LIHU'E, Kaua'i — Seven men who "handcuffed" themselves together to protest construction on a Native Hawaiian graveyard left the Kaua'i north shore site peacefully yesterday afternoon — but said they might return if building resumed.

"The people that occupied the property decided to leave on their own volition," Police Chief Darryl Perry said last night. "Everything ended up amicably and nobody got hurt."

The protesters, whose arms were linked by a makeshift device, object to landowner Joseph Brescia's construction of a house there because it is on known grave sites.

The group included three people who live on Kaua'i, two from O'ahu and one each from Maui and the Big Island, group spokesman Kelii Collier said.

At an April 3 meeting, the Kaua'i-Ni'ihau Island Burial Council voted 4-2 that Brescia should preserve, in place, 30 known burials on his lot. The council has authority under state law to decide whether Native Hawaiian burials should be left in place or relocated from construction sites.

The council refused Brescia's request earlier this year to move seven burials from the proposed home site and rebury them elsewhere on the property.

Meeting yesterday in Lihu'e, the council took no action in response to reports that a concrete foundation has been poured for the house.

Brescia has been trying since 2001 to build on the oceanfront land. Previous setbacks include court appeals of the shoreline setback and protesters camping on the nearby beach during the spring and summer.

Brescia is suing protesters who came onto his property earlier this summer.

Additional challenges to Brescia's actions on his land are to be heard next week at the Kaua'i Planning Commission on Tuesday and in Circuit Court on Thursday.