Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 30, Number 10, 1 October 2013 — The Long Journey Home [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Long

Journey

Home

' By Kehaunani Abad Photos by: 'Ōiwi TV

After more than a century in British museum collections, 145 kūpuna return to their one hānau

Long ago . . . cradled fondly in familiar arms, his aloha warmed her as he laid her to rest in her one hānau, her birth sands of Mo'omomi, Molokai1. The waves embracing Mo'omomi's shore and her gathered 'ohana soothed her. In this new life, her boundless 'uhane (spirit) would reside with her 'aumākua (family or personal gods). Her iwi (bones), rich with mana (spiritual power), would return to Papa, imbuing the 'āina with her life's essence. Her 'ohana would care for her burial sands. She would visit and mālama (care for) her mo'opuna (descendants), and they would heed her voice - a feeling in their na'au (core), a vivid dream, an inner voice.

Something didn't feel right. He looked at the lists again. And then he spotted it. "A po'o (cranium) from Mo'omomi is missing. Do you know what happened?" asked Edward Halealoha Ayau of Hui Mālama i Nā Kūpuna o Hawai'i Nei. The question was for a staff member at the Bishop Museum. It was 1989. This was a year before Hawai'i state burial laws and the

Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act | were enacted to protect unmarked burials and to require museums in the U.S. to repatriate human skeletal remains ' to descendants. But the nearly 1,100 sets of iwi kūpuna | (ancestral remains) disinterred from the dunes at Honokahua, Maui, had already stirred this young Hawaiian attorney from Molokai to locate stolen iwi and return them to rest. Ayau recalled, "Bishop Museum explained that they gave the Mo'omomi kūpuna to the Cranmore Ethnographic B Museum in Kent, England, and that it had since closed. Its collections were split among several institutions." That was the beginning of a 23-year quest. A daunting problem "When we started, the British wouldn't respond to our ■ letters," said Ayau. At the time he was the Burial Sites section lead for the State Historic Preservation Division, and William Paty was the chair of the Department of Land and Natural Resources. . "I thought if the State of Hawai'i made the inquiries, we might get some answers. So I asked Mr. Paty if he would assist. I wrote a form letter, addressed them to 200 institutions, andMr. Paty signed eaeh one. Then the replies started coming in, but it wasn't good news," said Ayau. The Keeper of Palaeontology at the British Natural History Museum (NHM, Museum) replied with a twoparagraph letter saying that they held "about 140 registered items from Hawaii . . . most of whieh are crania" and that they wouldrelease information of those items only "to bona fide scientific research workers." 1 The spelling "Molokai" follows the pronunciation used by Ayau's grandmother Harriet Ne.

MO'OLELO NUI C0VER FEATURE

Edward Halealoha Ayau, left, and Margaret Clegg of the Natural History Musuem finalize the transfer. Clegg was instrumental in the last cooperative chapter of Hui Mōlama and NHM negotiations.

ifj]K !Wllff!ll!ir' ^īiliīīiWlīīīlīīlIwiw^ " ' mMHIiH— — -'HĒĒm mmMHĒĒĒĒK, A^MŪnllilMllMllMllllll^

lmmediately outside the Weleome Trust, Kihei Nahale'ō, right, and Ipō Nihipali mālama the kūpuna just repatriated from that institution.

"Was the Mo'omomi kūpuna there? I wasn't sure. Unfortunately, that wasn't the biggest problem," said Ayau. "The number was far larger than we imagined, and without any information about these kūpuna, we were disadvantaged in arguing for their return. The problem was daunting. But we focused on what our kumu, Edward and Pualani Kanahele taught us. We would pule. We asked our 'aumākua for help and we asked the kūpuna in the museums to aid in their own rescue." Edward Kanahele remained mindful of opportunities the kūpuna might present. A year later, Desiree Moana Cruz, Kanahele's Hawai'i Community College student

requested to be excused from class for a trip to London. He agreed but asked her to meet with him and his wife, Pualani, about a possible assignment. They told her about the 140 kūpuna at the British Natural History Museum and the information needed. Cruz and fellow model Priscilla Kekaulike Basque were guests of the Al-Sabah Family of Kuwait in London. At their first opportunity, they visited the Museum and found the proper department in a basement where records were kept. The restraint of the records keeper melted when the pair tumed on their local-girl charm. Unbeknownst to him, Cruz and Basque handcopied the register they managed to have him reveal. There were 149 Hawaiian "specimens" in the collection from various locations, most of whieh were crania. But a sign of the hard course ahead was in constant view before Moana and Priscilla. Just

