Sunday, September 19, 2004
By Sally Apgar
A federal review committee and the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs
plan to travel to Hawaii in the next few months to hold separate hearings to
help resolve two explosive issues involving the repatriation of sacred
objects from the Bishop Museum to native Hawaiian groups.
The Review Committee for the Native American Graves Protection and
Repatriation Act voted yesterday in Washington, D.C., to defer any ruling on
the potentially precedent-setting issue of whether the Bishop Museum can be
recognized as a native Hawaiian organization under NAGPRA's legal
definitions.
NAGPRA Committee Chairwoman Rosalita Worl said to museum
representatives at the conclusion of the meeting, "You might fit the legal
definition under NAGPRA, but you don't meet the intent of NAGPRA" to undo
the wrongs to native Americans in the past.
In a separate hearing yesterday, the committee also decided to
re-examine its 2003 advisory decision that the museum should recall its
controversial loan of 83 items for repatriation to the Kawaihae, or Forbes,
cave on the Big Island because the procedure was "flawed" and 13 claimants
to the items had not been properly heard before the committee.
The committee plans to come to Hawaii, possibly as early as this
spring, to hold meetings on the issue.
NAGPRA is a federal law passed in 1990 as human-rights policy to help
native Americans and Hawaiians repatriate the bones of ancestors and other
sacred objects from the display shelves of museums. The intent of the law is
to right what native groups feel are past wrongs when sacred objects and
bones are displayed, objectified and therefore desecrated in museums.
The Star-Bulletin monitored both hearings, which ran more than six
hours, by a telephone link.
After hearing testimony on the Bishop Museum's designation as a native
Hawaiian organization, the committee found that any ruling on its part would
be "premature" since the museum has been taking comments since July on its
proposed policy and since its board is still expecting to create a final
policy at its October meeting.
The committee also noted that the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs,
of which U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye is vice chairman, recently decided that it
would travel to Hawaii over the next few months to hold hearings on the
issue.
Inouye has said publicly that the museum should not be recognized as a
native Hawaiian organization.
Sources said the Senate committee hearing pegged for Honolulu was
pushed by Inouye, who also has overseen federal funding to the museum. The
meeting could force the ultimate decision made by the museum's 38-member
board of directors, which includes 10 native Hawaiians.
Bill Brown, president and CEO of the museum, who answered questions at
the hearings yesterday for almost an hour, declined to comment on either
issue.
The hearing on Kawaihae cave became so explosive at one point that
Kunani Nihipali, executive director of Hui Malama I Na Kupuna O Hawaii Nei,
a native Hawaiian organization, blasted Brown for his "unprofessionalism"
and said he held "a racist attitude that is a throwback to the dark ages
when white was right."
If native Hawaiian status is granted, the museum hopes it would be on
equal footing with other native Hawaiian organizations in claiming objects
in its collection.
Critics have said that would be a conflict of interest because the
museum would be both claimant and arbiter, undermining the intent of NAGPRA
to right the wrongs of the past.
Brown has argued that the museum is a Hawaiian organization because it
was founded by Charles Reed Bishop in 1889 on behalf of his alii wife,
Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, and other alii. They gave him personal
treasures and sacred objects so they could be preserved and displayed for
the education of future generations of native Hawaiians.
At the second hearing, which was even more emotionally charged, the
NAGPRA review committee backed off from making a decision on the fate of 83
items that Hui Malama has said it obtained from the museum and resealed in
Kawaihae cave.
The committee said it wanted to hold hearings in Hawaii "as soon as
possible" on what it previously had condemned as a "flawed" repatriation of
the Kawaihae cave items.
One weekend in February 2000, two museum employees crated the 83
objects and handed the crate to Hui Malama with an invoice that said the
items were on a one-year "loan."
Eddie Ayau, a spokesman for Hui Malama, has repeatedly said the items
were reburied in the cave to honor the intent of ancestors and that the
group never intended to return the "loan" because it was a permanent
repatriation.
Ayau yesterday also cited the history of the grave's robbings from
1906 when David Forbes first found it through the 1930s. He said of
reopening the cave: "Let's stop the history of looting."
In 2003, the review committee ruled the Bishop Museum's repatriation
of the objects from the cave was a "flawed" process and recommended that the
items be returned to the museum so that 13 claimants could decide among
themselves what to do.
To date, Hui Malama's Ayau has refused to return the items and has
argued that the museum effectively repatriated the items through the loan
and therefore legally has relinquished any role in demanding their return or
arbitrating among claimants. He told the committee yesterday that the issue
is an "internal" matter to be decided among native Hawaiians.
Ayau also testified that NAGPRA has no legal authority on the issue of
reopening the cave and further noted that it was "an advisory opinion and
not legally binding."
Ayau said that as a result of the committee's "advisory" findings and
recommendations, the debate on Kawaihae cave had escalated, dividing native
groups and damaging Hui Malama's credibility. He said federal agents had
come to his house in March saying they wanted to reopen the cave.
As part of the committee's decision yesterday, any federal probe of
what is in the cave has been suspended.
The hearing comes while federal agents are investigating the alleged
black-market trafficking of items that were repatriated to Hui Malama and
three other native Hawaiian groups. Hui Malama critics told the committee
that alleged theft from Kanupa cave on the Big Island puts doubt on the
security at Kawaihae cave.
La'akea Sugunuma, of the Royal Hawaiian Academy of Traditional Arts,
has fought Hui Malama for years in part because he feels the group tries to
be the absolute arbiter of what are diverse burial customs that should be
handled by different groups or families.
Sugunuma told the committee that their 2003 findings and
recommendations were well-founded. Sugunuma said he represents the "majority
of the 13 claimants" who want the items returned from the cave. He said
there were no procedural problems with the committee's findings and that all
claimants knew about the meeting.
"Whoever disagrees with Hui Malama is ridiculed," he said.
One review committee member said of the Kawaihae repatriation: "We
have been told untruths have been said. I don't want to be in the position
of determining who told the truth. ... We need a new hearing."