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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Sunday, September 25, 2005

ISLAND VOICES
If only they'd bury the hatchet before discussing artifacts

By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Editorial Writer

The dividing line is easy to see from the courtroom gallery: Each party with its lawyers sat on opposite sides, neither looking at the other.

But the split was painfully apparent long before the case found its way to federal court.

The focal point of this prolonged dispute — a collection of Hawaiian artifacts — dropped out of sight five years ago. That's when one group announced that it had taken the 83 items on loan from the Bishop Museum and reburied them in the Kawaihae burial cave where they'd sat until removed 100 years ago by David Forbes' archaeological expedition.

Since the disappearance of the artifacts, the gulf has widened between those who say these objects don't belong among the living and those who insist that they provide testament to the creative and spiritual powers of the culture that produced them.

That philosophical chasm seems deeper than the I-sit-here, you-sit-there physical barrier that is always a fixture in any dispute. Some try to cast the issue as Hawaiians correcting the century-old sins of Western grave robbers, but it's essentially a clash within the Hawaiian community of today.

The Native Hawaiian Legal Corp. is defending one Hawaiian nonprofit, Hui Malama I Na Kupuna O Hawai'i Nei, against other Hawaiians who want to see the artifacts brought back from the cave. The hui is the congressionally recognized nonprofit group that received the loan from the museum and then, according to court documents, reburied the artifacts at Kawaihae. It seeks to reverse a federal court order to return them, an appeal likely to be heard by year's end.

The arguments, whether delivered in legal briefs or at public gatherings, crackle with hostility. Those attending a recent press conference, for instance, got an earful of invective from Lilikala Kame'eleihiwa, a professor of Hawaiian studies and longtime hui supporter. She upbraided one reporter who asked what the hui feared most — an "insulting question," she said.

Of course, it's not only reporters whose questions have been rebuffed in this case, and that's the whole point. Hawaiians — competing claimants for these artifacts — have had to go to court to have their voice heard.

Most of them stepped forward five years ago after the hui unilaterally decided to rebury the objects before the legal process of weighing the competing claims had played out fully. Hui members argue that their action rectified the crime of the Forbes group.

Maybe that was their intent, but in the process they deprived other Native Hawaiians of a seat at the negotiations. That's where differences might have been settled, and nobody now would have to re-enter the cave and retrieve the objects.

The differences are over historical and cultural questions — including whether the artifacts were all burial objects or whether some had been placed there for safekeeping at a time when Hawaiian religious practices were under siege. Some of the legal briefs look into the disputed points, as well as the spiritual schism.

"While growing up, I was taught about our family's traditional burial practices and procedures, which were much different than what Hui Malama claims and imposes on anyone who doesn't know any better," wrote La'akea Suganuma, one of those taking the hui to court.

"There have been knowledgeable elders who have disagreed with Hui Malama but its leaders arrogantly claim that its way is the only way and that they, because of their 'training,' know better than anyone else."

The simple fact that there's disagreement within the Hawaiian community is not the issue. All societies have conflict. Hawaiians devised ho'oponopono, their own soulful means of making things right.

Judge David Ezra, who issued the court order that the objects be returned, clearly was uncomfortable that a federal court would have to deal with what is a conflict within the cultural community. This is a dispute that needed broader discussion among those most closely concerned.

But the best opportunity for ho'oponopono slipped away the moment the objects were "borrowed" and buried. End of discussion.