Ben Rudolph Finney was an American anthropologist known for his expertise in the history and the social and

cultural anthropology Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans. It is in contrast to social anthropology, which perceives cultural variation as a subset of a posited anthropological constant. The portm ...

of surfing,

Polynesian navigation 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 Triangl ...

, and

canoe sailing Canoe sailing refers to the practice of fitting an Austronesian outrigger or Western canoe with sails. Austronesian sailing canoes The outrigger canoe was one of the key technological innovations of the Austronesian peoples. Although there is li ...

, as well as in the cultural and

social anthropology Social anthropology is the study of patterns of behaviour in human societies and cultures. It is the dominant constituent of anthropology throughout the United Kingdom and much of Europe, where it is distinguished from cultural anthropology. In t ...

of human

space colonization Space colonization (also called space settlement or extraterrestrial colonization) is the use of outer space or celestial bodies other than Earth for permanent habitation or as extraterrestrial territory. The inhabitation and territor ...

. As “surfing’s premier

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

and leading expert on Hawaiian surfing going back to the 17th century” and “the

intellectual An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for the normative problems of society. Coming from the world of culture, either as a creator o ...

mentor Mentorship is the influence, guidance, or direction given by a mentor. A mentor is someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person. In an organizational setting, a mentor influences the personal and p ...

, driving force, and international public face” of the '' Hokulea'' project, he played a key role in the

Hawaiian Renaissance The Hawaiian Renaissance (also called the Hawaiian Cultural 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 ...

following his construction of the ''Hokulea'' precursor ''Nalehia'' in the 1960s and his co-founding of the

Polynesian Voyaging Society The Polynesian Voyaging Society (PVS) is a non-profit research and educational corporation based in Honolulu, Hawaii. PVS was established to research and perpetuate traditional Polynesian voyaging methods. Using replicas of traditional double-hul ...

in the 1970s.

Biography

The son of a

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

pilot, Ben Finney was born in 1933 and grew up in

San Diego, California San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

. He earned his

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four ye ...

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analy ...

, and

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...

at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

in 1955. In 1958, after serving in the U.S. Navy and working in the steel and

aerospace Aerospace is a term used to collectively refer to the atmosphere and outer space. Aerospace activity is very diverse, with a multitude of commercial, industrial and military applications. Aerospace engineering consists of aeronautics and astrona ...

industries, he went to Hawaii, where he earned his

M.A. A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. ...

in anthropology at the

University of Hawaii A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...

in 1959. His master's degree

thesis A thesis ( : theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144 ...

, “Hawaiian Surfing: a Study of Cultural Change”, became the basis for ''Surfing: The Sport of Hawaiian Kings,'' a book that Finney co-authored with

James D. Houston James Dudley Houston (November 10, 1933 – April 16, 2009) was an American novelist, poet and editor. He wrote nine novels and a number of non-fiction works (some co-authored and/or edited). Early life Houston was born in San Francisco, where h ...

in 1966. Finney earned his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

in anthropology at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

in 1964. Finney held faculty appointments at the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the ...

, the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...

, the

University of French Polynesia The University of French Polynesia (french: Université de la Polynésie française) is a French university located in Puna'auia, French Polynesia. History Created by a decree of May 29, 1987, the university was originally called French Pac ...

, and the

International Space University The International Space University (ISU) is dedicated to the discovery, research, and development of outer space and its applications for peaceful purposes, through international and multidisciplinary education and research programs. ISU was f ...

. From 1970 through 2000 he was a professor of anthropology at the

University of Hawaii at Manoa A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...

, 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 A chair is a type of seat, typically designed for one person and consisting of one or more legs, a flat or slightly angled seat and a back-rest. They may be made of wood, metal, or synthetic materials, and may be padded or upholstered in vari ...

of the department of Space and Society at the

. In the 1990s, Finney was a

National Research Council National Research Council may refer to: * National Research Council (Canada), sponsoring research and development * National Research Council (Italy), scientific and technological research, Rome * National Research Council (United States), part of ...

