"Ni'ihau, long known as Hawaii's 'Mystery Island', or the 'Forbidden Isle', has a rich, fascinating history put down for the first time in Ruth Tabrah's Ni'ihau: The Last Hawaiian Island. In her compelling, fast-paced, very personal and vivid style, Ms. Tabrah gives us an intimate look at Hawaii's only privately owned island. From her story of Lord Vancouver's rescue of two 'shanghaied' Ni'ihau wahines who were the first Hawaiian women ever to see the American west coast to the unusual history of the Scotch family who bought Ni'ihau for $10,000 in 1864, readers will feel as if they too have visited this island where, until recently, so few outsiders have ever been able to go."--Back cover.

Discusses the history of the traditional Hawaiian necklaces made of seashells and explains how the necklaces are made.

Reports on the domestic water supply derived from rain caught from roofs and some ground wells. Overall, the island has high aridity, unfavorable geologic structures, continuous deposition of salt spray, and abundant authigenic salts in the lake beds.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Gutsy Girl comes this provocative, compelling novel of irrevocable consequences for people thrust unwittingly into a devastating war of nations and American identity—based on a little-known true event. December 1941. The inhabitants of Niihau lead a simple life. Mostly Hawaiian natives, they work the ranch of Niihau's eccentric haole owner, who keeps his island totally isolated from the outside world, devoid of cars, phones, and electricity. But then a plane crash-lands there, and although the villagers rescue the pilot, they have no idea that he has just attacked Pearl Harbor. War has now come to Eden, slowly undoing its tranquillity, widening the cracks in the already troubled marriage of Irene and Yoshio Harada, the island's only Japanese-American couple. It will test everyone's loyalties and all they believe in . . . as Paradise, once within reach, slowly falls victim to its own isolated innocence.

On the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor, a battle damaged Japanese Zero landed on a remote, privately owned Hawaiian island. The Zero pilot survived for almost a week on what locals call the "Forbidden Island", assisted by a local worker while terrorizing the island's population before being killed by a native Hawaiian. Though the air raid on December 7, 1941 caught many by surprise, the island's owner had actually begun preparations against the attack years earlier, inspired by a remarkably accurate prophecy. The wreckage of the Japanese plane was abandoned on the island, but it's legacy was not forgotten. Sixty five years later the Zero and the story surrounding it became part of a new aviation museum in Hawaii. The Zero display brought to the forefront what happened the day of the attack, the conflict that ensued on the island in the days that followed, while unexpectedly generating a modern controversy in the process. In researching the existence of the "Niihau Zero" the author was allowed unprecedented access to the "Forbidden Island", was able to interview its owners and inhabitants, and arrange for the Zero artifacts to be placed on public display. This book contains original reports as well as documents never before published that give unique perspectives into one of the most curious and thought provoking events of WWII.