Tom Blake’s Hawaiian Surfboard and the writing of surf history

Tom Blake’s Hawaiian Surfboard (1935) has long been regarded as a seminal text in surf culture, the first book to present the history of the sport from ancient Hawaiian legends to the evolution of surfing and surfboards through the first three decades of the twentieth century. A close reading of the book’s content, however – including the invented romance of Nani and Moloa (this latter character based on Blake himself) – reveals Blake’s appropriation of Native Hawaiian identity as he inserts himself into Hawaiian history alongside legendary figures. His fantasy might be considered nothing more than a white man’s self-indulgence, using his pen to right wrongs and turn personal failure into success, if not for the significant influence that Hawaiian Surfboard exerted on later histories of surfing. The essence of this influence – exemplified, for example, in the research done by Ben Finney and James Houston – propagates ‘rescue’ narratives that work as a blanket justification for appropriating cultural traditions and assuming political control of Hawai`i and its people. Ultimately, Hawaiian Surfboard represents not so much a history of surfing as a powerful discourse that marshals a mainlander’s anglocentric view of surfing’s past and guides readers to the conclusion that surfing’s future lies with western innovation, especially Blake and his hollow surfboards

Appropriation · Fantasy · Identity (music · Narrative · Nothing · Reading (process · Romance · White (mutation · Adventure Sports and Sensation Seeking · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Sports, Gender, and Society