Associate with the

SETI The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a collective term for scientific searches for intelligent extraterrestrial life, for example, monitoring electromagnetic radiation for signs of transmissions from civilizations on other p ...

project at

NASA Ames Research Center The Ames Research Center (ARC), also known as NASA Ames, is a major NASA research center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California's Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1939 as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) labora ...

and involved in the

Sandia National Laboratories Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), also known as Sandia, is one of three research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). Headquartered in Kirtland Air Force Bas ...

planning and implementation of the

Waste Isolation Pilot Plant The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP, is the world's third deep geological repository (after Germany's Repository for radioactive waste Morsleben and the Schacht Asse II salt mine) licensed to store transuranic radioactive waste for 10,00 ...

for the disposal of nuclear waste. He was on the panel of experts for the 1998

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of ed ...

program ''Wayfinders: A Pacific Odyssey''. During 2004-2006 he was a curator of the Vaka Moana canoe voyaging exhibit at the

Auckland Museum The Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira (or simply the Auckland Museum) is one of New Zealand's most important museums and war memorials. Its collections concentrate on New Zealand history (and especially the history of the Auckla ...

in New Zealand. He was the featured guest speaker at the 2007 National Conference for Educational Robotics. He later served as a professor at

, and also as a distinguished research associate of the

Bishop Museum The Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, designated the Hawaii State Museum of Natural and Cultural History, is a museum of history and science in the historic Kalihi district of Honolulu on the Hawaiian island of Oʻahu. Founded in 1889, it is the lar ...

. He and his wife, Mila, lived most of the year in Hawaii. Finney died on May 23, 2017, at the age of 83.

Polynesian voyaging

When Ben Finney was a University of Hawaii graduate student in 1958, 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 The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

had been intentional. The prevailing view was exemplified by a

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the ...

with a low opinion of Polynesian navigation methods and canoes, Andrew Sharp, who believed that such voyages could only have been accidental. Finney did not agree with this view and became determined to disprove it. He built the first 40-feet-long replica of a Polynesian sailing canoe while he was teaching at

in the 1960s. When it was finished, he shipped it to Hawaii, where

ancient Hawaii Ancient Hawaii is the period of Hawaiian history preceding the unification in 1810 of the Kingdom of Hawaii by Kamehameha the Great. Traditionally, researchers estimated the first settlement of the Hawaiian islands as having occurred sporadical ...

scholar

Mary Kawena Pukui Mary Abigail Kawenaulaokalaniahiiakaikapoliopele Naleilehuaapele Wiggin Pukui (20 April 1895 – 21 May 1986), known as Kawena, was a Hawaiian scholar, author, composer, hula expert, and educator. Life Pukui was born on April 20, 1895, in her ...

named it ''Nalehia'', which in the

Hawaiian language Hawaiian (', ) is a Polynesian language of the Austronesian language family that takes its name from Hawaii, the largest island in the tropical North Pacific archipelago where it developed. Hawaiian, along with English, is an official language ...

means ''The Skilled Ones'', because of the grace with which its twin hulls rode the sea. In 1973, Finney co-founded the

with artist

Herb Kawainui Kane In general use, herbs are a widely distributed and widespread group of plants, excluding vegetables and other plants consumed for macronutrients, with savory or aromatic properties that are used for flavoring and garnishing food, for medicinal ...

and sailor Charles Tommy Holmes. Within three years, they had designed, built, and sailed the ''

Hōkūleʻa ''Hōkūlea'' is a performance-accurate ''waa kaulua'', a Polynesian double-hulled voyaging canoe. Launched on 8 March 1975 by the Polynesian Voyaging Society, it is best known for its 1976 Hawaii to Tahiti voyage completed with exclusiv ...

'' on its first historic voyage from Hawaii to Tahiti with a crew led by captain Kawika Kapahulehua and navigator

Mau Piailug Pius "Mau" Piailug (pronounced ; 1932 – July 12, 2010) 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 ...

Awards

The awards that were bestowed upon Finney include: * 1994:

Royal Institute of Navigation The Royal Institute of Navigation (RIN) is a learned society and a professional body for navigation. The RIN was founded in 1947 as a forum for mariners, pilots, engineers and academics to compare their experiences and exchange information. Toda ...

