Necker Island (Hawaii)
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Necker Island (Template:Langx; Template:Lit)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> is a small uninhabited island in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. It is located in the Pacific Ocean, Template:Convert northwest of Honolulu, Hawaii, Template:Convert northwest of Nīhoa,<ref name="tohawaiineckerisland">Template:Cite web</ref> and Template:Convert north of the Tropic of Cancer. It is part of the state of Hawaii in the United States. It contains important prehistoric archaeological sites of the Hawaiian culture and is part of the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge within the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.
The United States Census Bureau reports Necker Island's land area as Template:Convert.<ref name=census41ares>Necker Island: Block 1001, Block Group 1, Census Tract 114.98, Honolulu County, Hawaii, United States Census Bureau.</ref> The island is rocky with steep sides and has very little soil. Its highest elevation is Template:Convert. The island is named after Jacques Necker, a finance minister of Louis XVI.
Name
The names Native Hawaiians in Ancient Hawaii used for the various Northwestern Hawaiian Islands have been lost. When the French explorer Jean-François de La Pérouse became the first European to sight the island in 1786, he named it "Necker Island" after Jacques Necker, a Genevan banker and statesman who served as finance minister for Louis XVI of France.<ref name=papahanaumokuakeavirtualvisit/><ref name=usfwsmokumanamana/><ref name=Taillemite/>
The Hawaiian Lexicon Committee was formed in Hawaii in 1987 to create new Hawaiian words for concepts and material culture unknown in Ancient Hawaii.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Among its efforts have been the creation of Hawaiian names for geographical features bearing non-Hawaiian names (i.e., exonyms). Although the original Hawaiian name of Necker Island is unknown, ancient Hawaiian chants refer to a "branching island" or "pinnacled island" (mokumanamana). Among the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, Necker Island best fits the physical description of a "branched or pinnacled island," and the committee therefore assigned it the Hawaiian name Mokumanamana on the assumption that the ancient chants referred to it.<ref>Rauzon, pp. 27–28, 34.</ref>
Administration
Politically, Necker Island is part of the City and County of Honolulu<ref name=bryanp10>Bryan, p. 10.</ref> in the state of Hawaii. However, as part of the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge, it is administered by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. It has no resident human population.
Geography
The remnant of a volcanic cone,<ref name=Harrisonp13>Harrison, p. 13.</ref> Necker Island is located about Template:Convert southeast of the French Frigate Shoals<ref name=Harrisonp14>Harrison, p. 14.</ref> on the northwestern end of a large, shallow ocean bank.<ref>Harrison, pp. 13–14.</ref> It is a hook-shaped rocky ridge about Template:Convert long and between Template:Convert wide.<ref name=Harrisonp14/><ref name=bryanp8>Bryan, p. 8.</ref> Composed of basalt,<ref name="papahanaumokuakeavirtualvisit">Template:Cite web</ref> the island is steep-sided and barren, with very little soil,<ref name=tohawaiineckerisland/> and its rocks are heavily scoured and eroded.<ref name="usfwsmokumanamana">Template:Cite web</ref> It is the second-smallest of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands,<ref name=usfwsmokumanamana/> with a total area of Template:Convert according to the United States Census Bureau.<ref name=census41ares/> In separate documents, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service has claimed its area is Template:Convert<ref name=usfwsmokumanamana/> and Template:Convert.<ref name=bryanp8/>
The westernmost point on Necker Island is Moʻo Point (or Moʻo Head). The island's "hook" is Northwest Cape, a narrow spur that reaches a maximum height of 48 meters (156 ft) and juts northeastward from the west end of the island for Template:Convert.<ref name=rauzonp27>Rauzon, p. 27.</ref> Northwest Cape is connected to the rest of the island by a narrow gap that is barely above sea level.<ref name=Harrisonp14/> Northwest Cape's tip is the northernmost point of the island.<ref name=rauzonp27/>
