WEBVTT

00:00:06.938 --> 00:00:08.956
For some, it's a serious sport.

00:00:08.956 --> 00:00:11.977
For others, just a way to let loose.

00:00:11.977 --> 00:00:15.438
But despite its casual association
with fun and sun,

00:00:15.438 --> 00:00:20.942
surfing has a richer and deeper
history than many realize.

00:00:20.942 --> 00:00:23.292
What we today call surfing originated in

00:00:23.292 --> 00:00:26.822
the Polynesian islands 
of the Pacific Ocean.

00:00:26.822 --> 00:00:28.772
We know from various accounts

00:00:28.772 --> 00:00:32.780
that wave riding was done 
throughout the Polynesian Pacific,

00:00:32.780 --> 00:00:36.993
as well as in West Africa and Peru.

00:00:36.993 --> 00:00:39.691
But it was in the Hawaiian archipelago
in particular

00:00:39.691 --> 00:00:42.162
that surfing advanced the most,

00:00:42.162 --> 00:00:43.703
was best documented,

00:00:43.703 --> 00:00:48.045
and, unlike elsewhere in Polynesia,
persisted.

00:00:48.045 --> 00:00:49.492
And for the people of Hawaii,

00:00:49.492 --> 00:00:52.822
wave sliding was not 
just a recreational activity,

00:00:52.822 --> 00:00:57.504
but one with spiritual 
and social significance.

00:00:57.504 --> 00:00:59.024
Like much of Hawaiian society,

00:00:59.024 --> 00:01:04.334
nearly every aspect of surfing was
governed by a code of rules and taboos

00:01:04.334 --> 00:01:07.295
known as kapu.

00:01:07.295 --> 00:01:10.615
Hawaiians made offerings when selecting
a tree to carve,

00:01:10.615 --> 00:01:14.814
prayed for waves with the help
of a kahuna, or an expert priest,

00:01:14.814 --> 00:01:20.065
and gave thanks after surviving
a perilous wipeout.

00:01:20.065 --> 00:01:24.629
Certain surf breaks were strickly reserved
for the elite.

00:01:24.629 --> 00:01:27.155
But it wasn't just a solemn affair.

00:01:27.155 --> 00:01:30.425
Surfers competed and wagered
on who could ride the farthest,

00:01:30.425 --> 00:01:31.436
the fastest,

00:01:31.436 --> 00:01:34.966
or catch the biggest wave
with superior skill,

00:01:34.966 --> 00:01:36.217
granting respect,

00:01:36.217 --> 00:01:37.595
social status,

00:01:37.595 --> 00:01:41.406
and romantic success.

00:01:41.406 --> 00:01:43.855
Though it was later called
the sport of kings,

00:01:43.855 --> 00:01:48.167
Hawaiian men and women of all ages
and social classes participated,

00:01:48.167 --> 00:01:50.029
riding surfboards shaped from koa,

00:01:50.029 --> 00:01:50.964
breadfruit,

00:01:50.964 --> 00:01:54.031
or wiliwili trees.

00:01:54.031 --> 00:01:56.197
Many Hawaiians road alaia boards,

00:01:56.197 --> 00:02:01.227
which were thin, midsized,
and somewhat resemble today's shortboards.

00:02:01.227 --> 00:02:03.036
Some mounted paipo boards,

00:02:03.036 --> 00:02:08.767
short, round-nosed boards on which
riders typically lay on their stomachs.

00:02:08.767 --> 00:02:12.717
But only chieftains could ride
the massive olo boards,

00:02:12.717 --> 00:02:15.237
twice as long as today's longboards.

00:02:15.237 --> 00:02:18.117
Unlike most modern surfboards,

00:02:18.117 --> 00:02:19.989
all boards were finless,

00:02:19.989 --> 00:02:24.868
requiring surfers to drag their hands
or feet to turn.

00:02:24.868 --> 00:02:27.588
We don't know exactly when wave sliding
was invented,

00:02:27.588 --> 00:02:31.989
but we know that it had already
been practiced in Polynesia for centuries

00:02:31.989 --> 00:02:36.718
by the time it was described in 1777
by William Anderson,

00:02:36.718 --> 00:02:41.668
a surgeon on Captain Cook's ship
"Resolution."

