Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 26, Number 12, 1 December 2009 — IWI REPATRIATED [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

IWI REPATRIATED

By Liza Simon Public Affairs Specialist After retrieving eight sets of iwi kūpuna or skeletal remains from a Harvard University museum in Cambridge, Massaehusetts, and 22 iwi po'o — or human skulls from two nahonal museums of Sweden, a Native Hawaiian delegation is baek home, deelaring their mission a sueeess. However, they also say that diffieulties may lie ahead in deeiding on

reburial plans. The iwi were taken away fromisland soil more than a eentury ago and very little information about their exaet origin is available, members of the delegation said. "Our aneestors were taken without our knowledge. Like any other people, we have a responsibility of earing for those who provided us with life, and so we have spent 20 years working with institutions to identify any Hawaiian remains for return home," said delegation member Edward Ayau of Hui Mālama I Nā Kūpuna O Hawai'i Nei. Support for the Hawaiian delegation's trip to Sweden and Cambridge eame from a partnership of Hui Mālama, the Island Burial Couneils of O'ahu and Hawai'i Island and the Offiee of Hawaiian Affairs, whieh provided funding for the repatriation projeet. The National Park Serviee also provided grant funding. Ayau said the Hawai'i organizations would be eollaborating along with the Department of Land and Natural Resourees to reinter the aneestral iwi. "But there is no teehnology to pinpoint whether a skull eomes fromMoloka'i or Maui. There is no way to traee the exaet island home of what we are bringing baek other than to reaeh out to Hawaiian families and ask them if they have any history of being assoeiated with a eertain area where iwi was onee taken away," said Ayau. Ayau said reburial has often involved following the na'au for guidanee. He gives this example: "On a Hui Mālama repatriation trip involving museums aeross nine different states, our delegation met every morning at breakfast. We would talk about what we dreamed as we slept the previous night. This is a way to eonneet with our aneestors. One woman from Kaua'i said she kept seeing these faees of Hawaiians eoming to her — a reeurring dream. So when the trip was over, she said all the iwi we don't identify, we want to hānai them to Kaua'i. It's eonjeeture but it was comforting to feel some resolution," said Ayau. While there is no international law requiring nations to return indigenous remains, many governments that onee saw "scientific value" in making forays into distant graveyards now see this practice as a profound abuse, according to numerous international human rights groups, such as the new International Repatriation Advisory committee, whieh is pushing for a multinational

ban on disturbing indigenous graves. Ayau said Swedish officials were very cooperative when he first eontacted them by e-mail several years ago. He inquired whether the Swed-

ish frigate ship Vanadis stopped in Hawai'i during an 1883 worldwide voyage that brought back to Europe more than 4,000 specimens of human remains for an ethnographic museum. Swedish Museum officials eventually informed Ayau that they were in the possession of Native Hawaiian remains from the Vanadis, delivered more than a century ago to the Statens Historiska Museet and the Karolinsa Intitutet -

both in Stockholm, Sweden. At a solemn Nov. 12 ceremony in Stockholm, the Hawaiian delegation stood by as Statens Historiska Museet Director Lars Amreus apologized for the actions of his forebears. William Ailā Jr., the head of the delegation, said Areus told the small audience - including representatives of Sweden's indigenous Sami population - that even though Swedish scientists onee believed they were collecting the remains for legitimate study, they had "looted and violated the graves." In his speech at the gathering, Ailā formally thanked Sweden for setting a sensitive example in the handling of native remains. Ayau said his group of five Native Hawaiians privately eonducted cultural protocols and a blessing appropriate to the repatriation. The Native Hawaiian group gathered for a similar ceremony at Harvard University less than a week after leaving Stockholm. They received an apology from Harvard administrator Dr. Patrieia Capone, who said the indigenous iwi had been taken by western scientists in 1843 to the university's Warren Anatomical Museum. Meanwhile, Hui Mālama is alleging that the eight sets of remains at Harvard should have been part of university's inventory of the 167 iwi kūpuna, repatriated to Hawai'i in 1995, in eomplianee with a deadline set by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990. NAGPRA requires all institutions receiving federal funding to return eultural artifacts and funereal remains to their rightful aboriginal owners. Ayau said Harvard officials presumed whatever remains were still in the Warren museum after 1995 were not covered under NAGPRA. "When they checked they realized they were mistaken," said Ayau. Hui Mālama has filed a eomplaint with the U.S. Secretary of the Interior asking for an investigation by the National Park Service, Ayau said. If found guilty of NAGPRA violations, Harvard would face a civil fine. "We want museums to know that they must be thorough in their inventory of our ancestors. It's our human right to care for these remains," said Ayau. Hui Mālama's largest endeavor repatriated over 300 sets of remains, said Ayau, referring to the iniīial return of iwi from Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archeology in 1995; these were combined with sets of remains returned fromYale University in the same year. ■

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1^4. www.oha.org/kwo

Edward Ayau. - Courtesy of Edward Ayau