Niʻihau

• 1. Introduction

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  Niʻihau, the westernmost of Hawaii's main islands, was once weighed against Waikīkī and Pearl Harbor. A Scottish plantation owner named Elizabeth Sinclair compared those options and chose Niʻihau. That choice still decides who may step ashore. Today the island is the seventh largest in Hawaii, and people call it “the Forbidden Isle.” Outsiders cannot simply visit. How did a dry island come to belong to one family? What rules keep its shores closed? And what do its people, its language and its crafts look like after so long behind that closed shore? Why did a Japanese pilot crash here after the attack on Pearl Harbor?

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• 2. Volcano and Drought

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  Niʻihau is about 6 million years old, which makes it older than its neighbor Kauaʻi at 5.8 million years. What remains today is the southwestern slope of a once much larger volcano. Its summit and its other slopes collapsed into the ocean in a giant prehistoric landslide.

  The island measures 6.2 miles by 18.6 miles, or about 10 by 30 kilometers, and covers 69.5 square miles. Pānīʻau, its highest point, rises 1280 feet. Kauaʻi lies 17.5 miles to the northeast across the Kaulakahi Channel. The tiny uninhabited island of Lehua sits 0.7 miles to the north.

  Kauaʻi blocks much of the rain that would otherwise reach Niʻihau. The island lies in its rain shadow, and it is too low to catch much moisture from the trade winds. Water arrives mainly with winter Kona storms, when more southerly weather systems push into the region. Long droughts are the result.

  Historical droughts have been recorded several times, and George Vancouver noted one in 1792. He was a former junior officer under Captain James Cook. He had been told that the people of Niʻihau left the island for Kauaʻi to escape famine.

  Cook himself reported the island treeless in 1778, and it stayed barren of trees for centuries. Aubrey Robinson, a later owner, planted 10,000 trees a year during much of his ownership. Those plantings increased rainfall in the dry climate.

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• 3. Birds, Seals, and Game

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  Halaliʻi Lake, Halulu Lake and Nonopapa Lake are the largest on the island, and all three fill only intermittently. Even so, these playa lakes work as wetlands. The ʻalae keokeo, or Hawaiian coot, lives there. So do the aeʻo, a Hawaiian subspecies of the Black-necked Stilt, and the koloa maoli, or Hawaiian duck.

  The ōlulu, an endangered Hawaiian lobelioid known scientifically as Brighamia insignis, grows nowhere else but Hawaii, and Niʻihau is designated as its critical habitat. Another endangered native, the palm Pritchardia aylmer-robinsonii, carries the name of Aylmer Robinson. He was the uncle of Keith Robinson, one of the island's two present owners. Keith, a noted conservationist, has preserved and documented many of the island's natural plant resources.

  Hawaiian monk seals, a vulnerable species, appear in high numbers along Niʻihau's shores. One of the owners says the secluded coast protects them from habitat encroachment. He also says conditions here are better than in the government refuges of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. No seals lived on Niʻihau when the Robinsons first bought it, because the animals ranged around Necker and Midway islands. Over the past thirty years NOAA fisheries relocated seals to the main Hawaiian islands, and some found homes on Niʻihau.

  Stock from Molokaʻi Ranch supplied the big game herds that now roam the forests and flatlands. Eland and aoudad are abundant, alongside oryxes, wild boars and feral sheep. The herds bring income through hunting safari tourism.

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• 4. Chiefs and Conquest

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  Kahelelani stands as the first of the Niʻihau aliʻi, the chiefs who ruled the island before Kamehameha I unified the Kingdom of Hawaii. His name survives in the Niʻihau kahelelani, the puka shell of the wart turban, Leptothyra verruca. Islanders use it to make exquisite shell jewelry.

  Kāeokūlani, called Kāʻeo, ruled northern Niʻihau and later brought the whole island under one rule. His rival was a chief named Kawaihoa. A stone wall called Pāpōhaku, running across a quarter of the southern end, marked their boundary. Black stones identified Kāʻeo's land, and white stones identified Kawaihoa's.

  A great battle at Pali Kamakaui settled the rivalry. Kāʻeo's brothers from Maui, Kaiana and Kahekili II, the King of Maui, fought on his side. Niʻihau was united under his rule. Kawaihoa was banished to the south end of the island, while Kāʻeo moved to the middle to govern.