00:02:41.668 --> 00:02:43.629
Although Anderson was in awe,

00:02:43.629 --> 00:02:47.360
most of the American Christian 
missionaries who arrived in Hawaii

00:02:47.360 --> 00:02:48.960
several decades later

00:02:48.960 --> 00:02:51.048
regarded surfing as sinful,

00:02:51.048 --> 00:02:55.919
and they discouraged it, along with
other aspects of native culture.

00:02:55.919 --> 00:03:00.211
The biggest threat to surfing, however,
was the threat to the natives themselves.

00:03:00.211 --> 00:03:04.828
By 1890, new illnesses introduced
by Europeans and Americans

00:03:04.828 --> 00:03:08.910
had decimated the Hawaiian people,
leaving fewer than 40,000

00:03:08.910 --> 00:03:14.353
from a pre-contact population 
that may have exceeded 800,000.

00:03:14.353 --> 00:03:16.757
At the same time, foreign influence grew

00:03:16.757 --> 00:03:22.054
with white settlers overthrowing 
the native monarchy in 1893,

00:03:22.054 --> 00:03:25.828
and the U.S. annexing 
the islands five years later.

00:03:25.828 --> 00:03:31.730
The end of Hawaii's independence coincided
with surfing's native-led revival,

00:03:31.730 --> 00:03:37.296
a revival soon exploited
by the American colonizers.

00:03:37.296 --> 00:03:40.775
But first, some Hawaiians 
took surfing overseas.

00:03:40.775 --> 00:03:45.566
In 1907, George Freeth,
the so-called Hawaiian Wonder,

00:03:45.566 --> 00:03:47.166
traveled to the west coast

00:03:47.166 --> 00:03:51.783
and gave surfing demonstrations 
in southern California.

00:03:51.783 --> 00:03:55.586
Then in 1914, Olympic swimmer
Duke Kahanamoku

00:03:55.586 --> 00:03:58.776
made his way to Australia and New Zealand,

00:03:58.776 --> 00:04:00.807
gliding across the southern Pacific waves

00:04:00.807 --> 00:04:05.176
and attracting rapt audiences 
wherever he went.

00:04:05.176 --> 00:04:07.246
Shortly before Freeth went to California,

00:04:07.246 --> 00:04:12.916
a South Carolinian named 
Alexander Hume Ford moved to Hawaii.

00:04:12.916 --> 00:04:18.128
After learning to surf, he became 
a champion of the pastime.

00:04:18.128 --> 00:04:20.437
But Ford may have had unsavory reasons

00:04:20.437 --> 00:04:25.027
for his enthusiastic efforts 
to boost the sport.

00:04:25.027 --> 00:04:28.878
Like many settlers, he wanted Hawaii
to become a U.S. state

00:04:28.878 --> 00:04:34.010
but was worried about its non-white
majority of natives and Asian workers.

00:04:34.010 --> 00:04:38.808
Ford thus promoted surfing
to attract white Americans to Hawaii,

00:04:38.808 --> 00:04:42.158
first as tourists, then as residents.

00:04:42.158 --> 00:04:45.389
He was helped by numerous writers
and filmmakers.

00:04:45.389 --> 00:04:49.655
Ford's demographic plan 
would fail miserably.

00:04:49.655 --> 00:04:52.279
Hawaii became a state in 1959

00:04:52.279 --> 00:04:56.889
and remains the most racially diverse 
state in the country.

00:04:56.889 --> 00:05:00.569
But the promotion of surfing
was a far greater success.

00:05:00.569 --> 00:05:04.270
Today, surfing is a multi-billion dollar
global industry,

00:05:04.270 --> 00:05:08.500
with tens of millions 
of enthusiasts worldwide.

00:05:08.500 --> 00:05:13.260
And though relatively few of these surfers
are aware of the once-crucial wave chants

00:05:13.260 --> 00:05:15.171
or board carving rituals,

00:05:15.171 --> 00:05:17.920
Hawaiians continue to preserve
these traditions

00:05:17.920 --> 00:05:21.260
nearly washed away by history's waves.