Ben Finney

Last updated
Ben Finney
Born(1933-10-01)October 1, 1933
San Diego, California
Died(2017-05-23)May 23, 2017
Honolulu, Hawaii
NationalityAmerican
Occupation(s)Scientist, teacher, writer

Ben Rudolph Finney was an American anthropologist known for his expertise in the history and the social and cultural anthropology of surfing, Polynesian navigation, and canoe sailing, as well as in the cultural and social anthropology of human space colonization. As "surfing's premier historian and leading expert on Hawaiian surfing going back to the 17th century" [1] and "the intellectual mentor, driving force, and international public face" of the Hokulea project, [2] he played a key role in the Hawaiian Renaissance following his construction of the Hokulea precursor Nalehia [3] in the 1960s and his co-founding of the Polynesian Voyaging Society [4] in the 1970s.

Contents

Biography

The son of a United States Navy pilot, Ben Finney was born in 1933 [5] and grew up in San Diego, California. [6] He earned his B.A. in history, economics, and anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley in 1955. In 1958, after serving in the U.S. Navy and working in the steel and aerospace industries, he went to Hawaii, where he earned his M.A. in anthropology at the University of Hawaiʻi in 1959. His master's degree thesis, "Hawaiian Surfing: a Study of Cultural Change", [7] became the basis for Surfing: The Sport of Hawaiian Kings, a book that Finney co-authored with James D. Houston in 1966. [8] Finney earned his Ph.D. in anthropology at Harvard University in 1964.

Finney held faculty appointments at the University of California, Santa Barbara, [9] the Australian National University, the University of French Polynesia, [10] and the International Space University. [11] From 1970 through 2000 he was a professor of anthropology at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, where his courses included Human Adaptation to the Sea and Human Adaptation to Living in Space. From 1994 through 2003 he was the co-chair of the department of Space and Society at the International Space University. [11]

In the 1990s, Finney was a National Research Council Associate with the SETI project [12] at NASA Ames Research Center and involved in the Sandia National Laboratories planning and implementation of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant for the disposal of nuclear waste. [13] [14] He was on the panel of experts for the 1998 PBS program Wayfinders: A Pacific Odyssey. [15] During 2004-2006 he was a curator of the Vaka Moana canoe voyaging exhibit at the Auckland Museum in New Zealand. [16] He was the featured guest speaker at the 2007 National Conference for Educational Robotics. [17]

He later served as a professor at University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, [18] and also as a distinguished research associate of the Bishop Museum. [19] He and his wife, Mila, lived most of the year in Hawaii. Finney died on May 23, 2017, at the age of 83. [20]

Polynesian voyaging

Finney vividly remembers his advisor handing him a copy of Ancient Voyagers in the Pacific [published by the Polynesian Society in 1956], a book by New Zealander Andrew Sharp that suggested that Polynesian canoes were no good, that Polynesian navigation was lousy, and that the Pacific had been settled randomly, and accidentally. Finney, in Hawai‘i to do a master's of anthropology on surfing, took umbrage—inside. "I was already in trouble doing a master’s thesis on surfing, which was considered renegade and lower-class then," he explains. It was no time to hatch what professors might have considered wacky schemes, but silently Finney thought: Why not recreate a sailing canoe and prove Sharp wrong?

— Julia Steele, 'Among the Stars' article, Hana Hou! [21]     

When Ben Finney was a University of Hawaii graduate student in 1958, [21] working toward his Master of Arts degree and writing his dissertation on surfing, scholars were not yet in agreement that any canoe voyages over great distances on the Pacific Ocean had been intentional. [22] The prevailing view was exemplified by a New Zealand historian with a low opinion of Polynesian navigation methods and canoes, Andrew Sharp, who believed that such voyages could only have been accidental. [23]

Finney did not agree with this view and became determined to disprove it. [21] He built the first 40-feet-long replica of a Polynesian sailing canoe while he was teaching at University of California, Santa Barbara in the 1960s. When it was finished, he shipped it to Hawaii, where ancient Hawaii scholar Mary Kawena Pukui named it Nalehia, which in the Hawaiian language means The Skilled Ones, [21] because of the grace with which its twin hulls rode the sea.

