Island History for Friday, October 23, 2009

From 1930 to 1940, treasure hunter Julius Scammon Rodman (1912-2001) scoured the caves and ruins of Hawai‘i in search of Hawaiian artifacts and burials that he supplied to collectors such as Honolulu’s Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum.

In 1934, Rodman was informed in Honolulu by an aged Hawaiian named Maui Kaupo of the existence of a royal burial cave at Pueo Point, a 900-foot cliff on Ni‘ihau’s eastern shore.

Certain that Ni‘ihau’s owners, the Robinsons, would forbid him access, Rodman decided on a clandestine raid.

At dawn one Sunday not long afterwards, while swells swept beneath their sampan, “Saucy Maru,” and crashed against a rocky shore, Rodman and a partner, H. Deuchare, found themselves scanning the cliffs of Pueo Point rising high above them, searching for the cave.

At daylight, Deuchare spotted the cave’s entrance, and after mooring the sampan outside the breakers, they loaded two surfboards with equipment and paddled to shore.

There the men shouldered their gear and scaled the nearly vertical cliffside to the summit, where they anchored block and tackle to a boulder almost directly over the cave and lowered themselves with rope to a narrow ledge fronting it, about 200 feet below.

Quickly, they dislodged the entrance stone and went inside with flashlights showing the way. Dust, 3 inches thick, covered everything.

A heap of skeletons lay ahead. Further on were piles of artifacts, a heavy chest and several mummies covered with black kapa and twilled mats.

It was then that Deuchare turned to see the “Saucy Maru” dragging anchor and surging dangerously toward the rocks. There was no time to lose.

When they reached their sampan — without treasure — it was nearing the breakers, but Deuchare steered it sharply away from shore to safety.

Rodman never again attempted a raid on Ni‘ihau.