Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 4, Number 3, 1 March 1987 — Manana Offers Interesting Challenge [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Manana Offers Interesting Challenge

By Earl (Buddy) Neller Cultural Specialist Manana Island, commonly referred to as Rabbit lsland, offers archaeologists and students of archaeology an interesting challenge. There are two recorded archaeological sites on the island — the ruins of two fishing shrines and a rectangular stone terrace built of both basalt and coral rocks. Both sites, classified as Sites 489 and 490, are on the Hawaii Register of Historic Places. Ko'a is the Hawaiian name used for fishing shrines. The two sites are on the leeward side of the island. Site 489 is an eroding, deflated site that has lost its original architectural structure. !t is now just a widely scattered concentration of branch coral around an eroding soil hummoek with just a little vegetation remaining. Sparse shell midden (refuse) and human bones are found among the chunks of coral. There are a few basalt stones, but not many. There is a possibility the site was not a fishing shrine, but rather a burial mound (ahu)

made of coral. Site 490 is badly deteriorated but the structure's general outlines ean still be seen. A substantial quantity of midden is eroding out of the slope below the site, and it appears to have excellent research potential for archaeologists. The fish bones could be studied to determine the antiquity of the site and the use of the island by ancient Hawaiians. Alluvium 3m thick fills the west crater of Manana and mantles the southwest slope. The archaeological research potential of these deposits has never been tested, but the island's dry environment could help to preserve skeletal material and other kinds of archaeological remains. For instance, the thick soil deposits

might contain a dateable, chronological sequence of the kinds of birds that lived around Manana during the past 100,000 years. The deposits might even contain some rarely found bones, such as the bones of the extinct, endemic Hawaiian sea eagle. It is this writer's feeling that the entire island should be nominated for the National Register of Historic Places. The island itself is the erosional remnant of two voleanie cones and is composed of lithic tuff, a glassy basaltic ash deposit. The tuff contains occasional inclusions of basalt and fossiliferous limestone rocks, trapped in the ash during the volcanic eruptions that produced the cones. It receives little rainfall and has no source of fresh groundwater, making it less than suitable for permanent habitation. Manana today contains a eouple dozen species of plants, including grasses, wild tobacco and scattered palms. Insects, miee and rabbits live on the island. lt is the nesting site during the summer months for 100,000

Sooty Terns, 30,000 Brown Noddies and mueh smaller numbers of wedge-tailed Shearwaters and Bulwer's Petrels. The island was used as a target for bombing and strafing during World War II and there may be some danger from unexploded duds still on the islands, buried in its thick soil deposits. Someone was killed in 1948 when a bomb exploded unexpectedly. Manana is surrounded by a submerged, sea-cut bench whieh is almost 50m wide on the northeast side. There is a sandbar built by waves on the southwest side whieh serves as a convenient eanoe landing. Human bones were found scattered on the surface of the ground in the beach area in January, 1985. lnvestigation determined the bones eame from more than one individual, and that they were from ancient Hawaiian graves. Bones have been found on the island before. Wendell Kam of the Department of Land and Natural Resources Historic Sites division reported on an eroding Hawaiian grave discovered in August, 1981. Charles Olona reported to Mary Kawena Pukui many years ago that he had found old burials on the island. Manana is 1.3 kilometers from Oahu, stands 110 meters high at its highest point and is approximately 500 meters in diameter.

- This is one of the fishing shrines on Manana Island with the rocks from the original shrine scattered in ruins. People in photo are searching for human bones.

These are human bones exposed by weather and erosion. In lower foreground are leg bones. A skull ean be seen a little further up in photo.