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101 Model Essay 1
101 Model Essay 1
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
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
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
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
missions’.
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
During the process, they see the link between surfing and between other aspects such
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
brings alive the many colours of surfing history by colonialism, gender and race
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
Lemarié, Jérémy. "Debating on cultural performances of Hawaiian surfing in the 19th century."
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.