name

Online English 101: Dr. Kwa

Essay One Final Draft

The Disappearance of Surfing from Ancient Hawaii:

The Rise of a Cash Economy and European Diseases in Paradise

When today’s surfers go out to greet the morning sun with their boards ready

to shred, they are continuing a tradition that goes as far back as the earliest days of

ancient Hawaii. Before eighteenth century colonists arrived in ancient Hawaii, surfing

was central to the island’s culture in many ways, according to Peter Westwick and

Peter Neushul in The World in the Curl: An Unconventional History of Surfing. To

the ancient Hawaiians, surfing was much more than a sport; Westwick and Neushul

argue that surfing was a driving force in the Hawaiian religion and sense of spiritual

connection to nature, especially the ocean. Both Hawaiian men and women won

social status through their surfing prowess; for instance, gambling on surf contests was

a popular game for all, and monarchs were often champion surfers driven by such

pride in their abilities that they would execute trespassers at their favorite surf breaks.

Surfing was also one of the few activities through which romance could flourish since

men and women were otherwise often separated. Once European explorers began

arriving in Hawaii in the late eighteenth century, however, surfing began to decline

until it was almost complete wiped out due to Hawaii’s subsequent transition to a cash

economy as well as the devastating onslaught of European diseases on the Hawaiian

people.
 As a result of replacing their productive agrarian and fish farming economy

with a cash economy based on trading products such as sandalwood and sugar with

European explorers, Hawaiians were unable to find the time to surf. For example,

Westwick and Neushul write, “XXX” (#). In other words, before the Europeans

arrived, Hawaiians enjoyed almost three months of each year during which they were

freed from working and could devote their time to surfing. [The middle of this body

paragraph has been omitted. Follow the outline chart.] Overall, the loss of a rich

agrarian society to a cash economy also meant the demise of surfing for the ancient

Hawaiians.

For the people of Hawaii surfing had religious importance. It was a wide practices

sport on the island before the arrival of the European in Polynesia. Neushul and

Westwick explained some myths about the decline of surfing in Hawaii in their book

The World in the Curl: An Unconventional History of Surfing. They describe the

socio-economic and cultural impact on surfing, such as religious, health and economic

factors. Missionaries were also to be accused of the decline of surfing in Hawaii, as

they called it immoral activity because people surf without clothes. And the other

cause is colonization that causes surfing to diminish in the culture as the native people

becomes slaves after the arrival of Captain Cook, furthermore after their arrival many

diseases spread throughout the island and caused the death of many natives. The

decline of surfing in Hawaii is mainly caused by colonization, instead of missionaries’

missions’.

The book “The World in the Curl: An Unconventional History of Surfing”,

describes surfing ultimately attract while placing the ports in its historical and social
context. Peter Heushul and Peter Westwick uncover surfing from its roots in ancient

Polynesian to its recent incarnation as a cultural phenomenon and global commercial.

During the process, they see the link between surfing and between other aspects such

as colonialism, climate change, pollution, real estate development, technology and

even religious fundamentalism (Ormrod, 2015, 281-284). In their book, they

emphasise many grounds and myths that caused the decline of surfing in Hawaii.

Being teachers at the University of California Westwick and Heushul explore the

enduring interest of surfing both in reality and myth. Based on their expertise as, a

historian of technology and science as well as an environmental historian, this book

brings alive the many colours of surfing history by colonialism, gender and race

relations, capitalism, environmental change, globalization and multinational

corporation. And they portray the surfers and surfing as characters on the global

platform.

Westwick and Heushul are avid surfers as well as historians, they described ancient

Hawaii as a cradle for surfing, due to its plenty of healthy food and gentle climate.

That was all before the colonization, where people spending life alcohol-free after the

European arrivals, they brought alcohol and many diseases with them. Those diseases

severely wash out the population of Hawaii. Furthermore, the natives become slaves

they were working on the plantation and were influenced by the missionaries, so they

lost their interest in surfing (Lemarié, 2016, 159-174). Meanwhile, people were afraid

of the spread of disease because they had a higher chance to get infected while surfing

and swimming and in that era diseases like cholera, smallpox and measles were

spreading widely.
 There was a myth that stated that missionaries banned surfing in Hawaii. When

Harm Bingham first arrived in Hawaii he gets shocked to see the nudity and people

were surfing in the water regardless of their gender, after watching all this he stated

that “the appearance of destitution, degradation and barbarism, among the chattering

and almost naked savages, whose heads and feet, and much of their sunburnt swarthy

skins, were bare, was appalling. Some of our numbers, with gushing tears, turned

away from the spectacles. Others, with firmer nerve, continued their gaze, but ready to

exclaim, ‘Can these be human beings?’” (Heushul and Westwick, 19). This phrase,

evidently explains his despise towards nudity not surfing. The missionaries do not

have any power to banned surfing but they preach to the natives about nudity. The

natives are also narrow-minded, so they start thinking surfing is a vulgar and nasty

activity. On the other hand, missionaries also surf, and Bingham said, “the adoption of

our costume greatly diminishes their practice of swimming and sporting in the surf,

for it is less convenient to wear it in the water than the native girdle, and less

decorous and safe to lay it entirely off on every occasion they find for a plunge or

swim or surf-board race.” (Bingham, 137). In this statement the Bingham define the

impact of preaching on the natives, thus missionaries did not ban surfing but they

change their views about surfing because in ancient Hawaii people were swimming

and surfing while being naked, which was unacceptable to civilized societies.

Westwick and Heushul explain the sport they love in both reality and myth contexts.

They explain the history of surfing that was the decline in the mid-eighteenth century,

how it survived and remained today in the USA thanks to the figures like Duke

Kahanamoku and George Freeth. In Hawaii surfing declined due to colonization when
European power enters the island, they make people focus on working, so they do not

have spare time to surf. Furthermore, missionaries were blamed to banned surfing in

Hawaii, yet they were there as a guest and do not hold any power, they only influence

people through their preaching, they did not against the surfing but nudity. Thus, the

diminishing of surfing was caused by colonization in Hawaii.

 Work Cited

Lemarié, Jérémy. "Debating on cultural performances of Hawaiian surfing in the 19th century."

Journal de la Société des Océanistes 142-143 (2016): 159-174

Ormrod, Joan. "Empire in Waves: A Political History of Surfing. By Scott Laderman." (2015):

281-284.

Westwick, Peter, and Peter Neushul. The world in the curl: An unconventional history of surfing.

Crown, 2013.