Heiau restoration in dispute

Toni Palermo is among the volunteers who have been working to restore the heiau. However, the restoration work has been suspended after a Hawaiian ancestral care group complained that the restoration work has desecrated the shrine. Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

By Will Hoover
Advertiser North Shore Writer

Since 1997, a group of volunteers has been maintaining and restoring Pu'u O Mahuka Heiau at Waimea. The heiau, thought to have been built in the 1600s, is the largest on O'ahu.

The voluntary work has been coordinated by heiau curator Butch Helemano, under the supervision of state archaeologist Alan Carpenter. The work is considered vital because the national historic landmark was in extreme decline from decades of neglect and the ravages of time, weather and abuse.

But now a Hawaiian ancestral care group has charged that the heiau has been desecrated and has asked the state to halt restoration immediately.

"We were upset at the ... irreversible damage that had been done to the original heiau structure — the traditional intent and design being lost for all time," wrote Kunani Nihipali, representing Hui Malama I Na Kupuna O Hawai'i Nei, in a letter sent last month to Martha Yent, interpretive program supervisor for the Division of State Parks.

Nihipali, who has researched the site's history, visited the heiau in late November and says he was saddened to find that rocks had been moved and "bizarre changes" had been made.

State archaeologist Alan Carpenter has been supervising volunteers who are restoring the Pu'u O Mahuka Heiau, which is believed to have been built in the 17th century. Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

Still, anyone who hasn't visited the site since the mid-1990s might be surprised by how much has changed.

"We are concerned," said Yent, who met with Nihipali in late December and plans to see if they can iron out their differences. "We have moved a fair amount of rock. If we just leave it the way it is now, that's not appropriate, either."

Carpenter said the only rocks that have been moved were those that already collapsed. No base wall stones have been touched.

"This site has been mapped and recorded in its damaged state several times over the last 100 years," Carpenter said. "But never has anyone looked underneath that to find the skeleton of the heiau — the footprint. You need to know where the original foundations were in order to recreate it."

Yent said Nihipali was hired to do excavation work on the heiau in the 1980s, and his wife, Ipo, did the art on the signs at the heiau. She said the two are upset because the restoration work wasn't done by their associate Billy Fields.

Fields, a Kona contractor and recognized expert in dry stone wall building, submitted a restoration bid of just over $80,000 in May 1997.

"Billy Fields does have diverse experience," Yent said. "He has worked on heiau before. Plus, he is a licensed contractor, which is a requirement."

But Yent said $100,000, earmarked in the state parks special fund for the restoration, fell victim budget cuts in 2000. In short, Yent said the state no longer has the money. If and when it does, she said she will be glad to pay Fields or someone similarly qualified.

Fields doesn't like how Yent handled the situation. The state insisted that his bid proposal adhere to stringent guidelines — guidelines Carpenter was not required to meet, Fields said.

"Basically we gave them a bid to do the restoration on the heiau, and what they did was juggle the money around in order to keep their archaeologist working," Fields said.

Yent said Carpenter, who has worked on similar projects with Fields, has the experience and expertise to oversee the project. His work, she said, has the necessary approval by the Division of State Parks and the Hawaiian Historic Preservation Society.

Nihipali is unmoved by Yent's explanation.

"Why aren't there sufficient funds to restore this wahi pana (sacred place), given its significance to our people?" he asked. "Why is the 'cheap' route always taken when it comes to the restoration of our resources?"

Nihipali particularly resents what he sees as an implication that qualified Hawaiians should not expect to get paid to do restoration work, "as though Hawaiians should not seek economic pursuits on our own land."

He said the state's approach to the heiau is "institutional racism."

Fields said he doesn't believe the appropriate cultural protocol was undertaken before the volunteers began work.

"I was taught to always pule (pray) first and make sure all the requirements have been carefully addressed prior to any major undertakings, especially when related to heiau," he said.

But Helemano — who is the person who initially invited Fields to submit a bid — said he believes Carpenter, as a scientist who works in Hawaiian archaeology, has carefully supervised the work. Helemano himself has tended to the religious protocol at the site, which he says "is not written in stone," and varies from individual to individual.

"The curator program is based on the hope that local, Native Hawaiians such as myself — someone who has the genealogy, the blood and who can speak the native language fluently — are the type of people to maintain Hawaiian sites," he said. "I come in here and do the work for free. It's what we call manu ahi. There's no reward, renumeration or glorification for what we do. When we leave here, no one knows we were here. I'm doing this because I want to. I do this because of my love of the culture.

"The issue is not about one Hawaiian against another. The issue is one Hawaiian group — Hui Malama — against the state."

Nihipali and Fields said they agree that the debate is not Hawaiian versus Hawaiian.

Carpenter said all sides agree on another thing: The heiau had been neglected for far too long.

"With volunteers you are not going to get the quality of work you are with Billy Fields," he said. "But, the end result of this will benefit everyone. I just hope we can all put our differences aside."