outside the basement window, they saw many bare feet at ground level. They were Australian Aborigines who, since the 1970s, were unahle to gain the return of their iwi kūpuna. They were protesting the Museum. An act of Parliament But Ayau's battle would take a different course. Armed with new data, he drafted a six-page letter citing laws and court cases of ancient Rome, England, the U.S. and the Hawaiian Kingdom - all conveying that a human body, even a deceased one, cannot be owned by another. He established that the Museum's possession of the remains was not equivalent to rightful ownership. He consulted with Kūnani Nihipali, Hui Mālama's leader at the time, who approved the letter, signed it and sent it off. The Museum again denied the repatriation request, asserting that it was "precluded by the British Museum Act of 1963 from disposing of any items." In fact, the Act allowed trustees to determine if objects were "unfit to be retained." They could dispose of such items, if doing so would not harm "the interests of students." The Museum could weigh the value of the iwi kūpuna to science and consider whether Hawaiian perspectives or legal and ethical concerns might make the iwi "unfit" Museum possessions. Ayau pondered what higher power would lend more weight to Hawaiian perspectives and called upon U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, whose office Ayau had worked for fresh out of law school. He requested that Inouye seek support of the U.S. State Department, whieh Hui Mālama already approached. In 1992, Inouye wrote to Secretary of State Warren Christopher urging the secretary to offer his "assistance in the retum of 149 ancestral Hawaiian remains." Hui Mālama wrote as well to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the British secretary of state and the Cultural Division of the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., - eliciting courteous replies but liūle more. Still, the response from the U.S. State Department gave Ayau hope. They noted that change SEE IWI REPATRIATI0N ŪN PAGE 27

Halealoha Ayau tracked down a po'o (cranium) from Mo'omomi whose whereabouts was unknown after Bishop Museum transferred it in 1 91 0 to a British museum, whieh had since closed. The po'o was part of the repatriated kūpuna. Ayau's Kukuiokanaloa homestead offers this view of Mo'omomi in the far distance, where, he says: "I couldn't wait to bring her home. I look out from my hale at Mo'omomi every day." - Courtesy: Halealoha Ayau

Ayau pauses as he prepares the kupuna from Mo'omomi for her return home. He credits this kupuna with helping him understand that the return of the kūpuna held in London could not be achieved only through legal means but required pule and having the museums understand that Native Hawaiians' kuleana (responsibility and right) to mōlama the kūpuna outweighed the museum's scientific interest in the kūpuna.

could eome from "an act of Parliament." It was a lofty approach that for the time was out of reach. But Ayau began brainstorming what he might convey, if ever he had the Parliament's attention. Hui Mālama persisted in the intervening years, presenting the Museum with new analyses and potential solutions. But the Museum wouldn't budge. And neither did Hui Mālama. "Unele Ed and Aunty Pua taught us: 'You gotta believe first, then it will happen. Believe in your kūpuna and thereby yourself, for their mana resides in you.' We never stopped believing." By 1999, Nihipali and Ayau felt they needed to develop a closer relationship with the kūpuna at the Museum and with the Museum's leadership. The two traveled to London with the wahine halanee of Hui Mālama, Nihipali's wife, Ipō. By this point, Hui Mālama held stronger ground in the negotiation. It had emerged as a respected native organization, having then repatriated over 5,000 individuals from 39 institutions across Hawai'i, the U.S., Germany, Canada and Australia. "Before we met with the

Museum leadership, we invoked our 'aumākua, the kūpuna trapped in the Museum, and the kūpuna we repatriated. We asked that they kōkua (assist); and they did," recalled Ayau. "It was a productive meeting. The Museum assured that they would cease further research and amend Museum policy so Hui Mālama, a cultural rather than scientific entity, could be in the presence of the iwi and obtain relevant information," said Ayau. As mueh as there was to be grateful for, disappointment lingered with the three, for they were disallowed from addressing the kūpuna on this trip. As they wandered the vast halls trying to sense where the kūpuna might be, they spotted one of the three Museum officials they hadjust met with. He was now gesturing discreetly for them to follow him. He led them to a door, nodded at it and quickly left. Just outside the locked door, the Nihipalis and Ayau tied on their hlaek klhei and began offering pule. "I could feel them," said Ipō Nihipali. "Their longing to be home made us uē (cry). We felt their 'eha (pain). They knew why we had eome. They were reaching out to us just as we SEE IWI REPATRIATION ON PAGE 33

