Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 18, Number 9, 1 September 2001 — Unearthed iwi should be returned to Hālawa [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Unearthed iwi should be returned to Hālawa

Charles Ota Trustee, Maui

On July 30, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs made a fīeld trip into Hālawa and Ha'ikū valleys. The purpose was to examine and to heeome familarized as to the old sites in the valley for a plan that is being developed for the management of the valleys. What is e%ident are the many heiau and burial sites from the long ago past. Our guides were Kina Akana and narrator Māhealani Cypher to help identify the many heiau we were told about and visited. The volunteer Women of Hale O Papa are care takers of the Hālawa heiau and have always protested over the years the unearthing of their kupuna iwi and are now volunteering in Halawa to protect the area and provide maintenance.

Obviously, we were treading on ancient lands. The old mango trees planted in patterns of a square or circle would be locating or indicating some ancient site for the practices of the culture. The only change was the highway that cut through the valleys recently after many delaying challenges raised over the past years. The H-3 is a military highway to connect the windward military bases with the leeward military bases. A difference being, in the early base constructions, native people were easily put off their land in many cases by threats or deception. The remnants of those removals are attested to by the same pattern of ancient mango trees being planted in planned forms of

circles or other formations at earlier built military bases although the accompanying burial or heiau sites on the bases have all but disappeared. Not only are tunneled highways pressed into service for quick deployment but all four of the Marine bases, Pearl Harbor Navy Base, Hiekam Air Force Base and Wheeler Army Airfīeld eaeh have their own airfīelds to support rapid respon.se activity. Airfield. highway and tunnel constructions have all unearthed remains or iwi but not all. Some still lie covered up under developments, of sovereign nationalist natives who were citizens of their own government and have little connection to the present imposed citizenship. What ean be done about the large

number of iwi not reburied, now stored in boxes in several locations since being unearthed at so many sites? I believe that a natural valley should be used as a proper and dignified plaee for these iwi in the fine and serene natural setting that a valley ean provide. A valley may have limited purposes, such as in a cemetery, and would also afford a plaee for future burials for those natives in need. The landing of troops in Honolulu in 1893 was described by President Cleveland as an act of war. And has never been resolved by a treaty. However, in this regard burials and cemeteries are respected internationally as sacred and inviolate. And that consideration should also be for the iwi of Hawaii's native people. ■