ANGER RESURFACES OVER RETRIEVING ARTIFACTS
The Honolulu Advertiser - Friday, May 28, 2004
By Vicki Viotti - Advertiser Staff Writer
Conflict is brewing again over the Bishop Museum's handling of burial artifacts, especially the ongoing push by museum officials and others to retrieve objects that were reburied four years ago in Kawaihae Caves.
Native Hawaiian groups, including those that oppose any re-entry to the caves, yesterday
announced plans for a 24-hour prayer vigil.
William Brown, museum president and chief executive officer, yesterday said he still has
hopes of gaining permission of the Hawaiian Homes Commission to retrieve the 83 rare Hawaiian artifacts from the caves, which are on Hawaiian homestead lands under the commission's control.
Last September, the commission had denied that request, despite a finding by a federal panel that the repatriation process was flawed because the objects were reburied by only one of the 13 claimants.
Commission Chairman Micah Kane was unavailable for comment, but spokesman Lloyd Yonenaka said the commission has no plan to grant access unless the knotty dispute is untangled.
The 24-hour vigil, which will start at noon tomorrow at the museum, was organized by the
native rights group '?lio'ulaokalani Coalition in observance of Memorial Day to seek "the expeditious repatriation of all iwi kupuna, ancestral human remains," said Kaho'onei Panoke, coalition vice president.
Panoke emphasized the event, which was arranged with permission of the museum, is a peaceful expression. But some participants voiced anger with Brown's administration of the federal repatriation law, known as NAGPRA, or the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
Both Pu'uhonua "Bumpy" Kanahele, who heads the Nation of Hawai'i, and Professor Jon Osorio of the Center for Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, called for Brown's removal as museum chief.
Eddie Ayau, a member of Hui Malama, said the museum has failed to repatriate another of its claims, a set of remains and objects, to a Moloka'i site. The museum has returned another Moloka'i artifact - the sandstone slabs known as Kalaina Wawae - but has retained legal ownership, Ayau said.
"This is so, whenever they like, they can take them back," he said.
COPYRIGHT 2004 The Honolulu Advertiser, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
