Mystery of Stewart Island’s Japanese ‘cave woman’
One of the most intriguing ‘‘outsider’’ stories to capture the public imagination in this country happened in the late 1970s.
Keiko Agatsuma, dubbed the ‘‘Japanese woman cave dweller of Stewart Island’’, ended up eventually being deported back to Japan, but not before she caused an international media sensation.
It all started in late 1978. Word came through from fishermen operating out of Oban that a female Japanese tourist had been living in cave in Doughboy Bay. Rumours had her living there for years, that she’d walked in dragging her suitcase and avoided human company at all costs. One fisherman told how he once dropped her off some fresh fish and supplies because he felt sorry for her.
Was she half mad? Running from something?
It couldn’t have all been further from the truth.
Keiko Agatsuma did leave Japan because of something or someone that she disagreed with; she even later hinted about an abusive husband and a feeling she did not belong in the conformist, crowded country.
But she never quite gave away enough personal information for anyone to really know for sure.
Known definitely is that she arrived in Christchurch in midAugust 1978, getting a standard tourist visa allowing her to stay for three months. After spending at least that amount of time travelling by herself around the lower South Island, she got wind of the charms of Stewart Island and headed over to Oban in Halfmoon Bay with her backpack and two boxes of groceries purchased from a supermarket in Bluff.
The locals couldn’t help but notice – Japanese tourists just didn’t go to Stewart Island back then. After consolidating her supplies into her pack and tying another boxful on top of that, she got on a boat heading up to Freshwater Landing at the head of
Paterson Inlet. Although Keiko was diminutive in stature, only an inch or two taller than five feet in height, she had a noticeably wiry and tough looking frame, so the launchmaster felt he had no reason other than to wish her well.
Two days later she was ensconced in the Forest Service hut at Mason Bay. Farmers Tim and Ngaire Te Aika got to know Keiko better than anyone else during her stay on Stewart Island. This couple held the pastoral lease over the 10,000 acre Island Hill Station at Mason Bay before it reverted to Crown ownership in 1986.
They described her as speaking very broken but moderately understandable English once you got to know her, and that she was probably no more than 40.
‘‘Lots of things impressed us about the woman,’’ recalls Tim.
‘‘She was reasonably well educated for a start, you could just tell by the way she inquired about things. And she came across as completely honourable and honest. Whenever she came for a meal, she insisted on working or helping to pay for what she had, either helping Ngaire with the chores or me out on the farm.
‘‘Particularly she was interested in all the animals we had – sheep, dogs, chooks, ducks – she loved them all.
‘‘She would’ve lived here forever if she had the chance.’’
As she became more adventurous, she extended her range.
Walking south to Doughboy Bay, she came across a big dry cave just in from the beach at the southern end, not far from where the Doughboy Bay Hut later got built, and moved in. The cave is not a deep one, but its 4m-high entrance is inviting, with a southern rata overhanging it to protect it from the weather.
Keiko spent just over a week there, decorating it with washed-up buoys and making a stove out of an old 44 gallon drum.
Here she lived on her last provisions and prizing paua off the rocks using an old screwdriver that
Tim had given her.
Sad, then, that just when Keiko had discovered her paradise at Doughboy Bay, things should start to go tragically wrong.
Some deerstalkers just out of the bush making their way down the beach to meet a light aircraft noticed a lone figure crouching on the edge of the sand, obviously not well.
When they investigated, they found Keiko definitely out of sorts, complaining of pains in her stomach. They convinced her to collect her gear and come back with them in the plane to Bluff so that she could see a doctor and see if anything was seriously wrong.
Soon after takeoff, the pilot sent a radio message to air traffic control at Invercargill to say he had a sick tramper on board.
Both an ambulance and police were waiting at the aerodrome in Invercargill, where she was whisked off to hospital for observation.
Police examination of her passport details revealed she was an overstayer, and they referred the matter to the Immigration Service who immediately applied to the court to have her deported.
The court released Keiko after her first hearing into the care of the Salvation Army in Invercargill, who guaranteed to look after her. For around one month Keiko resided at their hostel in Leven St while she went through the two more required hearings in the Invercargill District Court.
Captain Ian Spargo ran the hostel at this time, and his wife Helen in particular became good friends with Keiko.
She recalls: ‘‘She made a big impact on us all. A truly amazing woman, a good woman, that’s how I would describe her.
‘‘When she first came, we felt obliged to watch her, make sure she didn’t run away. But if she ever used the fire escape, which she did at night to get out sometimes for a walk in the fresh air, it was soon pretty obvious she would always come back. She knew her number was up here.’’
Media attention from all around the world went into overdrive as soon as the local press began breaking the story of Keiko. By the second week, the hostel was getting bombarded night and day by calls from the world’s press, all wanting to know first-hand about the ‘‘Japanese woman cave dweller of Stewart Island’’.
Keiko became more and more stressed as the court and legal proceedings dragged on. It couldn’t have been an experience further from the simple, self-sufficient life that she craved, away from mainstream society.
When deportation day came,
Helen got handcuffed to Keiko and they travelled together by plane to Christchurch, the only way the police would let her go without being put inside a prison van. It was a sad and tearful day all around.
Keiko’s older brother had flown out from Japan, staying two days in Christchurch, to meet her before accompanying her back to Japan.
Everyone just remembers him as polite and caring man, but there was some suggestion that Keiko had done a shameful act in Japanese eyes, trying to bail out of society.
Keiko’s Stewart Island adventure was all but over. Her whole stay in New Zealand lasted little more than five months.
Today, Keiko’s only legacy seems to be all the myths and speculation that still surrounds her. But for those who came to know her well, she touched their lives.
Not many people realise that the creative inspiration she left behind is her legacy. Notably, a short story loosely based on her by Peter Wells got turned into a film called Memory and Desire by director Nicky Caro, who later went on to make Whale Rider.
Personally, I can’t help but think the mass tourism model we adopted pre-Covid 19 was a true disaster for New Zealand, and that we could never hope for a better tourist than the likes of Keiko Agatsuma.