Who Invented Surfing? The Truth Revealed
Author: Marcus M | SMH Chief Curator
Butler, 1858 (source)
Around 315,000 BC, Thag and Zorak, two of the first homo-sapiens, were lounging around their cave dwelling after a long day of hunting and gathering. Bored and armed with highly functioning opposable thumbs, Thag picked up a small stone and pitched it overhand into a clay receptacle that the clan used to fetch water. It went in. He chuckled, found another stone, tried again, but missed. Amused, Zorak grabbed a large pebble from the dirt floor and tried as well, hitting the target dead-center to the disdain of Thag. They were tied, and repeated the activity for the next hour until the game lost its luster. Over time, Thag and Zorak would engage in this activity to pass the time and eventually others from the clan would join in. It was nothing evolutionarily groundbreaking, mind you, as the instinct to put something in a hole is as innate to homo-sapiens as eating and procreating (both involving a similar process).
But here’s the thing, Thag and Zorak did not invent basketball. Springfield Massachusetts college instructor James Naismith did so in 1891 when he affixed a pair of peach baskets to opposite ends of a gymnasium, handed some young men a ball, and paved the way for $200 million sneaker deals.
The parable of Thag and Zorak and the Naismith tie-in are meant to prove a point that may not be evident to those unaware of the furious debate that is currently occurring over who invented surfing. Ask most, and they will reply instantly with “Hawaiians“. However, a narrative is being built that seeks to refute the claim.
South America’s Peru is primarily named in this narrative. Peru has long been obsessed with the Hawaiian Kingdom’s relationship with surf-riding. In 1942, Peruvian surfer Carlos Dogny founded “Club Waikiki” in the beachfront community of Miraflores. Perhaps “Club Lima” wasn’t available for purchase at GoDaddy at the time? To be fair, Dogny was a fan, and cannot be faulted for borrowing from a culture that he so clearly adored. So where is the campaign to claim surfing really coming from? It can be theorized that the Peruvian government wants the credit. They have had a Polynesian-sized chip on their shoulder even since Thor Heyerdahl and the 1947 Kon-Tiki expedition attempted to prove that ancient Peruvians sailed west from South America to colonize the Pacific islands. However, DNA evidence obliterated the claim, and Heyerdahl’s hypothesis of Polynesian origins from the Americas is considered pseudoscientific if not racially motivated.
Rumblings of Peru being the rightful inventor of the Sport of Kings have persisted through the decades. The idea recently resurfaced when surf journalism’s brat prince, Chas Smith (who I’m a fan of, btw) chose to ruffle feathers in 2018 with his book Cocaine & Surfing. Among the many tangents Smith explored, he suggested that ancient Peruvians started surfing around 3500 years ago. Then, the BBC ran an article titled “The Unlikely Country That May Have Invented Surfing” in September of 2024 which wove the same tale and pushed Smith’s 3500 year estimation to 5000. If the dateline holds true, Peruvians could potentially have a strong claim considering that the Hawaiian Islands were settled later, between 1000- 1200 AD.
Evidence does confirm that Club Waikiki’s ancestors did indeed leverage the power of the ocean to ride towards shore, doing so on craft called caballitos (translates to “little reed horses”). Caballitos were made with tightly bound bundles of totora reeds that grow in freshwater ponds near Peru’s northern coast. However, the craft were created solely to allow fishermen to make it out beyond breaking waves, and provide them with a means to ride the waves back to the beach when they made their catch for the day. Did they enjoy the sensation? Of course. Would they have paddled back out unnecessarily to ride a few more before the sun set? Absolutely. There is little doubt that village children would have caught on and used their own bamboo poles to dig beyond the break and give it a whirl as well. Within the BBC feature, Professor of Economic History and Latin American International Studies, Enrique Amayo Zevallos, claimed that caballitos-riding eventually became a leisure activity and sport that lasted until Spanish missionaries banned it as a pagan activity. There is little evidence beyond Zevallos’s accounting, but let’s take his word for it. One may even excuse the fact that caballitos-riding was first and foremost a functional practice, with any enjoyment to follow being a side effect. What’s more important to consider, is whether or not riding atop bound bundles of swamp grass equates surfing. Because if it does, the narrative gets more problematic. The credit could therefore be applied to other ancient civilizations that used craft made any buoyant material for intended movement upon waves.
