Iwi Kupuna Vigil - Safeway Maui Lani - June 24, 2012 - by Wendy Osher

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Comment by piilani08 on June 25, 2012 at 7:52am

Members of the native Hawaiian research group, Hui Pono Ike Kanawai, rounded out a 12-hour vigil this morning at the site of the proposed Safeway and Maui Lani Shopping Center in Central Maui.

The vigil, entitled “Turning the hearts of the children to their fathers,” was organized to acknowledge and honor native Hawaiian ancestral burials in the area.

ACTUAL: WENDYA110: “I have always advocated, this is a burial ground,” said area resident Clare Apana.  “I’m not quite sure how or why we would need to build shopping centers in a burial ground; or if that’s the wisest thing to do,” she said.

ACTUAL: WENDYA111: “My mana’o is that I hope that everybody out there who has a deep sense of our culture, our people, the way we live–that they join us in our efforts to help preserve and protect not just the skeletal remains of our ancestors, but thier rights also,” said Hui Pono member and organizer Kamaunu Kahaialii.  “The dead are not dead and gone–they’re still living–their spirit lives on.  If thier spirits live on, then their rights live on; and our kuleana to help defend and protect that, lives on with them,” he said.

The exact number of burials encountered at the project construction site is unclear; however, organizers say reports indicate that there are at least a dozen, including the remains of children.

The project’s Draft Burial Component and Preservation Plan is included as an agenda item in the upcoming meeting of the Maui Lana’i Burial Council, scheduled to take place from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Wednesday, June 27, at the Planning Department conference room in Wailuku.