Bronze Medal for the outstanding paper, "Rediscovering Polynesian Navigation through Experimental Voyaging" in the ''Journal of Navigation,'' Vol 46, 1993 * 1995:

French University of the Pacific The University of French Polynesia (french: Université de la Polynésie française) is a French university located in Puna'auia, French Polynesia. History Created by a decree of May 29, 1987, the university was originally called French Pac ...

Medal for contributions to the revival of traditional voyaging and the study of Polynesian culture and society * 1995:

Tsiolkovsky State Museum of the History of Cosmonautics ) , native_name = , native_name_lang = , logo = , logo_upright = , logo_alt = , logo_caption = , image = Zal raketnoi techniki.JPG , image_upright = , alt ...

Tsiolkovsky Medal for contributions to the study of

cosmonautics Astronautics (or cosmonautics) is the theory and practice of travel beyond Earth's atmosphere into outer space. Spaceflight is one of its main applications and space science its overarching field. The term ''astronautics'' (originally ''astronaut ...

and the exploration of space * 1997: University of Hawai'i Regents' Medal for Excellence in Research * 2004: Hawai'i Book Publisher's Ka Palapala Po'okela Award for writing nonfiction * 2007: Honorary Doctorate, University of French Polynesia

Publications

(These are incomplete listings.)

Selected books

* 1966: ''Surfing: The Sport of Hawaiian Kings.'' With James D. Houston.

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

and

Rutland Rutland () is a ceremonial county and unitary authority in the East Midlands, England. The county is bounded to the west and north by Leicestershire, to the northeast by Lincolnshire and the southeast by Northamptonshire. Its greatest l ...

Charles E. Tuttle Company Tuttle Publishing, originally the Charles E. Tuttle Company, is a book publishing company that includes Tuttle, Periplus Editions, and Journey Editions.

. . ** 1996 30th anniversary edition: ''Surfing: A History of the Ancient Hawaiian Sport.''

Petaluma Petaluma (Miwok: ''Péta Lúuma'') is a city in Sonoma County, California, located in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Its population was 59,776 according to the 2020 census. Petaluma's name comes from the Miwok village nam ...

: Pomegranate Communications. . * 1976: ''Pacific Navigation and Voyaging.''

Auckland, New Zealand Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about It ...

: The

Polynesian Society The Polynesian Society is a non-profit organisation based at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, dedicated to the scholarly study of the history, ethnography, and mythology of Oceania. History The society was co-founded in 1892 by Percy ...

. . * 1979: ''Hokulea: The Way to Tahiti.''

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

Dodd, Mead and Company Dodd, Mead and Company was one of the pioneer publishing houses of the United States, based in New York City. Under several names, the firm operated from 1839 until 1990. History Origins In 1839, Moses Woodruff Dodd (1813–1899) and John S. T ...

. . * 1985: ''Interstellar Migration and the Human Experience.'' Ben R. Finney and Eric M. Jones, eds. Berkeley:

University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by facult ...

. . * 1992: ''From Sea to Space (The Macmillan Brown Lectures 1989).''

Palmerston North Palmerston North (; mi, Te Papa-i-Oea, known colloquially as Palmy) is a city in the North Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Manawatū-Whanganui region. Located in the eastern Manawatu Plains, the city is near the north bank of the ...

Massey University Massey University ( mi, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa) is a university based in Palmerston North, New Zealand, with significant campuses in Albany and Wellington. Massey University has approximately 30,883 students, 13,796 of whom are extramural o ...

. Distributed by the

University of Hawaii Press A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...

. . * 1994: ''Voyage of Rediscovery: A Cultural Odyssey through Polynesia.'' Berkeley:

. . * 2003: ''Sailing in the Wake of the Ancestors: Reviving Polynesian Voyaging.''

Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the islan ...

Press. .

Selected articles

* 1977: "Voyaging Canoes and the Settlement of Polynesia", ''

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...

