In February 2000, a group that was founded to repatriate Hawaiian remains and artifacts agreed to a one-year loan of priceless burial objects that had been stored for nearly a century by the Bishop Museum.It was the beginning of a bitter dispute — perhaps the worst in modern Hawaiian history — over who should ultimately be responsible for the care of ancient cultural items viewed by many to be sacred. And it brought into painful focus the rights of the dead, the obligations of their descendants and the mission of anthropologists.
The 83 burial objects, which are known as the Forbes Collection, were taken from the Kawaihae Caves on the Big Island in 1905. The collection includes carved-wood statuettes of family gods, or 'aumakua; carved bowls; a human-hair wig; gourds decorated with human teeth; tools; and pieces of feather capes.
The repatriation group, Hui Malama I Na Kupuna o Hawai'i Nei, maintained that the items were looted from the cave, then given to the Bishop Museum. Founded in 1989 to repatriate Native Hawaiian bones and artifacts, Hui Malama said it has reburied more than 2,900 sets of remains in or near their original burial sites.
After agreeing to the loan in February 2000, Hui Malama said it reburied the items in a Kawaihae cave and sealed the entrance. Group leaders, who refused to retrieve the artifacts, said returning them to the same museum that accepted looted items would again desecrate the burial objects and their ancestors' wishes.
The transfer raised concerns from other Native Hawaiian groups. The refusal to retrieve them prompted two groups — including one headed by Abigail Kawananakoa, an heiress of the Campbell Estate who is descended from Hawaiian royalty — to ask U.S. District Judge David Ezra in August 2005 to order their return. The groups claimed Hui Malama "had hijacked an important part of Hawai'i's cultural past."
Ezra ruled in September that the artifacts should be returned to the Bishop Museum while 13 Native Hawaiian organizations sort out claims to the artifacts and decide what should be done with them.
Hui Malama refused, even after a failed appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. They maintained that Ezra's ruling was "an order to steal from the dead."
Hui Malama executive director Edward Halealoha Ayau was held in contempt of court in late December 2005 for refusing to pinpoint the whereabouts of the items and was jailed at the Federal Detention Center for three weeks.
Ayau was released to participate in a mediation effort, which by April 2006 had ended without any resolution to the issue.
