Group contests
Bishop Museum’s
right to artifacts
Hui Malama cites a national act
to protect native burial grounds
In 1937, young Emma Turnbull was walking down a windy stretch of Moomomi beach on Molokai when she discovered bones and artifacts uncovered in what are believed today to be ancient burial sands.
Turnbull picked up a hook-shaped pendant, about 5 inches long, carved from creamy white rock oyster. Among native Hawaiians such pendants, sometimes carved from whale bones or even walrus tusks and usually suspended from a thick necklace made of braided human hair, were signs of high status imbued with the mana, or spiritual power, of its owners. Like a treasured family Bible, they were handed down from generation to generation to be worn proudly.
In 1985 an elderly Turnbull, who had moved to the mainland, sent the pendant as a donation to the Bishop Museum along with a letter that described where she found it. "I believe that this item should be put in a museum in Hawaii, where it can be understood and appreciated, therefore, I am sending it to you," she wrote.
Turnbull's pendant is among the items at the center of a potentially precedent-setting fight between the Bishop Museum and Hui Malama I Na Kupuna O Hawaii Nei, a native Hawaiian organization founded in 1989 that has been aggressively and sometimes controversially at the forefront of repatriating and reburying ancestral remains, sacred objects and burial items from museums around the world.
Hui Malama, which claims the pendant and says it was a burial object intended to accompany an ancestor, is challenging the museum's "right of possession" under a federal repatriation act known as the 1990 Native Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
Hui Malama says that Turnbull was a grave robber when she picked up the pendant on the beach and had no authority to give or sell it to someone else.
"If you accept or buy something stolen from someone, it still belongs to the original owner. Your only recourse is with the person who sold it to you," said Edward Halealoha Ayau, a spokesman for Hui Malama, adding, "The museum does not have a clear title."
With the same argument, Ayau is also challenging the museum's ownership of a cowrie shell found in the same sands and a kii, an 8-inch stick figure with a human face carved from a dark wood that almost crumbles to the touch. The kii, according to museum records, was purchased by the museum from Dr. C.M. Hyde, who bought it from a native Hawaiian on Molokai who had allegedly found it wrapped in burial kapa with awa (kava leaves) and the bones of a red fish (red has been associated with burials).
Ayau said he believes this is only the beginning of a process of challenging the museum's ownership rights to items in its collection.
Museum officials say the museum owns these items and others similarly given or donated to it.
They are fighting to establish ownership at a time when they are still considering an interim guidance policy that they announced in July to immediate criticism. Under the guidance policy, the museum proposes to designate itself as a native Hawaiian organization under NAGPRA, which was enacted to provide procedures for museums to return ancestral bones and four classes of sacred and burial objects to native Americans and Hawaiians. As a native Hawaiian organization, the museum could compete with other claimants for retention of items in its collection.
The museum's board is expected to meet as early as this week to make a final decision. Sources involved in board discussions say the board is now leaning heavily toward voting against the designation in part because of the controversy the proposal has caused.
The museum's interim guidance also seeks to clarify the issue of "right of possession," which is at the heart of conflict with Hui Malama over the Molokai items.
The guidance says that if the museum is found to have legal ownership of the items in its collection under Hawaii state law, then it has "right of possession" under federal NAGPRA law.
Museum Director Bill Brown declined to comment on the issue. He confirmed that the museum has sought the advice of outside legal counsel on the issue of ownership and right of possession.
In the past, officials have said the items should remain in the museum to protect them from deterioration. Other native Hawaiian groups have also said that Hui Malama incorrectly claims to be the only group knowledgeable about burial rights, when such protocols historically varied throughout the islands. Also, items repatriated to Hui Malama were allegedly stolen from a Big Island cave, raising questions about security at caves where items are reburied.
Still, Ayau said that many items claimed by Bishop Museum were stolen from burial caves or sold to collectors by people who did not rightfully own them.
He said "with the guidance policy, the museum is trying to make this blanket statement that it owns everything in its collection. The guidance policy is an end run designed to stop repatriation. But each item came by different ways to the museum, and each item must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis."
Ayau has also asked NAGPRA to investigate whether the Bishop Museum should be penalized for not having turned over the items within the NAGPRA-mandated 90-day period of announcing in the Federal Register that they were to be repatriated.
Museum registrar Malia Baron said that the museum received permission from the park service, which oversees NAGPRA, to suspend negotiations over the repatriation until it had resolved the issue of its interim guidance policy and possible designation as a native Hawaiian organization.
Ayau said such a suspension is not right.
"A timeout is not allowed under NAGPRA. This is not a basketball game," he said.
Hui Malama's claim was also complicated because OHA submitted a completing claim to the items that it has since withdrawn. Other native Hawaiian organizations are also expected to stake claims that need to be reviewed.
La'akea Suganuma of the Royal Academy of Traditional Arts said Friday that his group intends to submit a claim to the items.
Hui Malama told the museum last week that if it does not hand over the items by today, it would contact the NAGPRA review committee.
"I understand Hui Malama's frustration and desire to move forward with the repatriation," said Baron, "but this is an important issue that requires thoughtfulness on both sides."