IWI REPATRIATION Continued from page 19

were reaching out to them." "The Museum had the force of their laws, but we had the mana of our pule," said Kūnani Nihipali. "We knew our pule activated them." 'Nothing short of barbaric' Though the Hui Mālama group did not realize it at the time, the kūpuna were beyond the door, through a hall, down a stairwell and in a basement sitting on rows and rows of shelves. The sympathetic museum manager who led them to the doorway was part of a growing international movement among academics to develop a more balanced, meaningful relationship with their native subjects - a movement Hui Mālama helped to shape in their many interactions with museum officials. Hui Mālama also agreed to numerous symposia presentations,

including one at the University College of London, "Moving Forwards with Indigenous Peoples into the 21st Century," where Ayau held the attention of a packed room. "I wanted them to understand that Britain - compared to other maturing nations - was ignoring a fundamental human right to be laid to rest unmolested, and that their digging up our ancestors' heads for curious scientific 'needs' was nothing short of barbaric. I tried to share our perspective and have them understand the 'eha (hurt) they caused," said Ayau. On the heels of that presentation, Hui Mālama heeame one of only four native entities specially invited by the Parliament-estab-lished British Working Group for Human Remains to offer testimony to the group "on the potential return of human remains" from British museums. HuiMālama's 24-page testimony and 102 pages of appendices heeame part of the record Parliament relied upon in passing in 2004 the Human

Tissues Act, whieh enables institutions "to transfer human remains from their collection if it appears to them appropriate to do so for any reason." Upon the Act's passage, Hui Mālama renewed its repatriation request. However, the Museum would address requests in historical order, and the Australian Aborigines were first. The Aborigines' decision to sue the Museum took years to resolve - during whieh Hui Mālama's elaim waited. 'The tears wouldn't stop' In this period, the Museum eontinued archival research to ensure that iwi included in the potential repatriation were indeed Native Hawaiian, and forwarded their findings to Hui Mālama. Ayau and his daughter Hattie created a spreadsheet of those records. As she read to him and as he typed the data into his eomputer, a 20-year-old question was answered. Hattie said, "... BeasleyNo. 525

Cranium . . . Malakai ... I think they mean Molokai ... ." And indeed they did. The Beasley Collection originated at the Cranmore Ethnographic Museum in Kent, England. It was the kupuna that was transferred from the Bishop Museum in 1910, the kupuna that started Ayau's inquiry of the Natural HistoryMuseumin 1989. "I sat there and the tears wouldn't stop. I thought I'd never find her. And now I realize she was guiding me all along. I couldn't wait to bring her home. I look out from my hale at Mo'omomi every day. I've thought of her countless times," recalled Ayau. With energy renewed, Ayau checked and triple checked the records, and sent yet another repatriation request to the Museum. With the Aborigines' lawsuit coming to closure, Hui Mālama's request was finally brought before the Museum's trustees. "The day they met in November 2012 was nerve-racking. They could have denied our request.

It hinged on whether our plea to mālama our kūpuna outweighed the scientific "need" for them as "specimens." And then I finally got the e-mail with a scanned copy of their decision. I read the beginning of it and was really anxious because they were talking about the scientific value of the iwi. But three paragraphs in, I read the sweetest line: 'The Trustees have decided to return the remains . . . to your organization.' " "It still took nearly a year to negotiate with them all of the specifics of how and when the repatriation would occur. But it happened. On Aug. 29, 2013, 145 kūpuna returned home." Eaeh of them are back on their home islands, reburied and at rest today - in Puna and Kona on Hawai'i, in Ko'olaupoko and Kona on O'ahu, and in the sands of Mo'omomi on Molokai. E moe mālie mau a mau. Mav you rest in peaee forever. U

IWI REPATRIATI0N Continued from page 27