Editing Surfing (section)

===Polynesia===
[[File:Surf-riding 1858.jpg|thumb|left|Hawaiians surfing, 1858]]
In [[Polynesian culture]], surfing was an important activity. Modern surfing as we know it today is thought to have originated in [[Hawaii]]. The history of surfing dates to {{circa|AD 400}} in Polynesia, where [[Polynesians]] began to make their way to the [[Hawaiian Islands]] from [[Tahiti]] and the [[Marquesas Islands]]. They brought many of their customs with them including playing in the surf on Paipo (belly/body) boards. It was in Hawaii that the art of standing and surfing upright on [[Surfboard|boards]] was invented.<ref name="Walker2011">{{cite book|author=Isaiah Helekunihi Walker|title=Waves of Resistance: Surfing and History in Twentieth-century Hawaiʻi|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y_KrcQAACAAJ|year=2011|publisher=University of Hawaiʻi Press|isbn=978-0-8248-3547-7|page=16}}</ref>

Various European explorers witnessed surfing in [[Polynesia]].  Surfing may have been observed by British explorers at Tahiti in 1767. [[Samuel Wallis]] and the crew members of {{HMS|Dolphin|1751|6}} were the first Britons to visit the island in June of that year. Another candidate is the botanist [[Joseph Banks]]<ref>Fleming, F. (c. 2005). ''Off the Map: Tales of Endurance and Exploration'', p. 154. Atlantic Monthly Press.</ref> who was part of the [[first voyage of James Cook]] on {{HMS|Endeavour}}, arriving on Tahiti on 10 April 1769. Lieutenant [[James King (Royal Navy officer)|James King]] was the first person to write about the art of surfing on Hawaii, when he was completing the journals of Captain [[James Cook]] (upon Cook's death in 1779).

In [[Herman Melville]]'s 1849 novel ''[[Mardi]]'', based on his experiences in Polynesia earlier that decade, the narrator describes the "Rare Sport at Ohonoo" (title of chap. 90): “For this sport, a surf-board is indispensable: some five feet in length; the width of a man's body; convex on both sides; highly polished; and rounded at the ends. It is held in high estimation; invariably oiled after use; and hung up conspicuously in the dwelling of the owner.”<ref>''Mardi, and A Voyage Thither'' (Northwestern University Press, 1970), 273.</ref> When [[Mark Twain]] visited Hawaii in 1866 he wrote, "In one place, we came upon a large company of naked natives of both sexes and all ages, amusing themselves with the national pastime of surf-bathing."<ref>{{cite book |last=Twain |first=Mark |title=Roughing It |year=2007 |publisher=Digireads.com Publishing |location=Lawrence, Kansas |isbn=9781420930283 |page=264 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gjUOvGeK51MC}}</ref>

References to surf riding on planks and single canoe hulls are also verified for pre-contact [[Samoa]], where surfing was called ''fa'ase'e'' or ''se'egalu'' (see Augustin Krämer, ''The Samoa Islands''<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LHyUEUwaUdAC|title=The Samoa Islands|access-date=8 November 2014|isbn=9780824822194|last1=Krämer|first1=Augustin|year=2000|publisher=University of Hawaii Press }}</ref>), and [[Tonga]], far pre-dating the practice of surfing by Hawaiians and eastern Polynesians by over a thousand years.