In 1973, Finney co-founded the Polynesian Voyaging Society with artist Herb Kawainui Kane and sailor Charles Tommy Holmes. Within three years, they had designed, built, and sailed the Hōkūleʻa on its first historic voyage from Hawaii to Tahiti [22] [24] with a crew led by captain Kawika Kapahulehua and navigator Mau Piailug.

Awards

The awards [25] that were bestowed upon Finney include:

Publications

(These are incomplete listings.)

Selected books

Selected articles

Selected chapters in other books

A character in Launch Out, a Philip Robert Harris science fiction novel that is set in the year 2010, is based on Finney, a University of Hawaiʻi professor of anthropology who is also the president of the fictional Unispace Academy. [34]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polynesian Voyaging Society</span> Navigational society in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States

The Polynesian Voyaging Society (PVS) is a non-profit research and educational corporation based in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. PVS was established to research and perpetuate traditional Polynesian voyaging methods. Using replicas of traditional double-hulled canoes, PVS undertakes voyages throughout Polynesia navigating without modern instruments.

<i>Hōkūleʻa</i> Polynesian double-hulled voyaging canoe

Hōkūleʻa is a performance-accurate waʻa kaulua, a Polynesian double-hulled voyaging canoe. Launched on 8 March 1975 by the Polynesian Voyaging Society, it is best known for its 1976 Hawaiʻi to Tahiti voyage completed with exclusively traditional navigation techniques. The primary goal of the voyage was to explore the anthropological theory of the Asiatic origin of native Oceanic people as the result of purposeful trips through the Pacific, as opposed to passive drifting on currents or sailing from the Americas. DNA analysis supports this theory. A secondary project goal was to have the canoe and voyage "serve as vehicles for the cultural revitalization of Hawaiians and other Polynesians."

Hawaiʻiloa is a mythical Hawaiian fisherman and navigator who is said to have discovered the island of Hawaiʻi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Herb Kawainui Kāne</span> American Hawaiian artist, historian, and author

Herbert Kawainui Kāne, considered one of the principal figures in the renaissance of Hawaiian culture in the 1970s, was a celebrated artist-historian and author with a special interest in the seafaring traditions of the ancestral peoples of Hawaiʻi. Kāne played a key role in demonstrating that Hawaiian culture arose not from some accidental seeding of Polynesia, but that Hawaiʻi was reachable by voyaging canoes from Tahiti able to make the journey and return. This offered a far more complex notion of the cultures of the Pacific Islands than had previously been accepted. Furthermore, he created vivid imagery of Hawaiian culture prior to contact with Europeans, and especially the period of early European influence, that sparked appreciation of a nearly forgotten traditional life. He painted dramatic views of war, exemplified by The Battle at Nuʻuanu Pali, the potential of conflicts between cultures such as in Cook Entering Kealakekua Bay, where British ships are dwarfed and surrounded by Hawaiian canoes, as well as bucolic quotidian scenes and lush images of a robust ceremonial and spiritual life, that helped arouse a latent pride among Hawaiians during a time of general cultural awakening.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Duff Islands</span> Island group

The Duff Islands are a small island group lying to the northeast of the Santa Cruz Islands in the Solomon Islands province of Temotu. They are also sometimes known as the Wilson Islands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Taumako</span> Island in Temotu Province, Solomon Islands

Taumako is the largest of the Duff Islands, in the Solomon Islands. This 5.7-kilometre-long (3.5-mile) island has steep sides and rises to a height of 400 metres above sea level. It is composed of basaltic lavas and pyroclastics like the other islands in the Duffs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hawaiian Renaissance</span> Hawaiian resurgence of their distinct cultural identity

The Hawaiian Renaissance was the Hawaiian resurgence of a distinct cultural identity that draws upon traditional kānaka maoli culture, with a significant divergence from the tourism-based culture which Hawaiʻi was previously known for worldwide. The Hawaiian Renaissance has been pointed to as a global model for biocultural restoration and sustainability.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mau Piailug</span> Micronesian navigator (1932–2010)