The main ridge of the island and Northwest Cape combine to partially enclose Shark Bay (Hanakeaumoe) along the northern shore of the island; the bay opens to the northeast and usually is subject to rough seas.<ref name=bryanp8/> Along the island's western shore, West Cove lies between Moʻo Point and the southern end of Northwest Cape.<ref name=rauzonp27/> A small islet, Template:Convert long and rising Template:Convert above sea level, lies just off Necker Island's eastern tip.<ref name=bryanp8/>
The main ridge of Necker Island has five peaks. East to west, they are:<ref name=bryanp8/>
- Siever's Peak, Template:Convert high
- Bowl Hill (or Bryan Peak), Template:Convert high
- Summit Hill (or Vaughn Peak), 84 meters (277 ft) high, the island's highest point
- Flagpole Hill, Template:Convert high
- Annexation Peak (also Annexation Hill or Captain Brown Peak), 75 meters (247 ft) high
Bowl Cave is located on the northern slope of Bowl Hill. It is an important archaeological site.<ref name=rauzonp32>Rauzon, p. 32.</ref>
Necker Island has an average annual rainfall of just under Template:Convert.<ref name=tohawaiineckerisland/>
File:Atoll research bulletin (1977) (20159366959).jpg
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Flora and fauna
Vegetation on Necker Island is limited to low shrubs and grasses, none more than Template:Convert tall.<ref name=bryanp8/> Five species of plants are known to occur:<ref name=bryanp8/>
- Goosefoot shrub (Chenopodium oahuense), found on the island's terraced slopes
- Bunch grass (Panicum torridum) (i.e., kakonakona), which grows on the north slope of the ridge
- Purslane (Portulaca lutea) (i.e., ihi weed), found on flat tops of the ridge
- Pickle weed (Sesuvium portulacastrum), a patch of which grows on the lower northeastern slope of Annexation Hill, where ocean spray from waves breaking in Shark Bay can reach it
- Ohai shrub (Sesbania tomentosa), which grows on the crest of the ridge
The forester of the Territory of Hawaii attempted to introduce six other species of plants to Necker Island in June 1923, but all had died out by the latter half of the 1930s, if not earlier.<ref name=bryanp8/>
The island is also noted for large numbers of birds.<ref name=bryanp8/> About 16 species of seabird nest on Necker Island;<ref name=rauzonp29>Rauzon, p. 29.</ref> during nesting season, an estimated 60,000 birds nest on the island, and their eggs cover virtually every piece of level ground.<ref name=bryanp8/><ref name=rauzonp29/> A seabird first observed at Necker Island and at the French Frigate Shoals and Nīhoa in 1902 originally was thought to be new to science and was given the scientific name Procelsterna saxatalis and the popular name "Necker Island tern," but it later was identified as a subspecies of the blue-grey noddy, already known from farther south in the Pacific.<ref name=rauzonp28>Rauzon, p. 28.</ref><ref name="theauk19030401">Template:Cite journal</ref> No land birds live on the island.<ref name="Harrisonp14" /> Land animals found on the island include land snails and 15 species of insect found nowhere else, as well as wolf spiders and bird ticks.<ref name=usfwsmokumanamana/>
Although it is the second-smallest of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, Necker Island has the second-largest surrounding marine habitat among the islands, totaling Template:Convert, with Shark Bay, West Cove, Northwest Cape, and miles of shallow reef to the southeast of the island providing large offshore habitats.<ref name=papahanaumokuakeavirtualvisit/><ref name=usfwsmokumanamana/> Runoff from the heavily eroded rock surfaces of the island and the constant wave action that scours its underwater basalt structure interfere with the growth of corals; little coral life exists in the shallow areas surrounding the island,<ref name=usfwsmokumanamana/> and it lacks a fringing reef.<ref name=Harrisonp14/> However, 16 species of stony coral live in the area, and Necker is the easternmost island in the Hawaiian archipelago where table corals of the genus Acropora are found.<ref name=papahanaumokuakeavirtualvisit/> Gray reef sharks and manta rays are common off the island, and Hawaiian monk seals populate its shores, some giving birth to pups there.<ref name=papahanaumokuakeavirtualvisit/><ref name=usfwsmokumanamana/><ref name=Harrisonp14/> Green sea turtles bask on the shore in the narrow gap between the main island and Northwest Cape, but they do not breed on Necker Island because the island lacks sandy beaches in which they could lay their eggs.<ref name=Harrisonp14/> A great abundance and diversity of sea cucumbers, sea urchins, and lobsters live in Shark Bay.<ref name=usfwsmokumanamana/> Extensive deeper "shelves" extend many miles from the island's shallow reef, especially to the southeast, and commercial fishing takes place over these shelves,<ref name=usfwsmokumanamana/> which produce much of Hawaii's catch of green jobfish, known locally as gray snapper or uku.<ref name=papahanaumokuakeavirtualvisit/> Deep sea fish types that live hundreds of meters (yards) below the surface along the underwater slopes of Necker Island include fishes of the orders Stomiiformes, Gadiformes, Myctophiformes, and Aulopiformes.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Archaeology
