
Christian missionaries took a lot of trouble to kill off the sacred sports of the inhabitants of Hawaii. Fortunately, they failed. Today, surfing is increasingly popular all around the world, and enthusiasts have thrown themselves into resurrecting the Hawaiian pastime of ‘sledging’ down the slopes of volcanoes.
“For expert surfers going upland to farm, if part way up perhaps they look back and see the rollers combing the beach, will leave their work […] then, hurrying away home, they will pick up the board and go. All thought of work is at the end, only that of sport is left. The wife may go hungry, the children, the whole family, but the head of the house does not care. He is all for sport, that is his food.”
This isn’t an excerpt from the latest edition of Surfer magazine (the professional surfers’ ‘bible’) describing Hawaiian