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OHA trustees split on
recall of artifacts

By Pat Omandam
Star-Bulletin

It was three strikes and no action for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs board, which could not agree on whether to support the recall of the controversial Forbes Cave artifacts.

The nine-member board spent more than an hour yesterday discussing, and then amending, a proposal from its Land Committee to support the recall of the artifacts, as well as seek input and agreement from claimants on what to do temporarily with the objects.

The board is debating what to do when the artifacts are removed from the Kawaihae Cave Complex, where they were reinterred last February after Bishop Museum loaned them to Hui Malama.

OHA trustees were split on the measure yesterday and failed three times to pass various motions on the issue.

OHA Trustee A. Frenchy DeSoto criticized colleagues for even considering any action that supported disinterment of funerary objects placed with iwi or the ancestral remains of native Hawaiians.

"You are no better off than the original thief," DeSoto said. "If this board decides to do this, then I tell you this is a sad day. Each of you will be responsible for what we do."

Trustee Colette Machado was concerned about the aggressive nature of the motion in what is a sensitive issue.

She and other trustees twice proposed amendments to the original motion but those, as well as the original motion, failed by a 4-4 vote.

Trustee Rowena Akana attended the start of the board meeting but was excused before the votes took place.

Trustee Mililani Trask, who supported the recall of the objects, said she believes there are many people who have claims to the burial objects and that it is OHA's duty to help beneficiaries come forward if they have claims.

She also questioned the security of the objects, given that the cave's location is common knowledge on the Big Island and there has been extensive media coverage of the issue. Trask lives on the Big Island.

Bishop Museum had set a July 1 deadline for an OHA endorsement of its plan to seek return of the items.

The artifacts originally were taken from a Big Island burial cave known as Forbes Cave in 1904 and eventually ended up at the museum.

The artifacts could be worth millions of dollars to Hawaiiana collectors. Many Hawaiians, however, maintain these items -- buried with their ancestors in caves -- were never meant to be seen by anyone again and should be left alone.