Necker Island is known for its numerous religious sites and cultural objects.<ref name=papahanaumokuakeavirtualvisit/> There are few, if any, signs of long-term habitation, giving rise to the theory that people visited the island for short periods from other islands instead of settling permanently.<ref name=usfwsmokumanamana/> Many anthropologists believe that the island was a ceremonial and religious site. Necker has 55 currently known sites including 33 ritual sites called heiau, while the remaining sites represent agricultural terraces, miscellaneous platforms, and shelter caves — of which Bowl Cave is the largest.<ref name="usfwsmokumanamana" /> Cultural sites on Necker Island are contemporaneous with those on Nīhoa and appear to have been abandoned at roughly the same time several centuries prior to European contact with the Hawaiian Islands.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":1">Template:Cite book</ref>
The heiau on Necker Island and Nīhoa are unique in the Hawaiian chain, constructed as a raised pavement of basalt stones with upright stones placed across this pavement, often near the edges; this differs from the form common on other islands in the chain, where heiau were built as a high stacked stone wall enclosing a central space.<ref name=":0" /> This difference in form represents an earlier iteration of Hawaiian monumental architecture that offers a unique perspective on cultural norms prior to the abandonment of Necker.<ref name=":1" /> Thanks to this difference in form, scholars often use the Māori and Tahitian term marae as opposed to the Hawaiian term heiau in reference to these structures, and some scholars argue that the shift in form represents a shift in ritual practice in Hawaii.<ref name=":2" />
Artifacts excavated on Necker Island show a remarkable number of items rendered in stone that elsewhere in Hawaii normally were made of wood. This is especially true of a series of remarkable carved stone bowls and a bird snare that would have required far more time and effort to create from stone. Additionally, archaeologists have recovered a series of human figures from Necker Island carved from local stone. These statues are up to Template:Convert in length and differ in style and medium from similar sculptures usually rendered in wood recovered elsewhere in Hawaii.<ref name=":0" /> Other artifacts include adzes, fish and squid lures, hammer stones, awls, and other stone tools commonly found across the Hawaiian Islands.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
According to the oral traditions of the people of Kauai, which lies to the southeast, Necker Island was the last known refuge for a race of mythical "little people" called the Menehune. According to the legend, the Menehune settled on Necker Island after being chased off Kauai by the stronger Polynesians and subsequently built the various stone structures there.Template:Citation needed
History
Geological research in the early 21st century indicates that Necker Island is about 10 million years old.<ref>Evolution in Hawaii: A Supplement to Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science. Olson S. Washington (DC); 2004.</ref> While it rises only about 84 meters (277 ft) above sea level now, it reached Template:Convert in height earlier in its history and at one time was comparable in size to modern Oahu.<ref name=Taillemite>Taillemite.</ref><ref>nih.gov National Academy of Sciences. (2004). Evolution in Hawaii: A Supplement to Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science, by Steve Olson. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2004.</ref>
Hawaiians appear to have started visiting Necker Island a few hundred years after they settled the main Hawaiian Islands. Archaeologists believe that the island's poor soil for farming and its small size and relative lack of rainfall made it uninhabitable, and that the Hawaiians visited from Nīhoa and other nearby islands to worship at religious sites without establishing any permanent settlements.<ref name=usfwsmokumanamana/> Their visits appear to have ended a few hundred years before European contact, and by the time Europeans first visited Hawaii in the late eighteenth century, Necker Island apparently was unknown to the Hawaiians.<ref name="bryanp9">Bryan, p. 9.</ref>
