Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.

Preservation act
harmful to Hawaii,
panelists say

By Burl Burlingame
Star-Bulletin

Even though the moderator sternly warned against discussing the Bishop Museum missing-artifacts scandal, panelists at a historic-preservation conference yesterday couldn't help themselves.

"NAGPRA -- I hate it! Hate it!" museum director Jim Bartels cried out at one point, referring to the topic du jour, the Native American Graves Preservation and Repatriation Act of 1990.

Moderated by Lani Ma'a Lapilo of the Judiciary History Center, the panel for Historic Hawaii Foundation's Preservation Conference included Bartels -- former director of Iolani Palace -- science-education consultant Anita Manning, Ka'iana Markell of the Department of Land and Natural Resources, Marie Solomon of the Big Island Burial Council and June Cleghorn, Marine Corps archaeologist.

One of the traps organizations such as Bishop Museum fell into were multiple and vague interpretations of the law, participants said.

The problem with enforcing NAGPRA in the islands, Markell said, is that the law was written to suit the cultures and practices of mainland Indian tribes.

"For example, our meaning of 'lineal descendant' is much different, so we have to play it broad and loose in our definition."

NAGPRA, continued Bartels, is a "miserable bit of imposed, non-Hawaiian legislation made to address Native American issues. It has caused us misery, and set us one against the other.

"Museum traditions developed differently here. They were not imposed upon the native community like the rest of the United States. No. They came out of us -- the museums of Hawaii are extensions of traditional caring for the cultural patrimony. Museums represent continuity in a world that doesn't care. And NAGPRA presumes that museums are villains. It was done with the best intentions elsewhere, but here in Hawaii -- it's causing dissension in our community and breaking up natural alliances between museums and native peoples."

"The law should not be an excuse; it's a tool," noted Manning. "That said, always act in the way your mother taught you and you'll be all right. Such as, never do or say anything you wouldn't want to see on the front page of a newspaper."

The conference continues today and tomorrow.