Peruvian caballitos (source: Wiki Commons)
There is no malicious intent to single out Peru in this article. Blame manufacturers of the narrative for thrusting Peru to the forefront of the discussion. It is an important discussion to have, though, because the debate must be put to rest once and for all. Please keep reading.
Why There is No Debate in the Debate Over Who Invented Surfing
Wave-Riding is Not the Primary Qualifier
As search data from Google confirms, each month up to 10,000 people around the world perform an online search for “who invented surfing”. They don’t search “who invented bodysurfing” or “who invented wave riding” or “who invented boogie boarding” and the like. The motivation behind this query is what helps us arrive at an important conclusion.
Source: Google Keyword Planner
If one is to define the act of wave riding of any type as being surfing, then the primary qualifier in who invented surfing is chronology, And if that is the case, the protagonists in the introductory parable would likely claim the title, along with being the inventors of NCAA DI basketball. If not them, then some inhabitant nearJebel Irhoud, Morocco, in northern Africa. This is where the first homo-sapien remains (dating back around 315,000 years) were discovered. Morocco’s coastline is 2175 miles long, boasting playful waves in addition to world class point breaks. It would be ridiculous to suggest that the first homo-sapiens would not have ventured to the coast in search of sustenance. They would have entered the ocean and quickly realized its capacity to carry and jettison them forward. Soon after, these early humans would use objects to stay afloat and realize that they could be used to move more steadily to and from the shore.
In the unlikely scenario that the world’s first coastal humans didn’t experience wave-riding, then what about the vast period between 315,000 BCE and the 3,500-5000 Peruvian epoch? Or should we take it a step further and bring homo-erectus into the conversation? Research confirms that homo erectus were the first raft builders, reaching a remote Indonesian Island around 800,000 BCE, Considering the shape of these rafts one may speculate that homo-erectus were getting semi-shacked in Indo long before Gerry Lopez rolled up to G-Land.
Look, logic firmly dictates that any one of the ancient civilizations (namely Maya, India, Egypt, and China) with access to the sea would have had ancient peoples who ventured in to catch fish on a type of craft. In time, they would figured out how to harness the ocean’s power to return to the tideline. Beyond function, they would experience the pleasure of wave riding in some shape or form. Those backing the Peruvian yarn should also note that bound reed craft that more closely resembled surfboards than elf-shoe shaped caballitos were used in ancient Babylon. The craft allowed Egyptians to paddle the Nile to the Mediterranean Sea, where coastal Alexandria persists as the epicenter of Egypt’s surf community. More telling, is the fact that ancient Egyptians rode upon flattened logs that allowed them to manage of the Nile’s white water rapids. Does the following illustration of Egyptians in the tumultuous Nile look familiar?
R. Talbot Kelly (1899), Humbler Craft: Rafts of the Egyptian Nile
Alas, the mere act of being immersed within a wave and enjoying how it moves us is not what inquiring minds want to know. When thousands of people around the world ban to together ask who invented surfing, we’re all well aware of that they mean. For this reason, we must only consider surfboard riding when defining which civilization invented surfing. Those fabricating an alternative narrative should probably get off their high horse, or little reed horse in this case.
To Ask “Who Invented Surfing?” is to Ask “Who Invented Surfboards?”
Chief Kalanimoku w/wife Likelike and Olo surfboard
Pellion, 1819 (Wiki Commons)
It’s no coincidence that global search volume for “who invented the surfboard” is the same as “who invented surfing”. The two are tethered together more tightly that those totora reeds. Given that a surfboard is required for the Cambridge, Merriam-Webster, Oxford, and pervasive definition of surfing, to know who invented surfing is to know who invented the surfboard. And that, dear friends, is credited to the first Hawaiians.
Hawaiians didn’t just create a single craft. They created a quiver to account for social hierarchy, status, ability, and conditions. There were four types of ancient Hawaiian craft. In order of length, these included the Olo (between 12 and 18 feet), Kiko`o (between 10 and 14 feet), Alaia (between 6 and 10 feet) and the Pae Po’o (between 4 and 5 feet). The creation of each board was categorical, the builder’s determination resolute, and its purpose unambiguous.
