The History of Surfing
Ancient Songs - A Changing Culture
Because the Hawaiians never developed a "printed language" per se, they were highly evolved as a "chanting culture." Some of you may remember the Kumulipo: a 2102-line Hawaiian chant on creation composed about 1700 A.D. Stories such as the Pohuehue chant and the Kumulipo were committed to memory and handed down generation to generation. The ancient Hawaiian songs were called mele, and were really poems which were chanted, often accompanied to the Hawaiian people, for in them they preserved their legends, traditions, genealogies and history. The same thing happened in Europe during the middle ages where minstrels and troubadours preserved the legends and history of the time in song.
The Ali'i, or chieftains of the Hawaiian people, composed a large percentage of the mele and early songs. Why were the ali'i such prolific composers? Because both their heritage and their education made them better fitted for composition than either the kahuna or priests, or the maka'ainana, or common people. In contrast to the kings of feudal Europe who were largely illiterate, the Hawaiian ali'i were very well educated. They had superb physical education, and they learned the traditions of their people the religious rites of the kahuna, and many of the traditional chants. Since a large percentage of the first arrivals in the canoes from Tahiti were ali'i, a relatively large percentage of Hawaiian people are descended from ali'i stock. So it is no accident that they are musical, or that the ali'i composed most of the songs.
Known chants that have to do with surfing-or surfing's physical and metaphysical effects on mind and body- are too numerous to recount here, but those that are mentioned illustrate the role surfing played in the social and spiritual lives of ancient Hawaiian practitioners. Thomas G. Thrum's Hawaiian Annual for the year 1896 notes that "surf riding was one of the favorite Hawaiian sports, in which chiefs, men, women, and youth took a lively interest. Much valuable time was spent by them in this practice throughout the day."
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