  Kāʻeo married Queen Kamakahelei. In 1790 Kaumualiʻi was born, a future king of Niʻihau and Kauaʻi. Kauaʻi and Niʻihau are said to have carried the “highest blood lines” in the Hawaiian Islands.

  By 1795 Kamehameha had united every island except Kauaʻi and Niʻihau. Two attempts to conquer them failed, and he lost many men. Bodies covered the beaches on Kauaʻi's eastern shores. In 1810 he gathered a great fleet, and Kaumualiʻi, the last independent aliʻi, surrendered rather than risk further bloodshed.

  Kamehameha died in 1819, and independence became feasible again. His widow Kaahumanu ended that hope by kidnapping Kaumualiʻi and forcing him to marry her. From then on Niʻihau remained part of the unified Hawaiian Kingdom. Its next change of hands would come by sale, not war.

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• 5. Bought for Gold

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  Elizabeth McHutchison Sinclair, who lived from 1800 to 1892, bought Niʻihau and parts of Kauaʻi from Kamehameha V in 1864. She paid US$10,000 in gold. That sum equals roughly $1.75 million as of July 2025.

  By around 1875 the island held about 350 Native Hawaiians and 20,000 sheep. Sheep ranching had become the shape of the place.

  In 1915 Sinclair's grandson Aubrey Robinson closed the island to most visitors. Even relatives of the inhabitants could come only with special permission. When Aubrey died in 1939, the island passed to his son Aylmer. In 1968 it went to Aylmer's youngest brother, Lester. After the death of Lester's wife Helen, it passed to his sons Bruce and Keith Robinson, the current co-owners.

  Only a short list of people may land without special arrangement. They are the Robinson family and their relatives, U.S. Navy personnel, government officials, and invited guests.

  The family's strict rules have drawn controversy. Much of the enforcement falls to Leiana Robinson, the wife of Bruce Robinson. Residents may not use alcohol or cigarettes, and they may not talk about Niʻihau to the media. A resident who leaves for an extended time is banned permanently from returning. Men may not wear long hair or beards.

  The original 1864 sale contract also carried an obligation. It bound the new owners to help preserve Hawaiian culture and tradition.

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• 6. Island Life

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  The 2010 census counted 170 people on Niʻihau, most of them native Hawaiians. Witness accounts, however, put the real population between 35 and 50. Some residents support themselves largely through subsistence fishing and farming, while others depend on welfare. All of them live rent-free, and meat is free.

  Niʻihau has no telephone service and no paved roads. Horses are the main form of transportation, and bicycles are also used. There are no power lines, because solar power provides all the electricity. There is no plumbing or running water, so households rely on rainwater catchment. No hotel exists. Barges bring groceries from Kauaʻi, often bought by relatives, and the shipping is free. Some residents own radios and television sets, though weak reception limits television to pre-recorded media.

  The ties to Kauaʻi run deep. When droughts strike, the population sometimes evacuates to Kauaʻi until rain refills the water supply. Residents also commute there for work, medical care or school, and many call both islands home. To spare them a long boat ride, the owners keep an Agusta A109 helicopter for emergencies and for carrying Navy contractors and residents. Helicopter tours and safaris help offset the cost.

  Niʻihau is the only place where Hawaiian has not been displaced by English. Residents generally speak the Niihau dialect as their first language, and English comes second. The obligation in the purchase contract helped keep it that way. In this dialect, t and ɾ are the most common sounds for the phonemes /k/ and /l/. Oral tradition holds that the dialect is closer to the Hawaiian spoken when Europeans first arrived. Linguistic evidence supports that claim, such as pronouncing k as /t/.

  The Hawaii Department of Education runs the Niʻihau School, which teaches students from kindergarten through grade 12. Lessons in academic subjects and computer literacy are combined with teaching students to “thrive from the land.” The school runs entirely on solar power. Enrollment varies from 25 to 50 because families travel between Niʻihau and Kauaʻi.

  Schoolchildren may stay with relatives in west Kauaʻi and attend one of two Niʻihau-focused public charter schools. At Ke Kula Niʻihau o Kekaha, students speak mainly the Niʻihau dialect through the early elementary grades, then Hawaiian and English through grade 12. A digital recording and video system there helps preserve and teach Niʻihau and Hawaiian culture. The other school, Kula Aupuni Niʻihau a Kahelelani Aloha, known as KANAKA, uses English in all grades while still supporting the dialect. Efforts to establish KANAKA began in 1993, and its current version dates to 1999.

