Reclaiming surfing as a traditional native women's sport
Nuu-chah-nulth youth gather around Lacy Kaheaku, learning how to carve a traditional wooden surf board and of the Indigenous roots sport. https://www.capitaldaily.ca/
Tofino, BC - As the sun beamed onto Esowista beach, youth of the Mułaa, Rising Tide Surf team gathered around Lacy Kaheaku, a native to Hawaiʻi, to learn how to carve traditional wooden surfboards and the Indigenous roots of the sport.
“Women did a lot of the surfing in native Hawaiian culture,” said Kaheaku, adding that royalty, alongside warriors, would also surf. “But majority of the leisurely surfing was done by women.”
Since ancient times, Pacific islanders have surfed. The pastime is believed to have originated in Polynesia, where cave paintings from the 12th century illustrate people riding the waves.
During seafaring journeys the activity reached Hawaii, long before contact with European explorers and the process of colonization began.
Despite these Indigenous roots, hundreds of years later on the B.C. coast the sport has little First Nations participation, said Rachel Dickens, co-founder of Mułaa, Rising Tides Surf team.
“The surf culture [in Tofino] has been predominantly white male dominated,” she said. “There’s not many First Nations faces in the waters despite these being unceded Tla-o-qui-aht lands that most people are surfing on.”
Dickens said that Mułaa, Rising Tides Surf team allows youth to “explore and play and feel like they can take ownership of a sport that's traditionally Indigenous, and learn in an environment with supportive Indigenous mentors or non-Indigenous allies.”
Mułaa, Rising Tides Surf team runs on Monday afternoons throughout the school year and holds a two-week intensive surf camp in the summer.
Hannah Frank of Tla-o-qui-aht has been surfing since she was nine years old, and joined the Rising Tide Surf Team when she was 12 or 13.
“I never saw natives inside the water,” said Frank, who grew up at Esowista, along the coast near Tofino. “It was very rare to see our people go into our waters, except for fishing and crabbing.”
“I got into surfing because it was all I knew,” said Kaheaku. “I wanted to be a professional surfer when I was in high school; that was my dream.”
Kaheaku said that the lack of representation in the surf industry is what influenced her to stop surfing as a teenager.
“I just felt I didn’t fit the profile of what a surfer was,” she said.
“I would see girls that were blonde hair [and] blue eyes get sponsorships, and then I wouldn't be seen,” she said, adding it didn’t matter how well she had surfed. “That was a big part of why I stopped surfing.”
In Kaheaku’s first year of college she met her teacher, Tom Pōhaku Stone, who taught a surfing history class at the college level.
“That class - at that time - I did not know would change the course of my life,” she said.
.jpg)
Youth of the Mułaa, Rising Tide Surf team use a spokeshave to round the edges of traditional surfboards at Esowista.
Stone has been teaching Kaheaku for the last decade, and she has officially graduated to teaching her own workshops.
She returned to surfing when she had children and wanted to teach them the skills. Kaheaku and her six-year-old son entered their first contest together in 2022 and plan to enter another in the coming year.
“What I didn't realize in that class was the movement that Tom Pōhaku Stone was making from a colonized surf industry, and reminding people and teaching people where it came from,” Kaheaku said.
Learning how to carve a traditional surfboard has built Kaheaku’s confidence as a surfer and a mother, she shared.
“I do feel like there will be a revolution in the surf industry,” said Kaheakhu. “I do feel like native and Nati people will be seen, [and] I do feel like women will be seen.”
Kaheaku said she wants to remind women that “this is what we do.”
“You can dominate this industry equally as much as men, if not more,” she said.
Carissa Moore, a native to Hawaiʻi and a professional surfer, was the first woman on team USA to take home an Olympic gold medal in 2020.
“I do see that there is change,” said Kaheaku. “It gives me so much hope for the next generation.”
Frank said that she would love to see youth from the surf team enter in competitions.
“To have them train every day with somebody in the water and having an Indigenous representative from Tla-o-qui-aht in that contest; I think that would be really cool,” said Frank.
The Mułaa, Rising Tide Surf team also aims to shift the mindset around surfing from that of a competitive nature to one that is more collective.
“Not just looking at the physical aspects of surfing, but also the emotional and spiritual parts of being outside and being on the water,” said Dickens.
Frank moved away to attend Shawnigan Lake School this past September and came back home for the summer. She said that getting back into the water made her “very happy.”
“It was medicine,” said Frank.
The youth excitedly gathered around Kaheaku, some grabbing spokeshaves unable to wait, starting to carve as frequently as they could.
Kaheaku demonstrated to the youth how to use spokeshave to round out the corners of the board, explaining to walk slowly as though walking to the nose of the board when surfing.
“What makes it traditional is definitely the shapes,” she said. “The reason why the shapes are the way they are is because they're supposed to represent different things in the water, they’re supposed to be used for different types of waves in the water.”
“That function is related to nature, the ocean, the type of wave, where you are, what kind of wood,” she continued. “The connection of the wood, the forest to the ocean is what identifies as native.”
Kaheaku shared that the close ties between Hawaiʻi and B.C. were connected through the tides bringing wood from the Pacific Northwest to the Islands.
“That’s how we got some of our biggest canoes [and] some of our surfboards,” said Kaheaku. “The connection between B.C. and Hawaiʻi is a lot tighter and closer than what we might realize.”
