Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 12, Number 9, 1 September 1995 — Grant allows OHA to document Hawaiian artifacts [ARTICLE]

Grant allows OHA to document Hawaiian artifacts

by Deborah L. Ward The Offlce of Hawaiian Affairs and Hui Mālama I Nā Kūpuna O Hawai'i Nei have been awarded a grant of $45,160 from the U.S. Department of the Interior Naūonal Park Service for a oneyear documentation project of native Hawaiian cultural items, under the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). The award was one of 42 projects receiving grant awards totaling $2.2 million to assist museums, Indian tribes, Native Hawaiian organizations and Alaska Native villages and oorporations with implementation of NAGPRA. Enacted in 1990,

NAGPRA required museums and federal agencies to: 1) summarize sacred and palrimonial objects in their collections by Nov. 16, 1994, and 2) inventory human remains by Nov. 16, 1995. The completed summaries and anticipated inventories are to be sent to the affected native groups, whereupon a process for consultation and possible retum ean begin. The NAGPRA grant will allow OHA and Hui Mālama to input documents received under the law from nearly 100 federally funded museutns, institutions and federal agencies in the United States. The data will be entered into a eomputer foimat that will show eollections of native Hawaiian eultural items including unassociated fimerary objects, sacred objects, and cultural patrimony. (Human remains will not be included in the database.) OHA land officer Linda Delaney said the informaiion will be provided on a database and in printed volumes at

OHA offtces statewide within the year so the Hawaiian community ean be made aware of these objects and be involved in the future process for their return and treatment on retum to Hawai'i. NAGPRA provides a process for the return of human remains in museums and federal eollee-

tions, and for the retum of sacred and patrimonial objects in consultation with native peoples. Hui Mālama will oversee devel-

opment of the computer data base and input of information. The data base will include information on type of object, Hawaiian name where known, origin of the object including island, district and ahupua'a or other more specific or popular name, name of museum and address, identification including accession and catalogue numbers, name of donor or how the object was acquired, any pietures where available (except of ancestral skeletal remains) and any information about the museum. Hui Mālama I Nā Kupuna O Hawai'i Nei spokesman Kūnani Nihipali said "Onee we understand what is there, we need to repatriate the objects. That's the main goal. Then we ean let our people decide among ourselves how to take care of them. ... That is exercising our sovereignty again."

The NAGPRA grant will allow OHA and Hui Mālama to input documents received from nearly 1 00 federally funded museums, institutions and federal agencies.

Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act: