The former chief of cultural studies at the Bishop Museum has filed suit against the institution, claiming he was fired when he refused to violate federal laws that require the return or "repatriation" of significant burial artifacts.

The suit, filed yesterday in state Circuit Court, raises the question of whether the museum is properly following the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990.

The purpose of the act, according to its Web site, is to provide "a process for museums and Federal agencies to return certain Native American cultural items — human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony — to lineal descendants, culturally affiliated Indian tribes, and Native Hawaiian organizations."

A spokeswoman for the museum said officials had not seen the lawsuit "and can't comment on what it may allege."

Guy Kaulukukui states he was fired from his job as vice president of cultural studies for the museum in January 2004 for refusing to sign off on two letters that would have halted a repatriation that would have given Hui Malama i Na Kupuna o Hawai'i Nei possession of funerary objects from Moloka'i.

According to the lawsuit, the letters were drawn up at the request of museum President Bill Brown and would have reversed the findings of a museum committee — headed by Kaulukukui — that reviewed NAGPRA claims and recommended acceptance of the claim to the Moloka'i objects by Hui Malama.

Brown wanted the process delayed until the museum's NAGPRA process could be reviewed, noting that there was a competing claim to the same objects.

The actions by Brown and the museum in the Moloka'i case are symptomatic of a bigger problem, Kaulukukui said. "I think this is part of a pattern, and it's a pattern of repatriating as little as possible," Kaulukukui told The Advertiser.

The issue has been a subject of debate in recent years. Some believe that while Kaulukukui was in charge of the museum's NAGPRA committee, it released items without adequate review. For example, controversy erupted among Native Hawaiian groups in 2000 when Hui Malama took 83 rare artifacts on loan from the museum and buried them in the Kawaihae Caves on the Big Island.

At the time of Kaulukukui's departure from the museum, Brown said in a statement: "The issues related to repatriation of cultural artifacts and funerary objects are very sensitive, and we take our stewardship role very seriously. At my direction, a very cautious approach to each claim is taken in order to make sure that a Kawaihae Caves situation never again occurs."

Kaulukukui's lawsuit states that in the Moloka'i case Brown "violated the letter and intent" of the federal repatriation act by seeking to delay the repatriation process. Kaulukukui refused to sign the letters "knowing that he was being asked to do an illegal act," the lawsuit states.

The dismissal, the lawsuit states, was "wrongful, done in bad faith, retaliatory in nature and punitive in intent."

Kaulukukui, who was hired by former museum President Donald Duckworth in 1997, seeks reinstatement to his $76,000-a-year post and retroactive pay with interest.