“If I just stare at the ocean, it’s very much like beaches at home,” said Kaheaku.
-30-
Alexandra Mehl, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Ha-Shilth-Sa
GANADO, Ariz. (AP) — Growing up in Ganado, a small town in Navajo Nation in eastern Arizona, Nikyle Begay always wanted to visit their grandmother's sheep.
Begay's parents had grown up raising livestock, and their dad had always wanted to raise sheep and cattle, but it was a hard way to make a living. In a family with seven children, Begay and their younger sisters were the ones who felt drawn to the sheep. And as a kid, Begay, who is non-binary and uses the pronoun they, always felt connected to their grandmother. While she worked, carding and spinning wool outdoors, Begay would play with Hot Wheels cars, carving little roads in the sand and clay.
"You can never say that you’re broke, that you’re hungry, that you’re bored, that you don’t know what to do, because you have two hands," Begay remembered their grandmother saying while teaching them to weave.
It was a sentiment passed through the generations, one Begay says their great-grandmother had proven by winning the family's first truck, a 1950's Chevy, in a raffle as part of a local sheep shearing contest. By the time Begay was 13, they had gotten involved in local Future Farmers of America programs and started keeping a flock.
When Begay grew up, they moved to Tempe, outside Phoenix, and worked for an electronics manufacturing company. Then the company shifted its operations, and Begay had the option to move to California or Florida. They were torn about the decision, and felt disconnected and lonely.
So Begay came home. It was quiet out here, not loud like in Tempe, making them feel more grounded. Upon returning, Begay learned that their grandmother had, in a Navajo custom, buried their umbilical cord in a sheep corral in the hopes that they would carry on the tradition and become a shepherd and a weaver.
“My heart was always just with the sheep,” they said.
Now 34, Begay has 15 sheep. When it’s time for shearing, they tie their hooves into place and cut the wool by hand with a special pair of scissors. The sheep lies down, calm, as Begay pulls up a section and snips deftly with even strokes. If the sheep gets startled, they soothe them with a soft word or touch. Begay knows each sheep by shades of brown or white, by their horns and by their personalities—assertive, quiet and occasionally sassy or mean.
Begay's family used to have around 150 head, but that isn't possible now. A highway fence has been put up, and the grazing limits are lower. Erosion is common, because more than two decades of drought has meant fewer native grasses to hold the land in place when it does rain. The drought means spending more on feed in the winter. And traders no longer place as high a value on Navajo hand-weaving as they once did, because many, though not all, aspects of weaving can be accomplished by machine. In some ways, the art is dying.
Begay is determined to help stop that from happening. In 2020, they started Rainbow Fiber Co-Op, a wool co-op intended to protect ancestral flocks on Navajo Nation and to help other Diné (Navajo) shepherds get fair prices for their wool, especially wool from the Navajo-Churro breed prized by weavers around the world for their range of natural colors and quality of the fibers.
During the pandemic, they started teaching weaving classes on Zoom, which continue to this day each morning. And Begay is vocal about the importance of sheep and the art of weaving. Their Instagram, @navajoshepherd, shares weaving projects, historical and cultural moments of significance, and of course, pictures of the furry friends they’ve bonded with.
It also provides a window into the cultivating of wool for the purposes of weaving, which is a multi-step craft that requires lots of specialized knowledge. Some of the co-op's wool is processed commercially, but Begay knows how to do every part by hand.
After shearing, Begay uses a long platform made of chicken wire to sift out bits of wool that aren't the right length. They wash the wool by soaking it in water and a bit of dish soap.
Next comes carding — brushing the wool out on a rotating drum to prepare it for making yarn — and sometimes dyeing, a task Begay often takes to California where their best friend has the garage space for it. And finally, there's spinning, which Begay makes look easy — evenly feeding tufts of wool onto a roll that turns with the gentle up-and-down motion of a foot pedal.
Then they weave.
In front of a loom at the dining room table, Begay moves long sticks up and down between the fibers, threads brightly colored strands and uses a weaving comb to lock each line of a project into place. Begay’s current double-sided work, which has completely different colors and patterns on each side, requires deep patience — it can take hours to finish even just a small segment. Begay says many Navajo weavers have special ceremonies to cleanse themselves of the frustration and strong emotions that accompany the weaving.
“They say with weaving, you’re intertwining yourself with every weft,” Begay said.
Like keeping sheep, weaving is an emotionally potent practice for Begay, who describes occasionally having to return from mentally dark places. They sometimes wonder whether keeping the tradition alive even matters in the face of big forces like climate change, drought, and modern development. But Begay also thinks that by raising awareness, combined with simple solutions like adding interested young people to the grazing permits some elders might not be using, there’s hope for the future.
And Begay feels the satisfaction of fulfilling their ancestors’ prayers. They describe a day in 2020, when many of their family members were sick with COVID-19 and wildfire smoke had painted the morning sky with a choking orange sunrise. It felt apocalyptic. Distraught, Begay set about morning chores and took the sheep out to graze.
One of the sheep seemed to notice their distress and wouldn’t leave them alone. As Begay sat on a rock to watch the sun come up, the sheep came right up, face-to-face — and sneezed. Begay was covered in sheep snot, but still felt content.
“You take care of the sheep and they will take care of you,” Begay said.
___
Follow Melina Walling on X, formerly known as Twitter: @MelinaWalling.
___
The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
Melina Walling And John Locher, The Associated Press
No comments:
Post a Comment