Surf Writers of the Resolution and Discovery: Texts, Waves, Politics, and Death at Kealakekua Bay

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Lance Bertelsen

The first descriptions of Hawaiian surfing were written by David Samwell, surgeon of HMS Discovery, and James King, second lieutenant of HMS Resolution, in the months bracketing Captain James Cook’s death at Kealakekua Bay on 14 February 1779. In his journal entry for 22 January, Samwell described Hawaiians surfing six- to seven-foot “alaias” on the “great swell rolling into the Bay,” and in March 1779, King recorded his version of the same event, but neither text was published until 1967. In 1784, King published a significantly revised and expanded version of the scene in the third volume of the official history, A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean. This skewed chronology has led to some disorientation among historians of surfing, while historians of Cook’s voyages, for the most part, have neglected the surfing episodes altogether. In this essay, I address the descriptions in four interrelated contexts: (1) the history of the texts themselves; (2) their importance to the history of surfing; (3) the significance of the swell occurring during the Makahiki festival; and (4) the emotional and metaphorical impact of the scene on Western observers/writers schooled in the politics of the sublime. In the final two contexts, I suggest the metaphorical and material relationship of the scenes to King’s famous description of Cook’s death in A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean and to Samwell’s equally famous response in A Narrative of the Death of Captain Cook (1786).

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicky M. Wright ◽  
◽  
Maria Seton ◽  
Simon E. Williams ◽  
R. Dietmar Müller

Zootaxa ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4671 (3) ◽  
pp. 396-406
Author(s):  
RICARDO BRITZKE ◽  
NAÉRCIO A. MENEZES ◽  
MAURO NIRCHIO

Mugil setosus Gilbert 1892 was originally described by Gilbert based on specimens from Clarion Island, in the western and most remote of the Revillagigedo Islands, about 1,000 km off the western Pacific coast of Mexico. Examination of the type of material and recently collected specimens from Ecuador and Peru, resulted in the redescription provided herein. Diagnostic characters of the species were mainly: tip of the pelvic fin reaching beyond the vertical through the base of the third dorsal-fin spine, the pectoral-fin rays with ii+13–14 rays, the anterodorsal tip of second (soft) dorsal fin uniformly dark, and an external row of larger teeth, and more internally a patch of scattered smaller teeth, visible mainly in adults 150 mm SL. The expansion of geographic distribution of Mugil setosus and occurrence of Mugil curema Valenciennes 1836 in the Pacific Ocean are discussed. 


Author(s):  
Elizabeth Sinn

This chapter takes a broad look at the Pacific Ocean in relation to Chinese migration. As trade, consumption and capital flows followed migrants, powerful networks were woven and sustained; in time, the networks fanned across the Pacific from British Columbia along the West Coast of the United States to New Zealand and Australia. The overlapping personal, family, financial and commercial interests of Chinese in California and those in Hong Kong, which provide the focus of this study, energized the connections and kept the Pacific busy and dynamic while shaping the development of regions far beyond its shores. The ocean turned into a highway for Chinese seeking Gold Mountain, marking a new era in the history of South China, California, and the Pacific Ocean itself.


Nature ◽  
1930 ◽  
Vol 125 (3159) ◽  
pp. 750-751 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. W. GREGORY

Radiocarbon ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 285-292

This study was undertaken to determine the time history of the surface to deep 14C/C ratio difference for the Pacific Ocean (see Fig 10; Tables 12, 13).


Viatica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne-Gaëlle WEBER

The story of Captain Cook’s death, within the narrative of his third voyage, accomplishes the feat of making Cook the author of a text he could not write. Considered as the apotheosis of the history of scholarly exploration journeys, the "voyage to the Pacific Ocean" becomes a poetic model that retrospectively invites us to re-read all the narratives of scholar travels. It suggests that this genre, although claiming to be scientific in scope, is fully literary and plays a bit of an auctorial role in establishing the authority of the statements retraced. It is the obvious realization of what literary and philosophical critics have called the “function auteur”: a dead individual can only become an author if the author is a textual construct.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Petrov ◽  
Alexey Yermolaev ◽  
Maria Koskina

This article discusses the reasons for the Russian government’s interest in the exploration of the Pacific frontiers in the early eighteenth century. The authors pay special attention to the expeditions organised before the First Kamchatka expedition. Those expeditions were organised by I. M. Evreinov, F. F. Luzhin, I. Kozyrevsky, Ya. A. Yelchin, and others. The authors clarify which expeditions were organised at the personal order of Peter the Great and study them in the context of the international situation. Special attention is paid to the debatable aspects of the orders of Peter the Great regarding the expeditions of Evreinov and Luzhin. The article is relevant because of the growing attention of researchers to the history of the Far East and the Pacific Ocean. Referring to new materials, the authors revise the opinion existing in the literature on the spontaneity of Peter the Great’s decision to explore the Pacific Ocean. The article provides information on different categories of the Russian population and the diversity of the Russian regions that took part in the exploration of the Pacific. The article demonstrates how the expeditions of 1711 and 1722 contributed to strengthening Russia’s position in the Far East. The authors employ an interdisciplinary approach, using the latest achievements in historical studies, traditional methods (comparative, genetic, the history of state and law) and new approaches (microhistory, historical psychology, the history of everyday life, historical anthropology, and ethnohistory). The study’s main results are the analysis of the projects and direct activities of Russian expeditions to America in the early eighteenth century. The authors also reveal the reasons for government interest in the eastern borders of Russia, which consisted of the country’s imperial status and its international position.


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