In 1785, the French explorer Jean-François de La Pérouse left France to circumnavigate the world on a mission of exploration for the French Academy of Sciences aboard the ships Astrolabe (under command of Fleuriot de Langle) and Boussole.<ref>Novaresio, 1996. p. 181 "Lapérouse ships, Astrolabe and Boussole"</ref> The expedition had just discovered the French Frigate Shoals (Basse des Frégates Françaises) and La Pérouse's namesake rock, La Perouse Pinnacle,<ref name=Taillemite/><ref name=":2">Template:Cite web</ref> when on November 4, 1786, La Pérouse and his crews became the first Europeans to visit Necker Island.<ref name=usfwsmokumanamana/><ref name=bryanp9/> La Pérouse did not attempt to land on the island due to its nearly vertical sides and the violent seas breaking on its shore, but he sailed within a third of a league of it and named it after Jacques Necker, a Genevan banker and statesman who served as finance minister for Louis XVI of France.<ref name=papahanaumokuakeavirtualvisit/><ref name=usfwsmokumanamana/><ref name=Taillemite/> Although the expedition was lost at sea in 1788, it was able to send its logs home before its loss, bringing the island's existence to the attention of Europeans.<ref name=Taillemite/>
The first people to set foot on Necker Island in modern times appear to have been the British seaman John Turnbull of the ship Margaret, who visited the Hawaiian Islands between December 17, 1802, and January 21, 1803, and two Hawaiian pearl divers in his employ. The three men landed on the island during an expedition to find pearls on a reef in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.<ref name=bryanp9/>
Captain John<ref name=bryanp9/> or William<ref name=Taillemite/> Paty (sources disagree on Paty's first name) claimed Necker Island for the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1857, although he did not land on the island.<ref name=usfwsmokumanamana/><ref name=Taillemite/> The claim was disputed over the following decades.<ref name=usfwsmokumanamana/> In January 1859, United States Navy Lieutenant J. M. Brook aboard the survey schooner Template:USS visited Necker Island and determined its position.<ref name=bryanp9/> During the summer of 1859, Captain N. C. Brook of the Hawaiian barque Gambia passed the island during a sealing and exploration voyage, but did not report landing on it.<ref name=bryanp9/>
As late as the early 1890s, the Kingdom of Hawaii's claim to Necker Island remained in dispute, and the United Kingdom was considering the island as a potential waypoint location for a submarine communications cable between Canada and Australia<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> as part of the British Empire telegraph network known informally as the All Red Line. The Kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown in 1893 and replaced by the Provisional Government of Hawaii, and when the British corvette Template:HMS arrived at Honolulu in 1894, the provisional government's president, Sanford B. Dole, became concerned that the United Kingdom was about to establish a claim to Necker Island. Wishing to curry favor with the United States rather than the United Kingdom, Dole immediately dispatched an expedition under Captain James A. King to Necker to annex the island. On May 27, 1894, a landing party of 12 men led by King went ashore on Necker for four hours, raised the flag of Hawaii on what became known as Annexation Hill, and read an annexation proclamation.<ref name=usfwsmokumanamana/><ref>Bryan, pp. 9–10.</ref> The move brought international disputes over claims to the island to an end and the island was included in the Republic of Hawaii when it was founded on July 4, 1894, although the British government continued to attempt to negotiate with the Hawaiian government over use of Necker Island and on September 24, 1894, Champion landed a British party on the island.<ref name=Taillemite/><ref name=bryanp10/> On July 12, 1895, King led a Hawaiian government expedition — which also included the first director of the Bishop Museum, William Tufts Brigham, and Professor William DeWitt Alexander — to Necker to survey and map the island and conduct archaeological research.<ref name=bryanp10/> On August 12, 1898, the United States annexed the Hawaiian Islands, including Necker Island, and Necker was included in the Territory of Hawaii upon its creation on April 30, 1900.
