Visited by people since July 27th, 1996.

Background

Federal and State Laws

Beliefs And Practices

Goals

Completed Repatriations from National and International Institutions

Essay: Rooted in Native Soil

Essay: Advice on Working with Museums

Other NAGPRA Related Organizations

Mokapu and Heleloa

Ki'i La`au

Missing Iwi

Background:

Hui Malama I Na Kupuna O Hawai`i Nei (Group Caring For the Ancestors of Hawai`i) is a Native Hawaiian Organization dedicated to the proper treatment of ancestral Native Hawaiians. Hui Malama I Na Kupuna O Hawai`i Nei was born December 1988 from the kaumaha (heaviness) and aokanaka (enlightenment) caused by the archaeological disinterment of over 1,100 ancestral Native Hawaiians from Honokahua, Maui. The ancestral remains were removed over the protests of the Native Hawaiian community in order to build the Ritz Carlton Hotel. The desecration was stopped following a 24-hour vigil at the State Capital. Governor John Waihe`e, a Native Hawaiian, approved of a settlement that returned the ancestral remains to their one hanau (birth sands), set aside the reburial site in perpetuity, and moved the hotel inland and away from the ancestral resting place. Ironically, Native Hawaiians fighting the approval of the Ritz Carlton Hotel project advocated for the hotel to be moved away from the ancestral burial site to begin with. Today, stone memorials and plaques mark the location of the reinterment site, a chilly reminder of the pain, anguish, and shame that could have been avoided if State and County officials and the private landowner/developer had only listened to those who demanded the the hotel not be built, or at least moved away from the Honokahua families.

 

In one sense Honokahua represents balance, for from this tragedy came enlightment: the realization by living Native Hawaiians that we were ultimately responsible for the care and protection of our ancestors and that cultural protocols needed to be relearned and laws effectively changed to create the empowerment necessary to carry out this important and time honored responsibility to malama (take care) and kupale (protect) our ancestors.

 

Hui Malama I Na Kupuna O Hawai`i Nei members have trained under the direction of Edward and Pualani Kanahele of Hilo in traditional protocols relating to care of na iwi kupuna (ancestral remains). These commitments were undertaken as a form of aloha and respect for our own families, our ancestors, our parents, and our children:

Hui Malama I Na Kupuna O Hawai`i Nei has been taught by the Kanahele family about the importance of pule (prayer) necessary to ho`olohe (listen) to the calling of our ancestors. Through pule we request the assistance of ke akua and our ancestors to provide us the tools necessary to conduct our work:

E homai ka ike, e homai ka ikaika, e homai ka akamai, e homai ka maopopo pono, e homai ka `ike papalua, e homai ka mana

Grant us knowledge, grant us strength, grant us intelligence, grant us righteous understanding, grant us visions and avenues of communication, grant us mana.

Moreover, we have been taught that the relationship between our ancestors and ourselves is one of interdependence- as the living, we have a kuleana (responsibility) to care for our kupuna (ancestors). In turn, our ancestors respond by protecting us on the spiritual side. Hence, one side cannot completely exist without the other.

 

Beliefs And Practices:

• Native Hawaiians possess mana which resides in certain parts of their bodies, especially na iwi (bones).
• Mana and spiritual contact with our gods and ancestors cannot be separated.
• Proper treatments for our kupuna is essential for maintaining our spiritual health and overall well being because they exist in us.
• We are nourished through our cultural and religious beliefs and practices while struggling to exist in modern Hawai`i.
• Foremostly, ancestral burials sites must be left in place and undisturbed.
• Regarding burial treatment, we defer to the wishes of identified lineal descendants and the `ohana (family).
• Our actions relating to care and protection of the kupuna are governed by pono (righteousness).
• We stringently object to the unnecessary handling of ancestral Native Hawaiian remains, especially physical examination, any form of destructive analysis, and photographs without the consent of lineal descendants and the `ohana.
• We advocate for tougher laws protective of ancestral burial sites and their contents from economic, archaeological, and anthropological exploitation.
• We stand by to assist Native Hawaiian families wishing to take responsibility for the care and protection of ancestral remains and burial sites.
• We will set an example for our children such that when our time comes, we will know our bones will be protected
• Our work to repatriate and reinter ancestral Native Hawaiians is intended to restore the responsibilities of caring for our families; it is our gift of aloha to these ancestors and their `ohana and intended to strengthen the foundation of the Hawaiian Nation.

Goals:

• Provide ancestral and living Native Hawaiians with traditional interment and reinterment services.
• Provide cultural and legal oversight of Federal, State, and County laws affecting Native Hawaiian burial sites, skeletal remains, and burial goods.
• Help nourish the overall growth of traditional Native Hawaiian cultural beliefs and practices so as to plant the seeds for our future.
• Repatriate all ancestral Native Hawaiian remains, burial objects, sacred objects, and cultural patrimony.

