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Ni'ihau: The Last Hawaiian Island

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Ever since I first visited Kauai, I was facinated with the island of Niihau. Who lives there? Why can't visitors go? What's it like to live on the island? Why are only "true Hawaiians" allowed to live there. Tabrah answers these questions and more in this book. I read it almost 5 years ago and I still remember it in detail. She finagled her way into an official visit of the island and wrote about her experience. Well done!!

The book is based on Ruth Tabor's account of when she was in Nihau. She also has research from the turn of the century. It is a good inside look at a very mysterious island, an island that is forbidden to outsiders. The last time Ruth Tabor was there, I believe, was in the early to mid 1950's. Since the book has been published, the island has been opened up to the public under strict policies. If you have an interest in Nihau, this is a helpful book to read.

In 'Ni`ihau,' Big Island historian Ruth Tabrah does not reveal the mystery of the 'Mystery Island' because, she says, there never was one.
Nor was the 'Forbidden Island' ever forbidden, except to slumming parties.
So what was the fuss all about? Cultural ignorance, jealousy, politics, all the usual breeding grounds for silly controversies.
The island today is a paradigm case of the increasing toleration -- or at least, dehomogenization -- in American society.
Shortly after World War II, Democratic politicians and the Honolulu press agitated to bring Ni`ihau and the Niihauans into the mainstream. Tabrah then accepted this position, and her first visit there, as a member of the state Board of Education, did not change her mind.
But as the years passed, she learned that Ni`ihau was not nearly as isolated as legend had it -- islanders often married outsiders, for example -- and by the time she made her second visit, she was becoming a defender of the Robinson family's management of the island.
As appreciation for Hawaiian culture grew, political agitation to Americanize the Niihauans declined, until today, when it seems to be a dead issue. In fact, Ni`ihau is now regarded as a precious resource, an untainted reservoir of the life of Old Hawaii.
The new view, while an improvement, is also misleading, as Tabrah shows. From the beginning, Ni`ihau was prominent in the opening of Hawaii to the outside world. The first European to land there was William Bligh, later promoted to captain. Two girls from Ni`ihau were probably the first Hawaiians to leave Polynesia and were certainly the first to ride horses -- in Spanish California.
The central fact about Niihau is lack of water. In pre-Contact times and for a few generations afterward it seems to have supported a population of about 1,500 in wet years, dropping to zero during droughts, when everybody moved to Kauai. (Though Tabrah doesn't make the point, this recurrent migration demonstrates a vital point about Polynesia: Pacific islands are very unhealthy places for human and, until the introduction of western technology, the settlers could never reproduce fast enough to fill up the land.)
Niihauans accepted Christianity docilely, but not modern government or taxes. Their stubborn passive resistance to tax collectors finally persuaded the government of the Kingdom to sell the whole island for $10,000 to a family of strait-laced Scots who arrived, by way of New Zealand, with considerable capital.
The Scot family Robinson put the island on a paying basis by producing wool, beef, honey and charcoal. They sharply restricted the population to a level that would provide enough labor for the ranch with no surplus -- about 150.
Tabrah says the limit was set by the amount of water, but since Ni`ihau supported 1,500 or more cattle and thousands of sheep, that can't be it. Her history makes it clear -- except to her -- that the Robinsons managed the labor supply, not the water supply. They were able to do this more easily because they also had large holdings on Kauai.
Lately, however the economic capacity of the island has decayed while the population has risen above 200, making it difficult for the owners to balance the books. In the 1960s, Aylmer Robinson subsidized the island from his private resources.
More aggressive management has recently put the ranch back on the road to a balance of income, labor and conservation of resources.
The prickly character of the Robinsons was not completely welcome to the Niihauans, who continued to smoke and drink despite prohibition. Living in a company town can never be entirely comfortable, but if the Robinsons had been more accommodating and less anachronistic, then Ni`ihau probably would not have come through the centuries as unchanged as it did.
Ni`ihau 'is the one place (in the islands) where private ownership has been exercised as a remarkable kind of stewardship and trust,' writes Tabrah.

The book is based on Ruth Tabor's account of when she was in Nihau. She also has research from the turn of the century. It is a good inside look at a very mysterious island, an island that is forbidden to outsiders. The last time Ruth Tabor was there, I believe, was in the early to mid 1950's. Since the book has been published, the island has been opened up to the public under strict policies. If you have an interest in Nihau, this is a helpful book to read.

Well i'm going to answer the Question to all of the people who are not "true Hawaiians" and that you want to go and visit this forbidden island. Well the reason why you CANNOT go is because this is the only island that is not filled with tourists and can only be preserved by the native hawaiian heratige family. This island is purchased by the Robinson family and it has the power of controlling what goes on in that island. Oh.... and how is it like? well ask a Hawaiian because I no like tell you..