Hawaiian spear rest
expected home

An OHA representative says a
compromise will be worked out

By Susan Kreifels
Star-Bulletin

Native Hawaiians expect their sacred ki'i aumakua will finally come home after being held in Rhode Island for close to two centuries.

The mayor of Providence, R.I., and native Hawaiians have been battling over the ancient spear rest since 1996, when the Hawaiians first saw it in Sotheby's auction house in New York.

The city says the wooden artifact is worth more than $200,000 and wants to sell it. Native Hawaiians want the spear rest returned because they believe it contains the spirit of an ancient warrior chief and is vital to religious practices.

The two sides met in Providence last month and expect a compromise to be reached in days.

"We weren't there to buy the ki'i," Linda Delaney said yesterday. "It's ours."

Delaney, former land officer for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, was sent to Providence by OHA. She said the sides are working out an agreement that will involve money, but not in terms of payment for the artifact.

For example, donations may be given to the Providence museum or to a joint exhibit, something Delaney said would be "helpful to children of both Hawaii and Providence."

Delaney said funds would be raised from the Hawaiian community and national endowments.

Neither she nor Providence Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. would discuss amounts.

Cianci wanted to use proceeds from the sale of the spear rest to mount the rest of the city's South Seas collection at its Museum of Natural History.

But a federal review committee last year said the spear rest was a "sacred object" and recommended that the city, in compliance with the "spirit" of a federal law, return it to Hawaii.

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act was passed in 1990 at the urging of native Americans who were angry that the bodies of their ancestors as well as religious and cultural relics were ending up in collectors' shops and museums.

Cianci, in a phone interview yesterday, said he felt the city didn't get due process during the federal hearings.

The city had sued the U.S. Secretary of the Department of Interior, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and Hui Malama I Na Kupuna O Hawaii Nei, a native Hawaiian group.

The mayor said he wanted to make sure the artifact was religious.

"We're bound by rules here," he said. "I could take anything in the museum and give it to my friends and say they were religious."

Cianci had remained adamant about keeping the spear rest. But after the February meeting during which the Hawaiians performed traditional prayers and ceremonies, Cianci agreed to compromise, he said.

Hannah Springer, OHA trustee, and Edward Ayau, a native Hawaiian attorney, were also present with Delaney.

"The spear may have a lot more significance than sitting in a vault somewhere," he said, adding that the city has spent money on attorneys and safeguarding the artifact.

"I just can't give it away. They've got to give something back."

According to Providence news stories, the spear rest is believed to have been brought to Rhode Island in 1810 by David Tillinghast, possibly a descendant of Roger Williams, founder of the Rhode Island colony.

The Providence Franklin Society, a group of retired shipowners and captains who planned to open a museum of items gathered during ship voyages, disbanded and in 1922 gave the collection to the city.

Cianci said he would like to make a special presentation to Hawaii and "improve cultural awareness in Providence and the New England states of Hawaiian culture."