Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 11, Number 4, 1 April 1994 — Kāʻai disappear; Hawaiians kūkā [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Kāʻai disappear; Hawaiians kūkā

by Jeff Clark Since 1918 two woven sennit caskets containing the remains of Hawaiian high chiefs have been kept at Bishop Museum. Through the efforts of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the state Legislature, they were to be moved to a permanent resting plaee at Mauna 'Ala, the Royal Mausoleum in Nu'uanu. These plans are now shelved indefinitely — the kā'ai disappeared from the museum in late February. The kā'ai are believed to contain the ritually deified remains of Hawai'i island chiefs Līloa and his great-grandson Lonoikamakahiki, estimated to date from the 15th or 16th centuries. The definitive work on the kā'ai, Roger Rose's Reconciling the Past, calls them "a fragile and ever-changing link between man, god, and the hereafter." In the early I800s Regent Ka'ahumanu, a recent convert to Christianity, ordered that the bones of Hawai'i's chiefs reposing in Hale o Keawe (at Hōnaunau) and Hale o Llloa (at Waipi'o Valley) be removed and placed in a cave at Ka'awaloa. Among these remains were the kā'ai. They were later brought to O'ahu. After being housed at Pohukaina (the royal tomb at 'Iolani Palaee) and then Mauna 'Ala, in 1918 they were placed in the museum for safekeeping by Piinee Kūhiō, although he continued to elaim ownership, in an agreement with the Territorial govemor and trustees of Queen Lili'uokalani's estate.

OHA's Native Hawaiian Historic Preservation Council (NHHPC) had convened a special committee to plan for their permanent plaeement at Mauna 'Ala; a repository was being designed and both the Legislature and OHA had committed funds to the project. The presumed theft sparked a debate among Hawaiians that was played out daily in the Honolulu newspapers and broadcast media for weeks afterward. Following an iniīial expression of outrage, a eall for unity from eouneil members, and convening of kūpuna for a special puwalu, there was disagreement over where the kā'ai belong and whether they should have been taken from the museum. But all seem to agree that the kā'ai are extremely sacred. Kūpuna from across Hawai'i nei gathered on O'ahu for a puwalu on Feb. 28 to discuss the disappearance and how to address it. They made a plea for the kā'ai's return and promised there would be no legal repercussions. The Royal Order of Kamehameha held a private ceremony at Mauna 'Ala during whieh members informed the ali'i entombed there of the theft, and prayed for their return. Many Hawaiians have expressed deep eoneem over the kā'ai - but opinions are mixed. Here are some comments from a few Hawaiians continued on page 5

Through the kōkua of community groups, dedication of the Ke Ola Hou Health Center at Kūhiō Park Terrace last month brings new access to health care to housing residents. (See story page 15).

New interpretive signs have been installed at Ulupō Heiau, now a state monument. Since 1988, members of the Kailua Hawaiian Civic Club have been its official curators, by agreement with the Department of Land and Natural Resources. With permission of the Kailua YMCA, they have cleared brush and trees in the adjacent area to provide a view to nearby Kawainui Marsh and to open up an attractive landscaped garden surrounding the heiau. Ulupō heiau is open to visitors. On Saturdays, club members are present to share information about its history. Photo by Deborah Ward

Kā 'ai from page 1 holding strong opinions on the matter: KENNETH BROWN Brown, a prominent Hawaiian member of the Bishop Museum board of directors, compared the theft of the kā'ai to taking "a pieee of the cross." He called their theft "a turning point in the history of Hawai'i."

SAM KA'AI "It's a hard time for us, but they are not coming back. They're not going to the mausoleum, not going back to 'Iolani Palaee, and not going back to Bishop Museum," Ka'ai said. Ka'ai feels that the kā'ai are just the tip of the iceberg of the issue of the Christianization of the Hawaiian people, and that getting into a big debate will only cause great hurt among devout Christians, those that cling to the old ways, and the many who find themselves in the middle. "We need something to finalize it: tell us what prayer to pray to make it pau. We must pray for the love of our kūpuna, we must pray for the people who touched it, we must pray for the people who claimed it, and we must pray for the people who love them. ... We must pray for our chiefs, the commoners and we must pray for us all. "The kā'ai are a family matter. 1 think it should not be publicly

aired. It's not a public matter. It's already done and it's pau." ANONYMOUS HAWAIIAN "Give it a rest already." GLADYS 'AINOA BRANDT The task of announcing the theft to the media and the public went to Brandt, a member of OHA's preservation eouneil and chair of the council's committee to repatriate the kā'ai at Mauna 'Ala. She called the kā'ai "the most ancient and sacred of native Hawaiian cultural items." At a subsequent press conference, Brandt said the kā'ai's "spiritual power and significance must be honored as a source of traditional Hawaiian mana, of unity and as a symbolic force to lift up the Hawaiian people." She called their taking a "wrong without precedent in modern Hawai'i" and "kāpulu," whieh ean be translated as "unelean." She said the eouneil as a whole termed it "desecration of the highest order."

PlKAKE PELEKAI "To me personally, it's really not the basket, whieh is the casket, but it's what the kā'ai eontain, and the kā'ai contain the iwi of two individuals who are eonsidered sacred, who are considered the progenitors of the Hawaiian race," said Pelekai. "As sacred and precious as these two individuals were to the Hawaiian culture, history and people, they should have been

buried, the iwi should be buried, they should have been kanu from the very beginning. Whoever has taken it upon him- or herself to remove the iwi from the Bishop Museum for whatever reasons, it is my hope that they have indeed buried the iwi and that the location of where the iwi have been reinterred will not be divulged to anyone, that the iwi have been reinterred in a plaee that will be untouched. It is my hope that they went home to Waipi'o, the Big Island, that they are back again with the land, they are back where they should be." KĪNA'U BOYD KAMALI'I Kamali'i, OHA trustee and preservation eouneil member, wants to emphasize that the kā'ai were

not being kept at the museum permanently. "The kā'ai were to be moved to a property that is solely Hawaiian, and that is the Royal Mausoleum." They were to be housed there forever, she says, for the Hawaiian peo-

ple "to pray to, to nourish." "It's interesting: I don't know whether many of our people even knew about the kā'ai. It's sad for me to think that so many of us don't even know our own history. For me the kā'ai isn't just

bones, it's something greater than that: to me it's a national monument. This belongs to all the people. Bones don't belong to an individual. If you trace the history of the kā'ai, there's lots of mana there."

The kā'ai are conisdered to be of great importance to Hawaiians because they are the ritually deified remains of two of Hawai'i's high chiefs and are sacred in Hawaiian culture. Bishop Museum Visual Collection