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Campbell heir
ups stakes for
artifacts
Her organization earns status
as a "native Hawaiian" group
Abigail Kawananakoa, a descendant of the royal line of Kalakaua, has been haunted by the mysterious theft in 1994 from the Bishop Museum of the Ka'ai, two burial caskets that held the 400-year-old bones of two important chiefs from the Big Island, according to people close to her.
By 2002, Kawananakoa was so pained by the thefts that she and a close adviser, Edith McKinzie, a kumu hula and noted Hawaiian genealogy scholar, visited the secret, climate-controlled room in the Bishop Museum from which the sennit caskets had been stolen. They wanted to see that other Hawaiian treasures stored there were safe.
The Ka'ai have never been found.
Some say Kawananakoa, a wealthy Campbell Estate heiress, would pay anything for the return of the Ka'ai or other precious Hawaiian artifacts that may have slipped away onto the antiquities black market.
Now, Kawananakoa, 78, is emerging from her private world of philanthropic works and California quarter-horse farm to enter what has become a very public fight over the reclamation of Hawaiian artifacts among competing native Hawaiian groups.
Princess Abigail Kawananakoa reviews the Royal Guard during ceremonies at Iolani Palace.
Congress created NAGPRA as civil-rights legislation, aimed at righting wrongs of the past by creating a process for Native Americans and native Hawaiians to repatriate human remains and sacred items from museums.
A Bishop Museum official, who asked not to be named, confirmed Friday that the board of directors voted unanimously at its Thursday meeting to recognize Kawananakoa's group as a native Hawaiian organization.
The official also confirmed the board found her organization eligible to join the fray with several claimants already competing under NAGPRA rules for three sacred items in the museum's collection that were found on Molokai.
The three items, believed by some native Hawaiians to hold strong spiritual powers, are: a 5-inch, hook-shaped pendant carved from a rock oyster; a "kii," which is an 8-inch stick figure with a human face; and a cowry shell.
Those items are already at the center of a possibly precedent-setting legal dispute between Bishop Museum and Hui Malama I Na Kupuna O Hawaii Nei, one of two native Hawaiian groups listed under NAGPRA law as native Hawaiian organizations. All three items were found in burial sands and later sold or donated to the Bishop Museum.
Edward Halealoha Ayau, a spokesman for Hui Malama, claims the donors were grave robbers and is challenging the museum's "right of possession" under NAGPRA.
Ayau contends that the museum has no ownership rights of stolen goods. If Hui Malama prevails on this legal point, it could trigger battles over hundreds of items in museums across the country.
Hui Malama recently filed a dispute with NAGPRA, citing the museum's slow reaction in repatriating the Molokai items.
The museum says it is studying the legal issues involved and that if it can establish ownership under state law, then it can claim possession under NAGPRA.
Another outspoken claimant in the Molokai dispute is La'akea Suganuma, who represents the Royal Hawaiian Academy of Traditional Arts. Suganuma has long warred with Hui Malama over various items, including the controversial repatriation of 83 objects from the Kawaihae caves or Forbes cave on the Big Island that were once part of the Bishop Museum's collection.
In February 2000, the museum loaned the items to Hui Malama for one year. The items were never returned. Ayau has repeatedly said his organization never meant to return them, the museum staff knew that and that the repatriation is final.
Suganuma is among 12 other claimants who have asked for a review of the repatriation. Ayau says any questions among the remaining claimants should be settled in court.
Although Kawananakoa has not made a claim for the Kawaihae cave items, Suganuma and other claimants agree she has the war chest to pay for a court fight.
Suganuma and Ayau are also at odds over the repatriation of five items from Kawaihae cave that reside in the collection of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.
Ayau said his group has made three written claims for the items since November 1999 that have been ignored by the park service. This week, he filed a dispute with NAGPRA over the park's response.
Park Superintendent Cindy Orlando could not be reached for comment.
The five disputed items are: a 27-inch-high carved wooden statue of a woman; a konane game board with legs made of unusual carved wooden figures; a cutting tool that incorporates a human collar bone and shark's tooth; a gourd with a shell stopper; and a button.
Suganuma is also filing a claim for the items.
Founded in 1989, Hui Malama at one time was the only group to step forward to take care of the bones and artifacts. It aggressively spearheaded repatriation from museums and, in the process, raised cultural consciousness and pride in the past.
But in recent years, particularly since the Kawaihae caves dispute, Hui Malama has aroused controversy and some resentment from native Hawaiians who feel it has overstepped its bounds.
"Just who does Hui Malama think it is?" said Suganuma, who feels the NAGPRA review committee has made repatriation decisions biased toward Hui Malama.
The NAGPRA review committee "has absolutely disregarded the law and always done what Hui Malama wants them to," Suganuma said in a recent letter to the committee. "We're taking off the gloves. The NAGPRA committee just hasn't shown any respect for the law or other claimants."
Ayau yesterday questioned Kawananakoa's motivations. "Where have they been all of these years while we have been fighting for repatriation?" he said.
He noted part of the definition of "native Hawaiian organization" is to provide continuing services to native Hawaiians.
James Wright, an attorney for Kawananakoa, said that for more than 30 years she has funded preservation and research relating to Hawaiian culture. That funding includes translations of old Hawaiian-language newspapers for people to use in establishing their genealogies.
According to incorporation papers, Kawananakoa's group includes McKinzie, who authored the two-volume "Hawaiian Genealogies," considered among the most authoritative texts on the subject.
A third member is Rubellite Kawena Johnson, a professor emeritus at the University of Hawaii who is a renowned scholar of Hawaiian culture, language and history. Johnson has unsuccessfully challenged Hui Malama over past repatriations, including a spear rest that once resided in a Providence, R.I., museum.
Johnson said yesterday, "I have no morbid interest in claiming other people's bones, nor in assuming power to force people to do this or that with ancestral bones."
huimalama.tripod.com
Bishop Museum
www.bishopmuseum.org
U.S. Interior Dept. -NAGPRA
www.cr.nps.gov/nagpra
