Repatriation expert
sues museum

Guy Kaulukukui says that Bishop Museum
asked him to violate federal requirements

A former Bishop Museum expert on repatriation says he was wrongfully terminated in January 2004 because he refused to violate federal requirements governing the protection and repatriation of sacred burial artifacts.

Guy Kaulukukui, a native Hawaiian educator, filed suit Tuesday in Circuit Court against William Brown, president and chief executive officer of Bishop Museum since 2001, and other unnamed defendants.

The complaint alleged that Brown failed to comply with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act or caused the board or museum staff to violate its spirit and intent on several occasions.

NAGPRA, passed by Congress in 1990, addresses the rights of lineal descendants, Indian tribes and native Hawaiian organizations to human remains and cultural objects.

The complaint also alleges the defendants violated Kaulukukui's rights under Hawaii's Whistleblower Protection Act, which protects employees who report suspected violations of law. Kaulukukui is seeking relief, including reinstatement to his former position and back wages.

Ruth Ann Becker, Bishop Museum spokeswoman, said they had not seen the complaint and could not comment on the allegations. Brown was out of town and not available for comment.

Kaulukukui served several positions since he joined the museum in 1997, including chairman of the Education Department, head of collections and head of cultural studies.

He also chaired the task force that rewrote the museum's NAGPRA policy, which later became nationally recognized by the Association of American Museums as an exemplary prototype, he said.

In 2000, a year before Brown took the helm at Bishop Museum, Kaulukukui was appointed to oversee all repatriation issues, becoming the museum's expert and representative on NAGPRA. Until he was fired, Kaulukukui said, he was involved in four repatriations here and outside Hawaii.

Since Brown took over at Bishop Museum and since Kaulukukui's firing, there have been no repatriations, and Brown has tried to undo two previous repatriations, he said.

"For some reason or another, the museum was moving into a direction toward repatriating as little as possible and interpreting federal law in such a way to protect its collection as much as possible," Kaulukukui said. That is in contravention to NAGPRA's intent to return to native peoples what was taken from them in the first place, he said.

Among the illegal actions Kaulukukui alleges Brown took were invalidating the repatriation of human remains and funerary objects associated with the Kawaihae Caves, relocating of sandstone blocks known as Kalaina Wawae on Molokai, and reneging on a promise to repatriate items removed from Iolani Palace in 1893.

When Brown decided he wanted to undertake a review of the museum's NAGPRA policies, effectively suspending ongoing repatriation efforts, Kaulukukui said he opposed it because it violated federal requirements on the timely processing of claims. He said he refused to sign a letter to the claimant in the ongoing repatriations that explained delays based on untruths and was fired because of it, he said.

A federal review committee found in May 2003 that the museum made a mistake in turning over sacred objects from the Kawaihae Caves to Hui Malama I Na Kupuna O Hawaii Nei, one of 13 claimants who claimed they reburied them. Kaulukukui had defended the repatriation as proper and that they had faithfully complied with federal law.

Hui Malama's actions and its refusal to return the items sparked criticism not only from review committee members, but also from the remaining claimants, who said they never indicated they did not want the items reclaimed from the caves. Requests by the claimants to see the artifacts and verify that they are safe have been refused. Critics have alleged that the loan was a secret deal between the museum and Hui Malama.