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Federal and State Laws:

Repatriation and burial site protection required changes in federal and state laws. Hui Malama I Na Kupuna O Hawai`i Nei is honored to have participated in successful efforts to enact the National Museum of the American Indian Act (P.L. 101-185, November, 1989, "NMAIA") and the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act ("NAGPRA") (P.L. 101-601, November 16, 1990). Although Native Hawaiians are not formally recognized as Native Americans, for purposes of NMAIA and NAGPRA, Native Hawaiians enjoy Native American status. Moreover, Native Hawaiian organizations enjoy legal authorities comparable to Indian tribes. Hui Malama I Na Kupuna O Hawai`i Nei and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs are specifically named as Native Hawaiian organizations eligible to conduct repatriation of cultural items and to participate in consultation relating to the treatment of inadvertently discovered Native Hawaiian remains and other cultural items on Federal and Hawaiian Home lands.

NAGPRA gave Hui Malama I Na Kupuna O Hawai`i Nei legal standing to bring the ancestors home back to their `ohana and to protect the sanctity of traditional burial sites. This meant contacting museums nation wide to inquire whether the institution housed Native Hawaiian skeletal remains or funerary objects and if so, begin the process of repatriation and reinterment.

Moreover, the passage of Act 306 in 1990 has provided a higher degree of protection for Native Hawaiian burial and reburial sites in the State of Hawai`i through the creation of island burial councils comprised of a majority of Native Hawaiians, as well as representatives of large landowners and developers. The councils have the legal authority to determine whether to preserve in place or relocate previously identified Native Hawaiian burial sites situate on state, county, and private land. In addition, the councils have the authority to render recommendations regarding any burial related matter, including the treatment of inadvertently discovered Native Hawaiian skeletal remains.

Completed Repatriations from National and International Institutions:

Hui Malama I Na Kupuna O Hawai`i Nei has repatriated and reinterred ancestral Native Hawaiian remains and funerary objects from the following institutions:

National

• Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (Washington, D.C.)
• Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum (Honolulu, Hawai`i)
• American Museum of Natural History (New York, New York)
• Field Museum of Natural History (Chicago, Illinois)
• University of Alaska Museum (Fairbanks, Alaska)
• Brigham Young University Museum of Peoples and Cultures (Provo, Utah)
• Milwaukee Public Museum (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)
• San Diego Museum of Man (San Diego, California)
• University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
• Sacramento Science Center (Sacramento, California)
• University of Oregon Museum of Natural History (Eugene, Oregon)
• Peabody Essex Museum (Salem, Massachusetts)
• Phoebe Hearst Museum at the University of California (Berkeley, California)
• Harvard Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology (Cambridge, Massachusetts)
• Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History (New Haven, Connecticut)
• Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College (Hanover, New Hampshire)
• Joseph Moore Museum at Earlham College (Richmond, Indiana)
• Reading Public Museum (Reading, Pennsylvania)
• University of Arkansas Museum (Fayetteville, Arkansas)
• University of Kansas Dept. of Anthropology (Lawrence, Kansas)
• University of California Los Angeles Fowler Museum (Los Angeles, California)
• Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History (Los Angeles, California)
• Cal State Fullerton Dept. of Anthropology (Fullerton, California)
• California Academy of Sciences (San Francisco, California)
• Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History (Santa Cruz, California)
• Springfield Science Museum (Springfield, Massachusetts)

International

• Royal Ontario Museum (Toronto, Canada)
• South Australian Museum (Adelaide, Australia)
• University of Zurich Institute of Anthropology (Zurich, Switzerland)

Museums with pending repatriation claims:

• Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum (Honolulu, Hawaii)
• University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
• Harvard Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology (Cambridge, Massachusetts)
• The British Museum- Museum of Mankind (London, England)
• Staatliches Museum Fur Volkerkunde (Dresden, Germany)

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Yale Peabody Museum	Harvard Peabody Museum

Advice for Natives Working with Museums

I wish to make the following suggestions to assist tribes with repatriation efforts.

First, and above all else, follow your own teachings and draw strength, guidance, and inspiration from your heritage. Adapt NAGPRA to your indigenous culture.

Second, establish a working relationship with museum staff. The effort will help establish and clarify the museum's philosophy with regard to NAGPRA compliance.

Third, identify the decision-making process or hierarchy at the museum. Be clear who the decision makers are and make it clear to the museum who your decision makers are.

Fourth, for purposes of clarity, reduce discussions to writing wherever possible. Leave little to assumption. Moreover, copy the National Park Service NAGPRA program on correspondences.

Fifth, in problematic cases with uncooperative museums, ask your congressional delegation to write letters or make telephone calls. In extremely problematic cases - and where the culture agrees - use the media to convey your intentions. We have found from experience that society in general agrees with good faith efforts to return ancestral remains, rather than with museum demands to withhold them from reburial.

Finally, whenever making an assertion, ask the museum official to explain back to you what they think you meant. For example, we may say to Museum X, "Don't study our ancestors." By this we mean no taking or gleaning of any scientific data whatsoever. However, the museum may think we meant, "minimal recording of age, sex stature, pathologies, cranial measurements, dentition, and ethnicity determination is acceptable, but not intrusive examinations such as DNA analysis or carbon dating."

If we do not clarify what we mean, the museum may think it adequately consulted with us. For their part, encourage museums to request clarification of any statement or action by the group or any member.

-Edward Halealoha Ayau-

huimalam@pixi.com

 

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Authored by Richard W. Pell
email: rp3h@andrew.cmu.edu



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