Pius "Mau" Piailug was a Micronesian navigator from the Carolinian island of Satawal, best known as a teacher of traditional, non-instrument wayfinding methods for open-ocean voyaging. Mau's Carolinian navigation system, which relies on navigational clues using the Sun and stars, winds and clouds, seas and swells, and birds and fish, was acquired through rote learning passed down through teachings in the oral tradition. He earned the title of master navigator (palu) by the age of eighteen, around the time the first American missionaries arrived in Satawal. As he neared middle age, Mau grew concerned that the practice of navigation in Satawal would disappear as his people became acculturated to Western values. In the hope that the navigational tradition would be preserved for future generations, Mau shared his knowledge with the Polynesian Voyaging Society (PVS). With Mau's help, PVS used experimental archaeology to recreate and test lost Hawaiian navigational techniques on the Hōkūleʻa, a modern reconstruction of a double-hulled Hawaiian voyaging canoe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nainoa Thompson</span> Native Hawaiian navigator

Charles Nainoa Thompson is a Native Hawaiian navigator and the president of the Polynesian Voyaging Society. He is best known as the first Hawaiian to practice the ancient Polynesian art of navigation since the 14th century, having navigated two double-hulled canoes from Hawaiʻi to other island nations in Polynesia without the aid of western instruments.

David Henry Lewis was a sailor, adventurer, doctor, and scholar of Polynesian culture. He is best known for his studies on the traditional systems of navigation used by the Pacific Islanders. His studies, published in the book We, the Navigators, made these navigational methods known to a wide audience and helped to inspire a revival of traditional voyaging methods in the South Pacific.

Patrick Vinton Kirch is an American archaeologist and Professor Emeritus of Integrative Biology and the Class of 1954 Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also the former Curator of Oceanic Archaeology in the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, and director of that museum from 1999 to 2002. Currently, he is professor in the department of anthropology at the University of Hawai'i Manoa, and a member of the board of directors of the Bishop Museum.

Alingano Maisu, also known as Maisu, is a double-hulled voyaging canoe built in Kawaihae, Hawaii by members of Na Kalai Waʻa Moku o Hawaiʻi and ʻOhana Wa'a members from throughout the Pacific and abroad as a gift and tribute to Satawalese navigator Mau Piailug, who navigated the voyaging canoe Hōkūleʻa on her maiden voyage to Tahiti in 1976 and has since trained numerous native Hawaiians in the ancient art of wayfinding. The word maisu comes from the Satawalese word for breadfruit that has been knocked down by storm winds and is therefore available for anyone to take. The name is said to symbolize the knowledge of navigation that is made freely available.

Public anthropology, according to Robert Borofsky, a professor at Hawaii Pacific University, "demonstrates the ability of anthropology and anthropologists to effectively address problems beyond the discipline—illuminating larger social issues of our times as well as encouraging broad, public conversations about them with the explicit goal of fostering social change". The work of Partners In Health is one illustration of using anthropological methods to solve big or complicated problems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polynesian navigation</span> Methods to navigate the Pacific Ocean

Polynesian navigation or Polynesian wayfinding was used for thousands of years to enable long voyages across thousands of kilometers of the open Pacific Ocean. Polynesians made contact with nearly every island within the vast Polynesian Triangle, using outrigger canoes or double-hulled canoes. The double-hulled canoes were two large hulls, equal in length, and lashed side by side. The space between the paralleled canoes allowed for storage of food, hunting materials, and nets when embarking on long voyages. Polynesian navigators used wayfinding techniques such as the navigation by the stars, and observations of birds, ocean swells, and wind patterns, and relied on a large body of knowledge from oral tradition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polynesia</span> Subregion of Oceania

Polynesia is a subregion of Oceania, made up of more than 1000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are called Polynesians. They have many things in common, including language relatedness, cultural practices, and traditional beliefs. In centuries past, they had a strong shared tradition of sailing and using stars to navigate at night. The largest country in Polynesia is New Zealand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tahitians</span> Polynesian ethnic group Indigenous to French Polynesia

The Tahitians are the indigenous Polynesian people of Tahiti and thirteen other Society Islands in French Polynesia. The numbers may also include the modern population in these islands of mixed Polynesian and French ancestry. Indigenous Tahitians are one of the largest Polynesian ethnic groups, behind the Māori, Samoans and Hawaiians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Keani Reiner</span> Hawaiian surfer and sailor (1952–1994)

Keani Reiner (1952–1994) was a Hawaiian surfer and sailor. Keani Reiner and her crewmate Penny Rawlins were the first women to sail on a long-open ocean voyage aboard Hōkūleʻa on the return trip from Tahiti to Hawai'i in 1976. She was also a part of the first all-girl crew to complete the Na Holo Kai Sailing Canoe Race from Oahu to Kauai in 1990.

