Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 10, Number 11, 1 November 1993 — Bringing home nā kūpuna calls for kōkua [ARTICLE]

Bringing home nā kūpuna calls for kōkua

bv Deborah Ward Hui Mālama I Nā Kūpuna O Hawai'i Nei is a nonprofit native Hawaiian organization, incorporated April 17, 1989 to provide guidance and expertise in decisions dealing with native Hawaiian cultural issues, particularly burial issues. Hui members are working in active partnership with Office of Hawaiian Affairs to coordinate repatriation efforts. OHA has provided funding through its repatriation fund, and other support to enable Hui members to meet with staff of various North American and foreign museums and to conduct the return of Hawaiian ancestral remains. OHA and the Hui are explicitly recognized as native Hawaiian organizations in the 1990 federal Native American Grave

Protection and Repatriation Act, and thus qualified to conduct repatriation of native Hawaiian human remains and objects held by federal agencies or museums receiving federal funds. (The only exception is the Smithsonian Institution. whieh is addressed in the Museum of the American Indian Act.)

The Hui has written to 200 institutions in the United States and to 100 overseas requesting information about native Hawaiian remains in those collections, and to notify these institutions of their desire to begin a dialogue. Asserting rights under NAGPRA is not always easy, and the Hui is still encountering resistance from museums and agencies who question their legitimacy. Speaking last month to a work-

shop of the Hawai'i Museums Association on NAGPRA, Edward Halealoha Ayau told how, in June 1991, members of the Hui Mālama traveled to the American Museum of Natural

History in New York and the Field Museum in Chicago and encountered two extremes of reception, one hostile and non-cooperative and the other welcoming, as they sought to conduct repatriation of ancestral remains. Ayau is the state Burial Councils coordinator in the State Historic Preservation Office

of the Department of Land and Natural Resources, and attorney for Hui Mālama I Nā Kūpuna. Other repatriations have been completed from Sacramento, from the University of Alaska, Brigham Young University, Milwaukee Public Museum, University of Pennsylvania, Peabody/Essex Museum and the Oregon Museum of Anthropology. The Hui has successfully returned ancestral remains from museums in Canada, Australia, and Switzerland and is approaching other European museums with assistance from the U.S. Department of State and Hawai'i's congressional delegation. In July 1990 the first repatriation of native remains was begun, under the Museum of the American Indian Act. Members of Hui Mālama and the OHA Native Hawaiian Historic Preservation Task Force went to Washington, D.C. to bring home nā iwi from the Smithsonian

Institution National Museum of Natural History. These remains were returned and reburied on their home islands of O'ahu, Maui, Lāna'i and Hawai'i. In August 1991, with the assistance

of OHA and the Hui, Kaua'i and Hawai'i families returned to the Smith-son-ian and eompleted the repatriation. Earlier this year the NAGPRA Review Committee resolved its first, and only to date, dispute

case under that law. Hui Mālama, again with the support of OHA, was successful in gaining the return of two sets of iwi whieh the P.A. Hearst Museum in California had refused to release. While the committee is an advisory body, its recommendation for retum gained eomplianee and strengthened the NAGPRA application nationally.

"To keep ancestors' skulls a hundred years in boxes is spiritually wrong. ... (They) are holding our people hostage." Punahele Lerma, Hui Mālama I Nā Kūpuna O Hawai'i Nei.

OHA and Hui Mālama now expect to complete the return of native Hawaiian remains in U.S. collections by late spring or early summer of 1994. All remains retumed to Hawai'i have been reinterred. Hui Mālama conducts a traditional burial ceremony when they rebury. By state law, the location of burial and reburial areas are not made publie. Says Ayau, "That is part of the responsibility the Hui carries, to make sure they will be protected. ... It is a burden. ... not just of time, but responsibility. We spoke on behalf of our ancestors to bring them home. We are

responsible for them." Ayau says the Hui does not elaim to be the only group representing native Hawaiians, but that its members have accepted the responsibility and long-term commitment to the kūpuna (ancestors) and to their cultural heritage. Kūnani Nihipali, po'o of Hui Mālama, notes that assisting with the repatriation of possibly thousands of objects also permitted under NAGPRA is the Hui's next major commitment, whieh they are coordinating with the OHA Native Hawaiian Historic Preservation Council. Hui Mālama was formed in 1988 by concemed Hawaiians, in response to the disinterments in an ancient burial dune at Honokahua, Maui. Then-presi-dent Ed Kanahele said Hui Mālama members are led by a strong spiritual commitment to care for and prevent desecration of the bones of the kūpuna. Ayau said Kanahele and his wife, Pualani Kanakaole Kanahele, are both noted Hawaiian culture experts and provide irreplaceable guidance to the Hawaiian spiritual connection with the ancestors and the practice of Hawaiian eulmre today. Hui Mālama member Punahele Lerma adds, "To keep ancestors' skulls a hundred years in boxes is spiritually wrong. ... (They) are holding our people hostage." "Our people have one-ness with sky, land, water. Hui Mālama means care of t|ie kūpuna. They become the earth you stand on." He said the next generation of Hawaiians must leam to take care of the ancestors by seeing the example set by their parents.