Jim Kempton - Women on Waves: A Culture History of Surfing—From Ancient Goddesses and Hawaiian Queens to Malibu Movie Stars and Millennial Champions

Women on Waves

A Cultural History of Surfing: From Ancient Goddesses and Hawaiian Queens to Malibu Movie Stars and Millennial Champions

Jim Kempton

To the women on waves everywhere:

Goddesses, queens, world changers, trailblazers, visionaries, record breakers, stylists and joyous enthusiastsLong may you ride.

If ever there has been a subject so ripe for exploration, or so appropriate for recounting, the history of womens surfing is it. Bold, beautiful and breathtaking, the adventures and achievements of women waveriders is an epic that has gone unsung too long.

Any history is a serious undertaking. But womens surfing was made more difficult by the dearth of original sources that were readily accessible. Digging deep and assembling disparate pieces of this collective saga was painstaking but rewarding. It quickly became clear that much that has been written about women surfers is inaccurate, and most has been written by menand from a male point of view. Recent material often tended to be superficial and peripheral.

A decade ago, when I embarked on a womens exhibit at the California Surf Museum, it was an eye-opening experience. Jane Schmass, our historian and Julie Cox, our museum manager at the time, were major contributors to the exhibit. For nearly two years we read, researched, and compiled content about the womens achievements in surfing. Had the framework we assembled back then not been accessible, this book would have taken far longer.

While we chronicled the foremost figures of surf culture, the struggles and barriers that faced women in the modern era (1900 to today) were never really addressed. Nor were the vast number of women who contributed to this progress; we only presented surfings key moments and major stars.

Once neck-deep in writing this book, it became obvious that womens surf history is a history of surfing itself. Women have been embedded in the heart of wave-riding from its ancient origins.

Over my decades in the surf cultureat Surfer magazine, TransWorld and the major womens brands I worked forI met and became friends with many of the most remarkable women who surf. I had championed them over the years and was inspired to tell their stories in one volume. What surprised me was the ocean of new discoveries and little-known achievements that unfolded. Wave after wave of captivating stories began to take form. Like the template of a surfboard blank being sculpted, each layer revealed a more beautiful and significant shape. In the decade since my first research, womens surfing has swept forward like a rising swell, gaining height and strength each year.

This book is meant to be a definitive history of surfingand intended to be seen from the womens perspective, though of course I acknowledge my own male gender as the author. Rarely has a sporting activity carried so much athletic prowess, mental preparation, danger and sheer beauty as the act of surfing.

As a microcosm of the world at large, women waveriders have experienced similar struggles other females have facedacross many social domains. Surfing, however, presents distinctive aspects.

Unlike Run the World (Girls), Beyoncs girl power anthem that played on every platform and in stadiums worldwide, the act of riding a wave is frequently done without an audience and outside of the competitive arena. Most sports are performed in a contest format. The extremely subjective nature of surfing is often more effectively experienced without the constrictions of rigid formal rules. In surfing, judgment should recognize the ballet-like attitude dancing that women in particular excel at creating. Wave-riding is essentially a free-form activity whose acceptance did not become widespread until the mid-20th Century. Unlike child-rearing, warfare or marriage, where social norms have been established for millenniums, surfings gender roles and expectations are neither clear nor constant. Traditions are still in an evolutionary stage.

The origins of surf culture are from a distant world, distinctly dissimilar from the technology-driven, specialized functions of our current social structure. To understand the true relationship of women on wavesand its future potentiala look at surfings ancient past is necessary. And that requires a return to the beginning.

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Surfing is not just an activity. It is a part of the Hawaiian way of life.

Princess Victoria Kaiulani

In 1905 the worlds oldest known surfboard was discovered in Hawaii. It dated back to the early 1600s. And it belonged to a woman.

Pristinely preserved in a cool dry burial cave on the Big Islands Kona coast, this papa hee nalu (Koa wood surfboard) is believed to have been the prize possession of Princess Kaneamuna, a 17th Century Polynesian royal. It had been carefully placed next to her tomb along with a land toboggan (or papa holua) which appears to have been her version of sidewalk surfin.

Like Egyptian Pharaohs, Hawaiian royalty were often buried with their beloved possessions, and these were Princess Kaneamunas favoritesone for hee nalu (surfing), and one for hee holua (coasting on a sled.) On the steep hill just behind the royal village of Hookena, her subjects matted the long native Pili grass to make a smooth, high-speed course for sled sliding. This was no substitute for wave-riding, though. Princess Kaneamuna had surfboards custom-made for her amusementand rode them well.

Hawaiian queens and princesses often had their own private surf spots and were among the best waveriders in their realm.

One particularly fine surfing location was reserved for a single alii woman: a special surf at Waikiki that was taboo to everyone but the Queen. Daring to ride on the royal ladys waves, one young man was severely beaten and nearly put to death.

Women were equal to the men both in status and respect when out in the waves. Most of the early images from Europeans initial voyages show women frolicking with minimal garments in the surf, while their counterparts in England and Spain wore six layers of clothing and shunned exposing even a sleeve to the shoreline sun.

From a historical vantage point today it conjures an almost comical juxtaposition: about the time Queen Anne Boleyns head was rolling into the executioners basket, Kaneamuna was rolling across the pristine surf off the Kona coast, while her entire kingdom watched and cheered. It was good to be queen. At least in Hawaii.

Historical references to surfing and women are as old as the Polynesian culture itself. Like the culture of ancient Greece, the legends go back before any actual living figures. One of Hawaiis greatest deitiesPele, the volcano goddesswas celebrated in Polynesian mythology as a surfer of big waves. But more recent inquiries have found something unique in royal lineage.

Studies of Polynesias historical mythology disclose a fascinating revelation: both women and surfing are central to the ranking of hereditary descendants. When ancient deities and heroic mortals met to compete and procreate, the genealogy of the royalty was determined by the goddesses and queens who represented