[ OUR OPINION ]

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Hawaiians should
avoid court battle
concerning artifacts

THE ISSUE Hawaiians are divided about whether many sacred artifacts should be reburied or be preserved by Bishop Museum.

A dispute over control of sacred Hawaiian artifacts appears to be headed for court unless a compromise can be reached. Such escalation of the conflict would lead to even greater acrimony over the controversy within the Hawaiian community and should be avoided. Senator Inouye and others in a position to mediate the issue should step forward.

Abigail Kawananakoa, 78, a Campbell Estate heiress who traces her ancestry to King Kalakaua, has the cultural and financial wherewithal to wage such a battle against Hui Malama I Na Kupuna 'O Hawai'i Nei and threatens to do so. Edward Halealoha Ayau, a Hui Malama spokesman, vows to defend the recent reburial of numerous artifacts, saying that Kawananakoa "reeks of someone who does not live with Hawaiian tradition."

The dispute stems from the application of the 1991 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, or NAGPRA, which provides for the return of human remains from museums to the care of their Native American or Hawaiian descendants. Inouye authored the law when Ayau, a lawyer, was on his staff.

The law's consequences included transfer of 83 Hawaiian artifacts from Bishop Museum to Hui Malama in 2000 so they could be reburied in Kawaihae Cave, also known as Forbes Cave, on the Big Island. An inventory described the transfer as a one-year loan, but Hui Malama refused to return them to the museum.

A NAGPRA review committee held a hearing and decided in May 2003 that the repatriation of the artifacts was "flawed." The committee, which now has different members, plans hearings in March to reconsider the ruling.

Compromise will not come easily. Ayau says he is protecting the intent of Hawaiian ancestors that their artifacts be buried alongside them. Kawananakoa maintains that the last alii had seen in Europe how history was preserved in museums. She says Charles Reed Bishop had founded the museum in the name of his wife, Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, for that purpose.

The NAGPRA committee also will be asked to settle a dispute between the museum and Hui Malama over claims to three sandstones that bear barefoot prints and prints that appear to have been made by square-toed boots. The prints are said to have been made a young Molokai woman named Kuuna several hundred years ago to illustrate the later arrival of foreigners. Legend has it that Kuuna was stoned to death because of her frightening prophesy.

Hui Malama is challenging the museum's ownership of the sand stones, which are on public display on a bluff above Molokai's Moomomi Bay. Such an artifact should remain on display under the museum's stewardship.