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pods for primates : a catalogue of surfboards in australia since 1900

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polynesian surfriding : 1

chapter 1 : the development of polynesian aquatic culture

1. Introduction..
As European explorers ventured, with great difficulty, across the vast reaches of the Pacific ocean into the Polynesian Triangle (1), they were amazed to find the far-flung islands already populated.
The actual reasons and methods of the discovery and occupation of these islands has caused considerable difficulties for anthropologists.
For James Cook, his discovery of the Hawaii islands in 1778 confirmed a ethnic relationship between the Hawaiians and the inhabitants of Tahiti and New Zealand.
He was convinced that these earlier explorers had come from the west.(2)

Occupation of the western Pacific dates from early prehistory (4).
The beginnings of prehistory are commonly accepted as arising in Africa about 150,000 years ago.
Recent anthrolopogical research has suggested that rather than a northward movement out of Africa into Europe, the earliest expansion of humanity was in a western direction, essentially following the coastline.

Critically, Polynesian culture is divided from the westen Pacific cultures where pottery was common, a technology not in evidence in the former. (3)

Not only did Cook visit Tahiti before Hawaii, but some anthropological evidence indicates this was also the case for polynesian expansion.
Surfriding was, no doubt, a recognised activity in western polynesia before it was exported to the Hawaiian islands, circa 400 CE.
(Recheck: see Lumis: Discovery of T and H, 2005 and Robson)
While there is some oral evidence of possible post-expansion contact between Hawaii and Tahiti, which may have seen an exchange of surfriding skills, this would significantly pre-date European contact. (2)
These early reports appear to accurately represent, to the best of the writer's understanding, the independent developments of several hundred years of ancient Tahitian surfriding.
See Chapter 1 (in preparation)

END NOTES
1. POLYNESIAN EXPOLATION AND COLONISATION, 1400.

2. Finney, Ben and Houston, James D.: Surfing – A History of the Ancient Hawaiian Sport
Pomegranate Books. P.O. Box 6099 Rohnert Park, CA 94927 1996. page 25

polynesian surfriding : chapter 2
polynesian aquatic legends
(not avaiable)
polynesian surfriding: chapter 3
tahiti 1767-1900