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• 7. Shells and Livelihoods

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  Winter brings pūpū, tiny shells, washing onto Niʻihau's beaches, and residents turn them into lei pūpū. The species used include momi, Euplica varians, and laiki, or rice shells, Mitrella margarita. The third is kahelelani, Leptothyra verruca. A single intricate shell lei can sell for thousands of dollars. The jewelry is so popular that Governor Linda Lingle signed a bill in 2004 to protect Niʻihau shell leis from counterfeiting.

  Makaloa, a native sedge named Cyperus laevigatus, once grew at the edges of the island's three intermittent lakes. Weavers harvested its stems to make moena makaloa, mats considered the “finest sleeping mats in Polynesia.” Aliʻi and foreign visitors alike valued them. By the end of the 19th century Hawaiians had stopped weaving makaloa, because of changes in population, culture, economics and the environment.

  A form of ipu art developed only on Niʻihau. After a design is carved into the skin of a fresh gourd, the carving is filled with dye. Over several weeks the dye changes the color of the uncarved parts where the skin is intact. Music matters just as much. A cappella singers use only two or three tones and shifting rhythms. Ukulele and guitar playing is nearly universal, and slack-key music comes in three separate styles. The older style originated in Kohala.

  About 80% of the island's income comes from a small Navy installation atop cliffs 1,300 feet high. Remote-controlled tracking devices there support testing and training with Kauaʻi's Pacific Missile Range Facility. Modern missile defense tests for the United States and its allies are conducted at the site. The installation brings in millions of dollars a year. It gives the island a stable economic base without the complexity of tourism or industrial development.

  Many residents once worked for Niʻihau Ranch, which raised cattle and sheep until the Robinsons shut it down in 1999. It had not been profitable for most of the 20th century. Honey was no longer viable by 1999 either. Kiawe charcoal was once a large-scale export until aggressive Mexican price competition ended it. Mullet farming remains popular. Ponds and lakes are stocked with baby mullet, which reach 9-10 pounds apiece before being sold on Kauaʻi and Oʻahu.

  Half-day helicopter and beach tours have been offered since 1986 or 1987. Contact with residents is avoided, and no accommodation exists. Since 1992, tourists have also paid to hunt eland, aoudad, oryx, wild sheep and boars on safari. Any meat the hunters do not take with them goes to the village.

  As of 2010, Bruce Robinson was weighing new ventures. They included making JP-8 jet fuel through the lignocellulose process, increasing military activity with a possible runway, and producing windmill energy. He has declined offers to buy sand from the island's beaches, citing his opposition to the possible environmental impact.

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• 8. War and Politics

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  On the 7th of December 1941, a Japanese navy fighter pilot whose Zero had been hit crash-landed on Niʻihau. He hoped to meet a rescue submarine. The attack on Pearl Harbor had just happened. Residents of Japanese descent helped him. He was apprehended and later escaped with their assistance, but he was killed shortly afterwards. The event is known as the Niʻihau incident, or the Battle of Niʻihau.

  The U.S. military's tie to the island dates to 1924. No military personnel are permanently stationed there. The military has used the island to train special operations units, and some Hawaiians who live there were hired as “enemy” trackers.

  In 1934 Franklin D. Roosevelt visited Hawaii. Ten years later, in 1944, he considered Niʻihau as a possible location for the United Nations headquarters. Cordell Hull, his Secretary of State, led a State Department that studied the proposal seriously.

  Niʻihau is a stronghold for the Republican Party, while the rest of the state generally votes Democratic. In 2004, President George W. Bush received all but one of the 40 votes cast on the island. The remaining vote went to Green Party nominee David Cobb, and 51 registered voters did not cast ballots. In 2006, Dan Akaka received 60% of the votes in the Senate election to Cynthia Thielen's 36%. In 2008, Niʻihau's precinct was one of only three of Hawaiʻi's 538 precincts to support John McCain over Barack Obama.

  The 2019 film Enemy Within portrays the Niʻihau incident. The island also appears in the Lilo and Stitch: The Series episode “Splodyhead,” where the cast is stranded there while trying to catch the explosive experiment of the title. Off screen, the 2020 census counted 84 residents, a sharp drop from the 2010 figure.

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