'', Vol. 196, No. 4296:1277-1285. * 1981: "Exploring and Settling Pacific Ocean Space—Past Analogues for Future Events?" ''Space Manufacturing 4:

Proceedings In academia and librarianship, conference proceedings is a collection of academic papers published in the context of an academic conference or workshop. Conference proceedings typically contain the contributions made by researchers at the confer ...

of the Fifth

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...

/AIAA Conference May 18–21, 1981'' (p. 261).

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is a professional society for the field of aerospace engineering. The AIAA is the U.S. representative on the International Astronautical Federation and the International Council of ...

. * 1988: "Voyaging Against the Direction of the Trades: A Report of a Canoe Voyage from Samoa to Tahiti". ''American Anthropologist,'' Vol. 90, No. 2:401-405. * 1991: "Myth, Experiment, and the Reinvention of Polynesian Voyaging." ''

American Anthropologist ''American Anthropologist'' is the flagship journal of the American Anthropological Association (AAA), published quarterly by Wiley. The "New Series" began in 1899 under an editorial board that included Franz Boas, Daniel G. Brinton, and John ...

'', Vol. 93, No. 2, June 1991, pp. 383–404. * 1994: "The Other One-Third of the Globe". ''

Journal of World History The ''Journal of World History'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal that presents historical analysis from a global point of view, focusing especially on forces that cross the boundaries of cultures and civilizations, including large-scale populat ...

'', Vol. 5, No. 2. * 1994: "Polynesian Voyagers to the New World". ''Man and Culture in Oceania'', Vol. 10:1-13. * 1995: "A role for Magnetoreception in Human Navigation". ''

Current Anthropology ''Current Anthropology'' is a peer-reviewed anthropology academic journal published by the University of Chicago Press for the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. Founded in 1959 by the anthropologist Sol Tax1907-1995. ''Current ...

'', Vol. 36, No. 3:500-506. * 2001: "Voyage to Polynesia's Land's End". '' Antiquity'', Vol. 75:172-181. * 2007: "Tracking Polynesian Seafarers". ''

'', Vol. 317:1873-1874.

Selected chapters in other books

* 1985: "Lunar Base: Learning to live in space" (pp. 731–756) in Wendell Mendell, ed., ''Lunar Bases and Space Activities of the 21st Century''.

Houston Houston (; ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in Texas, the Southern United States#Major cities, most populous city in the Southern United States, the List of United States cities by population, fourth-most pop ...

Lunar and Planetary Institute The Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) is a scientific research institute dedicated to study of the Solar System, its formation, evolution, and current state. The Institute is part of the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) and is supp ...

. . * 1988: "Will space change humanity?" (pp. 155–172) in J. Schneider and M. Leger-Orine, eds., ''Frontiers and Space Conquest: The Philosopher's Touchstone''. Bingham: Kluwer Academic Press. . *1996: "Colonizing an Island World" (pp. 71–116) in Ward H. Goodenough, ed., ''Prehistoric Settlement of the Pacific''.

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

: Diane Publishing Co. * 2007: Three chapters in ''Vaka Moana, Voyages of the Ancestors: The Discovery and Settlement of the Pacific''. Kerry Howe (

School of Social and Cultural Studies), ed.

. . * 2007: "Polynesia, Micronesia and Eastern Melanesia: the Exploration and Settlement of Remote Oceania". In '' The Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History'', Volume 3, pages 154–162.

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the Un ...

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...

In popular culture

A character in ''Launch Out,'' a Philip Robert Harris

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imagination, imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, Paral ...

novel that is set in the year 2010, is based on Finney, a

professor of anthropology who is also the president of the fictional Unispace Academy.

References

External links

Ben Finney, Professor Emeritus.

faculty page. {{DEFAULTSORT:Finney, Ben 1933 births 2017 deaths People from Hawaii People from San Diego UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science alumni University of Hawaiʻi alumni Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni University of California, Santa Barbara faculty University of Hawaiʻi faculty American anthropologists Cultural anthropologists American maritime historians Hōkūleʻa Historians of Hawaii Polynesian navigation Historians from California