Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 2, Number 12, 1 December 1985 — Cemetery Preservation Has Historical Significance [ARTICLE]

Cemetery Preservation Has Historical Significance

By Nanette Napoleon Pumell (Editor's Note: The writer was recently awarded a grant from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to research and suruey cemetery sites on Oahu forgenealogical purposes. Mrs. Purnell received over a dozen phone calls from Hawaiians interested in cemeteries who had read the November issue of Ka Wai Ola O OHA, whieh featured her work with cemeteries.) The rich oral traditions of native Hawaiians has been both a blessing and a problem for modern Hawaiians. Songs and chants describing family histories, community struggles and individual triumphs and tragedies have survived many generations and are enjoyed today for both their musical and historical significance. This tradition has clearly been passed on to younger generations of Hawaiians through elaborate family story-telling sessions. But in modern times this oral tradition has left many Hawaiians without the desire to establish any written family records or histories. Subsequently, many Hawaiians have lost their lands and other possessions because they could not prove their deeds, contracts, wills, birth and death certificates, and other family documents, their legal elaim to such

things. Cemetery records, especially headstone inscriptions, remain one of the few written records whieh ean be used legally by Hawaiians to establish family genealogies and to settle some land and estate claims. Most cemeteries in Hawaii were originally owned and operated by a cemetery association or "hui" made up of several people who oversaw sales of plots and maintenance for eaeh site. But because there were very few burial rules or regulations in the early days of cemetery development in the late 19th century, many of these associations kept minimal records of ownership or plot identification, if they kept any at all. As association members died off, legal ownership of these sites became dubious, to say the least. Today, by law, cemetery sites whose ownership ean no k>nger be established (of whieh there are many) ean be claimed for private development, and ean be destroyed, but only with the expressed written consent of surviving family members, if they ean be found through written records or public notification.

Unfortunately, many cemeteries have become completely abandoned, either because family members no longer exist, or because they have simply lost interest in preserving these sites. Subsequently, many cemeteries are in danger of being completely destroyed by assorted development or neglect. While most Hawaiians do not own land directly anymore, thousands of Hawaiians are buried in cemetery lands throughout the islands, and, indirectly , the surviving relatives of those buried have the power to protect and preserve these lands as historical sites for future generations, if they are maintained regularly. The primary goal of the Cemetery Research Project is to identify cemeteries where native Hawaiians are buried and to increa$se the Hawaiian communities' awareness of the need to maintain and protect these sites. The secondary goal of the project is to inspire an interest in establishing written family genealogies and histories among Hawaiians. This project is being sponsored by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Department of Hawaiian Home Lands and the Committee for the Preservation of Hawaiian Culture, Language and the Arts.