<< Expedition Diaries | About the Islands

Mokumanamana

Hawaiian name: Mokumanamana (“bird island”).

Named in 1786 after Jacques Necker, the finance minister under France’s King Louis XVI.

Tallest of the NWHI, at 903 feet.

All the plants and birds on the island are native.

The surrounding coral reefs have little life because of constant pounding wave action.

The island has more than 55 known cultural sites, of which 33 are religious and 17 are shelter caves.

Some theorize that some of the shrines on the island were used for navigational purposes by early Hawaiian and Polynesian seafarers.