The observance of ritual began when a potential surfboard was still an image in the craftman’s mind; it began with the tree. When he had elected a suitable koa or wiliwili tree, a board builder placed a red fish at its trunk. He then cut down the tree with a stone axe, dug a hole among the roots, and placed the fish therein with a prayer as an offering to the gods in return for the tree he was about to shape into a board […] Before it was set in the water there were still other rites and ceremonies to be performed in dedicating the board to insure its wave-riding success.
Surging: A History of the Ancient Hawaiian Sport (Ben Finney and James D. Houston)
Hawaiian with his surfboard, photographed in 1890
It’s not as if Peru didn’t have a shot at it. Given the region’s geographical diversity, 28 different climates, and 84 existing ecological zones, Peruvian flora is one of the most diverse on the planet, birthing more than 3,000 different species of trees. Had there been a populous demand to ride waves for pure enjoyment, craftsmen could have imported wood from beyond the coastal desert, and carved wooden planks for this purpose at some point over the 5000 years. But no such relics exist in South America.
Board-building did exist in Africa, however. Micheal Hammersam and Jean Barbot provided the first two known accounts of African surfing in the mid to late 1600s when they ventured along the Guinea Coast. They noted that children were riding waves for fun upon crude boards cut from kapok (silk cotton tree). There’s no reason to suggest that people of the Guinea Coast (near Morocco, mind you) hadn’t been playing in the waves on boards for thousands of years. Non-written accounts of riding on planks are also discovered in pre-contact Samoa and Tonga, pre-dating the practice of surfing by Hawaiians by over a thousand years. And what about the other “Guinea”? Populated by early Africans about 60,000 years ago and blended with other peoples along the way, there is reasonable speculation that wooden boards had been ridden prone in Papua New Guinea for thousands of years prior to 1884 colonizer arrival.
Ultimately, settler chronicles simply hold no weight beyond defining when they first discovered surfing. For instance, Captain James Cook’s 1777-78 observances of natives surf-riding in Hawaii by no means infers that is when surfing first occurred. Just because a European hadn’t yet arrived to witness and write it down, doesn’t indicate that a thing wasn’t happening beforehand.
Despite the evidence of craft being used to ride waves spanning the globe for many millenniums, it is all of weak consequence. Whether bound reeds or planks cut from a silk cotton tree, none were created with the Hawaiian precision or specification for standup wave riding (aka surfing). But allow this writer the following closing argument.
The Civilization Credited for Spreading Surfing Around the World
An invention is of no significance if its application remains in the workshop or household of its inventor. Ask Randall Peltzer if his Bathroom Buddy has had any lasting relevance. Feel free to Google it, I’ll wait.
Hawaiians didn’t just create the world’s first surfboards, they were directly responsible for its spread beyond the North Pacific archipelago. Hawaiian princes David Laamea Kahalepouli Kawananakoa Piikoi, Edward Abnel Keliʻiahonui, and Jonah Kūhiō Kalanianaʻole introduced surfing to the mainland in 1885 and proceeded to cross-pollinate it around the world. Their redwood planks inspired the likes of George Freeth, followed by Duke Kahanamoku, Tom Blake, and a myriad of board builders from California including Bob Simmons, Joe Quigg, and Matt Kivlin who advanced surf-riding craft that originated in Hawaii. When big-wave pioneer and legendary board builder Greg Noll chose to honor the beginnings of surfing in 1992, he crafted a 15-foot replica olo from a 700-pound slab of redwood, not the botanical Phragmites australis of Peru. Nor did the very first surf shop or any of the thousands to follow carry caballitos for the intent and purpose of outfitting the masses with a means to surf.
Any other civilization’s effort to demonstrate that they invented and spread of surfing to the world falls as flat as Thor Heyerdahl failure to prove that South America populated Polynesia.
In Summary
We conclude this introspection with a crude but apt paraphrasing of Jesse Eisenberg quoting Mark Zuckerberg in 2010’s The Social Network:
You know, you really don’t need a forensics team to get to the bottom of this. If you guys were the inventors of (surfing), you’d have invented (surfing)
Enough said.
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