Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.

Museum officials stymied
by Forbes Cave artifacts
claim deadline

Viewpoint: What makes objects sacred?

By Burl Burlingame
Star-Bulletin

Today is the deadline for additional groups to join the roster of Hawaii organizations with legal claim to the missing "Forbes Cave" artifacts from Bishop Museum.

Or is it? Bishop Museum officials aren't sure.

Museum spokeswoman Ruth Ann Becker confirmed that Vice President Elizabeth Tatar did not begin to nail down the actual date with the National Park Service until after a Star-Bulletin query on the status of additional claimants yesterday afternoon.

The Park Service administers the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which repatriates the remains and "grave goods" of Native Americans and Hawaiians from American museums.

Tatar gave the artifacts, worth millions of dollars, to claimant group Hui Malama, and the artifacts disappeared. Tatar later said she had been fooled by Hui Malama into believing all claimants agreed to take and hide the items.

A formal "notice of repatriation" was published in the Federal Register on April 5. "According to the NAGPRA process, that then gives a minimum of 30 days from publication for other claimants to come forward and be recognized by the museum," said Becker. Museum officials referred to May 5 as the "deadline" in a news conference two weeks ago.

In the meantime, said Becker, the museum will interpret the NAGPRA rules and regulations as best they can.

In an interview last week, NAGPRA coordinator Tim McKeown said such decisions are up to the museum, not the Park Service.

In addition to Hui Malama, the Forbes Cave items are also claimed by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands and the Big Island Burial Council.

No additional groups have been approved to date -- it's up to the museum, not the Park Service, said McKeown -- although Na Papa Kanaka O Pu'ukohola Heaiu is expected to be accepted. E Nana Pono, another Big Island group, has also filed as a claimant.

Na Papa is represented by Mel Kalahiki of the Big Island. "We've been invited to the next claimants' meeting in May," said Kalahiki. "So I assume they're taking us seriously. But we haven't heard yet."

"I can't imagine how (Na Papa) could not be included," said OHA Chairman Clayton Hee. "It's another voice, another point of view, another vote. It's a democratic process, after all."