The Honolulu Star-Bulletin
By Sally Apgar
A group of native Hawaiians stood on the front lawn of Bishop Museum
yesterday and reiterated their call for the resignation of the museum's
director.
The group opposes the museum board's proposed "interim guidance policy,"
announced earlier this summer in which the museum defined itself as a native
Hawaiian organization under the terms of the Native American Graves
Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990. NAGPRA was enacted to provide
procedures for museums to return ancestral bones and four classes of objects
to Native Americans and Hawaiians.
"This is extremely colonial and paternal," said Edward Ayau, describing the
proposed policy. Ayau is a spokesman for Hui Malama I Na Kupuna O Hawaii
Nei, founded in 1988 to care for ancestral remains, sacred objects and
burial sites.
Federal authorities are investigating the alleged black market sale of items
that Bishop Museum and the Peabody Essex Museum in Massachusetts repatriated
to Hui Malama for reburial in two Big Island caves. Hui Malama acknowledged
last week that repatriated items were taken from one of the caves.
Ayau said NAGPRA was "human rights legislation" designed to right wrongs of
the past in which human remains were displayed in museums. He said NAGPRA
never intended for museums, which have acquired human remains of ancestors
from burial caves, to stand as a native Hawaiian organization.
Ayau said the intent of NAGPRA was "to heal historic wounds, and this
(interim policy) opens them."
Participating in yesterday's news conference were about 20 native Hawaiians,
including kupuna and former Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustee Frenchy
DeSoto, members of Hui Malama, and Lilikala Kame'eleihiwa, a professor with
the University of Hawaii's Center for Hawaiian Studies.
DeSoto called the museum's policy "an outrage. We want freedom of religion
and there is no freedom of religion for us."
In addition to calling for Museum Director William Brown's resignation
because of the policy, the group presented a petition with several hundred
signatures protesting it.
Brown declined to comment. A museum official present at the news conference
also declined to comment.
Since announcing the museum board's proposed policy, the museum has been
taking public comments and is expected to make a final decision in
September. NAGPRA's National Review Committee is also expected to review the
legality of the precedent-setting policy in its Sept. 17-18 meeting in
Washington, D.C. (The guidance policy is on the museum Web site at
www.bishopmuseum.org/NAGPRAGuidlines.html.)
In the past, Brown has said that the museum's founding mission fits within
NAGPRA's legal definition of a native Hawaiian organization.
The museum was founded in 1889 by Charles Reed Bishop as a memorial to his
wife, Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the last of the Kamehameha line of
ruling chiefs. The museum's core collection included items owned by Pauahi,
Princess Ruth Keelikolani, Queen Emma and Queen Liliuokalani. The museum was
charged with being a steward of the collections for future generations.
Based on its founding mission, Brown has argued that the museum is a native
Hawaiian organization under NAGPRA because it "serves and represents the
interests of native Hawaiians" and "has expertise in native Hawaiian
affairs." In 2003, the museum also amended its bylaws to cover another
criteria of NAGPRA that such an organization has as a "stated purpose the
provision of services to native Hawaiians."
But Ayau said yesterday that if the museum proclaims itself a native
Hawaiian organization "it causes an inherent conflict of interest. How can
they be both a claimant and a museum?"
The museum has said that it would be on an equal footing with other native
Hawaiian organizations. A federal judge has ruled that consensus among
native Hawaiian organizations must be reached on the disposition of
artifacts. The museum has said it would be one voice in that consensus.
But Ayau and others claim the museum has an unfair advantage: If an object
now held in the museum is disputed, it remains with the museum. Ayau says
they could dispute any item and it would remain at the museum. The only
recourse is to take it to federal court.
Ayau said that with this proposed policy, "The museum is saying that native
Hawaiians are not competent to take care of their ancestors and their moepu
(objects buried with human remains)."
Several native Hawaiians also attacked the notion of what the museum calls
burial objects.
Vicky Holt Takamine, a kumu hula and a Hawaiian cultural activist, said:
"What if I want to be buried with my red shoes? In 100 or 150 years from
now, does some archaeologist say they are not burial items" and can
therefore be in a museum?
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Hui Malama I Na Kupuna O Hawaii Nei
huimalama.tripod.com
NAGPRA
www.cr.nps.gov/nagpra/
Bishop Museum
www.bishopmuseum.org