[CPProt.net] Kawananakoa sues, seeking return of Hawaiian artifacts.

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

Kawananakoa sues,
seeking return of Hawaiian artifacts
The treasures were believed to have been secretly buried in a Big Island
cave
By Sally Apgar
sapgar at starbulletin.com

August 20, 2005

Abigail Kawananakoa, a wealthy heiress and descendent of royal Hawaiian
blood, filed a federal lawsuit yesterday against the Bishop Museum and a
controversial native Hawaiian group, demanding the return of Hawaiian
treasures believed to have been secretly buried in a Big Island cave.

Kawananakoa's group, Na Lei Alii Kawananakoa, joined forces last December
with La'akea Suganuma, president of the Royal Hawaiian Academy of
Traditional Arts, who has fought for five years to secure the return of the
83 items that were reburied in Kawaihae or "Forbes Cave."

"Laws have been violated - both man's law and Hawaiian spiritual and
cultural law," said Suganuma. "We don't even know if these precious
artifacts are actually in the cave. Even if they are, they have been
subjected to deterioration and attack by insects."

The items include several valuable stick figure aumakua (deified ancestors),
a female figure adorned with human hair and refuse containers studded with
human teeth.

Suganuma and Kawananakoa also filed an injunction yesterday demanding that
the museum secure the return of the artifacts from the cave, saying they
were "improperly loaned" to Hui Malama I Na Kupuna O'Hawaii, a native
Hawaiian group founded in 1989 to reclaim native Hawaiian remains and
artifacts. 

Suganuma, a practitioner of ancient Hawaiian martial arts, has long argued
that the loan to Hui Malama prevented other claimants from fairly staking
their right to the objects under the federal law known as the Native
American Graves and Repatriation Act. NAGPRA governs the repatriation
process for native Hawaiian and American Indian human remains and treasured
objects.

Edward Halealoha Ayau, a spokesman for Hui Malama, declined to comment until
he has reviewed the suit.

Museum director Bill Brown said "We strongly believe that those objects
should be recovered and secured from harm."

According to court documents, the 83 items were crated up and handed over to
members of Hui Malama on a Saturday in February 2000 when most of the museum
staff was not present. The document releasing the items describes it as a
"loan" from Feb. 26, 2000 until Feb. 26 2001. The document also said: "These
items are being loaned pending completion of NAGPRA repatriation per request
of claimants Hui Malama and Department of Hawaiian Homelands."

At the time of the loan, there were four claimants: Hui Malama, DHHL,
Suganuma's group and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. The number has since
grown to 14. 

Hui Malama reburied the items in Kawaihae cave to honor ancestors and
refused repeated requests by the museum to return them. The group allegedly
secured the cave from treasure hunters by sealing it with stone, cement and
metal rebar.

The injunction slams the museum for its "failure to maintain possession
and/or control over Hawaiian cultural items while evaluating competing
claims" under NAGPRA.

The injunction said "certain museum officials were in such a hurry to
deliver the items to Hui Malama that fundamental museum policies designed to
protect articles loaned from its collection were ignored."

Brown, who was not director of the museum at the time of loan, said that
once the items are reclaimed from the cave "consultation should continue
among all recognized claimants in a manner that is respectful to them all."

Suganuma said: "This Kawaihae Caves disaster, as well as the 1994 theft of
the ka'ai, occurred under the administration of former museum director
Donald Duckworth. However, it is now the responsibility of the current
administration and board of directors to recover the objects and follow
proper NAGPRA repatriation procedure."

The five-count suit uses legal arguments based on NAGPRA's review processes
and Fifth Amendment property rights law. The suit also seeks court
recognition that the repatriation was not final. Hui Malama's Ayau has
repeatedly said that the repatriation was final and if there is a dispute
among the 14 claimants it should be resolved in court.

Under NAGPRA, there are about 130 groups recognized as native Hawaiian
organizations that have standing to make claims for certain items. Hui
Malama and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs were the only two specifically
listed in the NAGPRA laws as such organizations. Other groups needed to
apply for recognition.

To position herself to make claims on Kawaihae, Kawananakoa formed Na Lei
Alii Kawananakoa last November as a native Hawaiian organization as defined
by NAGPRA. She made claims on several artifacts including those at Kawaihae.
On July 28, the Bishop Museum board of directors formally recognized it as
an native Hawaiian organization.

Kawananakoa's group includes her close advisers Rubellite Johnson and Edith
McKinzie. Johnson, a professor emeritus at the University of Hawaii, is a
renowned scholar of Hawaiian culture, language and history. McKinzie, a kumu
hula, is an expert in Hawaiian genealogy who authored the two-volume
"Hawaiian Genealogies," considered among the most authoritative texts on the
subject.

According to the suit, Suganuma first appealed to the museum, which did not
act to recover the items and then worked through the NAGPRA review process.

In May 2003, a NAGPRA review committee meeting, which gives only advisory
opinions, found that the repatriation was "flawed" and therefore not final.
In March 2005, a second review committee meeting in Honolulu upheld the
first ruling which called for the reclamation of the objects from the cave
while the consultation process proceeds among the claimants.

Kawananakoa, who is descended from King Kalakaua, said: "I would like to
commend the other claimants who have worked so hard for years to bring
justice and honor to our ancestors. We have tried every way possible to
resolve this matter other than going to court. However, the refusal of Hui
Malama to comply with the loan agreement, the review committee's two
decisions, and the law has left us no choice."