In 1902, the United States Fish Commission research ship USFC Albatross visited Necker Island, and her personnel thought they discovered the "Necker Island tern" there, as well as on Nīhoa and at the French Frigate Shoals, during their visit; the bird later was determined to be a subspecies of the blue-grey noddy, already known from farther south in the Pacific.<ref name=rauzonp28/><ref name=theauk19030401/> The island was leased for commercial fishing purposes for 21 years on June 2, 1904, and on February 3, 1909, it became part of the Hawaiian Islands Bird Reservation, managed jointly by the United States Department of Agriculture and the Territory of Hawaii.<ref name=bryanp10/>
George N. Wilcox visited Necker Island twice on unrecorded dates, and the United States Revenue Cutter Service revenue cutter USRC Thetis visited the island in 1910 and 1913,<ref name=bryanp10/> as did an expedition led by H. L. Tucker in 1917.<ref name=bryanp10/> The warden of the Hawaiian Islands Bird Reservation landed on the island on October 6, 1919, and found stone artifacts during his visit.<ref name=bryanp10/> The Tanager Expedition visited Necker Island in 1923 and 1924, and is noted for exploring the island's biology and archaeology;<ref name=usfwsmokumanamana/> during its first visit, from June 12 to 29, 1923, it mapped the island and studied its flora and fauna in detail, and on its return visit from July 14 to July 17, 1924, it conducted a thorough archaeological survey.<ref name=bryanp10/>
On August 21, 1959, the State of Hawaii was created, and Necker was included in the new state. Because Native Hawaiians used Necker Island as a ceremonial and religious site in Ancient Hawaii, the United States government added the island to its National Register of Historic Places in 1988. In 1997, members of the Native Hawaiian organization Hui Mälama I Nä Kupuna O Hawaiʻi Nei ("Hawaiʻi Ancestral Care Association") visited the island to rebury human bones found there which had been transported to Honolulu and kept at Bishop Museum.<ref name=papahanaumokuakeavirtualvisit/><ref name=usfwsmokumanamana/>
In the early 21st century, scientists studied benthic invertebrates and algal assemblages at Necker Island.<ref>Spatial and Temporal Comparisons of Benthic Composition at Necker Island, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands 2011</ref> On June 15, 2006, the United States established the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, with Necker Island within its boundaries.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Access
Access to Necker Island is by boat, and is quite difficult because of the island's nearly vertical coastline.<ref name=bryanp8/> Heavy surf usually precludes landings along the coast in Shark Bay, but a small lee exists west of Northwest Cape, and landing on rocky shelves there is possible in moderately calm weather<ref name=bryanp8/> but can be dangerous in high surf.<ref name=Harrisonp14/>
Visits to Necker Island are permitted only for scientific, educational, and cultural purposes and require the approval of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, which gives preference to scientific and cultural visits.<ref name=papahanaumokuakeavirtualvisit/><ref name=usfwsmokumanamana/>
See also
- List of volcanoes in the Hawaiian – Emperor seamount chain
- List of islands
- Desert island
- Necker Island (British Virgin Islands)
- Stonehenge (famous site with standing stones)
References
Footnotes
Bibliography
- Bryan, Edwin H., Jr. The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands: An Annotated Bibliography. Honolulu: United States Fish and Wildlife Service, April 1978.
- Template:Cite DCB
- Gilmore, Roland. "Mystery Islands." Hana Hou! The Magazine of Hawaiian Airlines. August–September 2010.Template:Dead link
- Harrison, Craig S., Seabirds of Hawaii: Natural History and Conservation, Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1990 Template:ISBN
- Template:Cite book
Further reading
External links
- Template:Usurped
- Janeresture.com: Necker Island Template:Webarchive
- PBS Ocean Adventures website: Quick Facts on Necker Island
- NOAA Essay
- Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument Information Management System
- Pictures of Necker Island (National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration)
- Mokumanamana To Be Visited During Makaliʻi Voyage (June 14, 2019) on YouTube
- Voyaging Canoes Expect to Reach Mokumanamana this Evening (video)
- Pages with broken file links
- Northwestern Hawaiian Islands
- Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain
- Volcanoes of Hawaii
- Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Hawaii
- Miocene volcanoes
- Paleogene Oceania
- Cenozoic Hawaii
- National Register of Historic Places in Honolulu County, Hawaii
- Important Bird Areas of Hawaii