<i>Marumaru Atua</i>

Marumaru Atua is a reconstruction of a vaka moana, a double-hulled Polynesian voyaging canoe. It was built in 2009 by the Okeanos Foundation for the Sea. In 2014, it was gifted to the Cook Islands Voyaging Society. It is used to teach polynesian navigation.

<i>Gaualofa</i>

Gaualofa is a reconstruction of a va'a-tele, a double-hulled Polynesian voyaging canoe. It was built in 2009 by the Okeanos Foundation for the Sea. It was given to the Samoa Voyaging Society in 2012, on the occasion of Samoa's 50th anniversary of independence. It is used to teach polynesian navigation.

<i>Faʻafaite</i>

Faʻafaite is a reconstruction of a double-hulled Polynesian voyaging canoe. It was built in 2009 by the Okeanos Foundation for the Sea. It is operated by the Fa’afaite-Tahiti Voyaging Society and used to teach used to teach polynesian navigation.

References

  1. ↑ Glenn Hening (April 14, 2004). "Riding Waves Two Thousand Years Ago" (PDF). Groundswell Society. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 16, 2007.
  2. 1 2 Atholl Anderson (March 2006). "Sailing in the Wake of the Ancestors: Reviving Polynesian Voyaging (Book review)". Asian Perspectives. 45 (1). doi:10.1353/asi.2006.0001. S2CID   161454889.
  3. ↑ Gary T. Kubota (July 7, 2006). "Building a Dream". Honolulu Star-Bulletin . Full article (PDF) with photographs and diagrams.
  4. ↑ Brief History Archived May 11, 2008, at the Wayback Machine of the Polynesian Voyaging Society on the PVS website.
  5. ↑ Locher, F. R. (June 1974). Contemporary Authors: A Bibliographical Guide to Current Writers in Fiction, General Non-Fiction, Poetry, Journalism, Drama, Motion Pictures, Televi. Gale Research Company. ISBN   9780810300200.
  6. ↑ Edward Regis, Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition: Science Slightly Over the Edge (pages 230-233, Chapter 7: "Hints for the Better Operation of the Universe"). Reading: Addison-Wesley, 1990. ISBN   0-201-56751-2.
  7. ↑ Cited in Geoffrey M White and Ty Kawika Tengan, "Disappearing Worlds: Anthropology and Cultural Studies in Hawaiʻi and the Pacific" (Project MUSE). The Contemporary Pacific. volume 13, number 2 (2001) pages 381-416.
  8. 1 2 Rick Kleffel (April 2007). "Intimate Dance". Metro Silicon Valley . Interview with James D. Houston
  9. ↑ Ferrie, Helke (December 1997). "An Interview with C. Loring Brace". Current Anthropology. 38 (5): 851–869. doi:10.1086/204674. JSTOR   204674. S2CID   143632772.
  10. ↑ "Ben Finney Lecture: The Way to Tahiti — Ke Ala i Kahiki". Auckland War Memorial Museum . December 14, 2006. Archived from the original on November 28, 2007. Public Programmes for the Vaka Moana Exhibition
  11. 1 2 International Space University. ISU Space and Society Department. ISU Faculty.
  12. ↑ Douglas Vakoch (January 27, 2005). "Universal Translator Might be Needed to Understand ET". SETI Institute. Archived from the original on November 8, 2007.
  13. ↑ Jon Lomberg, Design Director for NASA's Voyager Golden Record (2007). "A Portrait of Humanity". Jon Lomberg website. Archived from the original on 2008-09-07.
  14. ↑ Sandia National Laboratories. "Excerpts". Expert Judgment on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant report SAND92-1382 / UC-721, page F-49.
  15. ↑ Public Broadcasting Service (1998). "Ask The Experts". Wayfinders: A Pacific Odyssey.
  16. ↑ Auckland Museum, Vaka Moana: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Exploration (December 8, 2006 – April 8, 2007).
  17. ↑ "July 2007 National Conference on Educational Robotics". KISS Institute for Practical Robotics] Botball website. Archived from the original on 2007-11-15.
  18. ↑ "Ben Finney, Professor Emeritus". University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa faculty page. Archived from the original on 2008-01-09.
  19. ↑ Bishop Museum Press. "Authors: Ben Finney". Archived from the original on 2009-02-01.
  20. ↑ "Polynesian Voyaging Society co-founder Ben Finney dies at 83". 24 May 2017.
  21. 1 2 3 4 Julia Steele (photographs by Monte Costa). "Among the Stars". Hana Hou! Volume 10, Number 4, September/October 2007.
  22. 1 2 Douglas Martin (June 3, 2007). "Kawika Kapahulehua; famed captain sailed from Hawaii to Tahiti". The San Diego Union-Tribune . Archived from the original on February 2, 2013.
  23. ↑ Public Broadcasting Service (1998). "Heyerdahl and Sharp". Wayfinders: A Pacific Odyssey.
  24. ↑ Suzanne Roig (March 5, 2006). "Hokule'a's voyage to Tahiti a journey in time". The Honolulu Advertiser . Article includes February 8, 1976 photograph (Ben Finney, 2nd from right) from the newspaper's library.
  25. ↑ University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Center for Pacific Islands Studies. "Staff and Faculty Activities". Pacific News from Mānoa, Number 3, July–September 1997. Archived from the original on 2007-08-09.
  26. ↑ Ben R. Finney and Eric M. Jones, "The Exploring Animal" (from page 15) in Interstellar Migration and the Human Experience. "We homo sapiens are by nature wanderers, the inheritors of an exploring and colonizing bent that is deeply embedded in our evolutionary past… What makes us different from other expansionary species is our ability to adapt to new habitats through technology: We invent tools and devices that enable us to spread into areas for which we are not biologically adapted ... However, it is not simply the technological ability to build spaceships, life support systems, and the like that will drive the expansion into space. Whereas technology gives us the capacity to leave Earth, it is the explorer's bent, embedded deep in our biocultural nature, that is leading us to the stars."
  27. ↑ Eric M. Jones. "Who is Eric Jones?". Apollo Lunar Surface Journal.
  28. ↑ Grey, Jerry; Ham Dan, Lawrence A. "Table of Contents". Space Manufacturing 4: Proceedings of the Fifth Princeton University/American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Conference, May 18–21, 1981. Space Studies Institute.
  29. ↑ Finney, Ben (1991). "Myth, Experiment, and the Reinvention of Polynesian Voyaging". American Anthropologist. 93 (2): 383–404. doi:10.1525/aa.1991.93.2.02a00060. JSTOR   681301.
  30. ↑ Ben Finney (1994). "The Other One-Third of the Globe" (PDF). Journal of World History . 5 (2). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-07-12. Retrieved 2008-01-01.
  31. ↑ Finney, Ben (1995). "A Role for Magnetoreception in Human Navigation?". Current Anthropology. 36 (3): 500–506. doi:10.1086/204386. JSTOR   2744059. S2CID   145748805.
  32. ↑ Vaka Moana, Voyages of the Ancestors: The Discovery and Settlement of the Pacific. Companion book for the Exhibition Vaka Moana: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Exploration at the Auckland War Memorial Museum, December 8, 2006 – April 8, 2007.
  33. ↑ John Hattendorf, editor in chief. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. ISBN   0-19-513075-8.
  34. ↑ Univelt book review of Philip R. Harris, Launch Out. Haverford: Infinity Publishing, 2003. ISBN   0-7414-1487-2. ASIN   0741414872. (Page 372: "Dr. Ben Finney still maintained an office at the University of Hawaiʻi. The distinguished anthropologist and author of From Sea to Space had been an ideal selection for the Unispace presidential post.")

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