UH students protest grave removals at Kawaiahao Church
By Star-Advertiser staff
POSTED: 01:43 p.m. HST, Feb 15, 2012
LAST UPDATED: 01:54 p.m. HST, Feb 15, 2012
Close to 40 demonstrators protested the rising number of burial disinterments at Kawaiaha'o Church this morning on the sidewalk fronting Honolulu's oldest church on South King Street makai of City Hall.
The protesters, mostly students from the University of Hawaii, held signs and chanted in Hawaiian to express their opposition to the removal of iwi kupuna, or ancestral remains, that the church is carrying out to make way for construction of a $17.5 million multipurpose building.
Close to 300 burials have been removed to date.
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Nū Hou - Newsbriefs
By Ka Wai Ola Loa Staff
Kawaiaha'o Church breaks ground
for multipurpose center
Historic Kawaiaha'o Church in Honolulu, O'ahu broke ground on Feb. 15 for the church's new two-story multipurpose center, to replace an old administration building and Likeke Hall.
The new center will provide office space, classrooms, meeting rooms, a conference room, a social hall, and a kitchen for the congregation, the Native Hawaiian community, and the many members of the general public that use the facilities. The center will also include a reading library, the church archives, and a mini-museum of Kawaiaha'o's history.
Kawaiaha'o ensured that the boundaries of the on-site cemetery were respected in the site preparations for the new center, establishing the Nā Iwi Committee to establish culturally appropriate protocols to manage the cemetery. The church also brought in the expertise of Native Hawaiian-owned consulting firms Ku'iwalu and Aukahi, as well as Cultural Surveys Hawai'i.
"We believe Kawaiaha'o is setting a new standard for planning development in areas where cultural sensitivity is called for," noted project manager Don Caindec.
Built in 1842, Kawaiaha'o Church was the first Christian church to be built on O'ahu. The current kahu of Kawaiaha'o is Kahu Curtis P. Kekuna.
2009 comment
PRINCESS ABIGAIL KAWANANAKOA’S LAWSUIT
According to a July 17, 2009 Advertiser article by Rick Daysog, a lawsuit was filed in state Circuit Court on Wednesday, July 15, 2009 by Princess Abigail Kawananakoa against the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR), the Department of Health, the State Historic Preservation Division (SHPD) and Kawaiaha’o Church.
Princess Kawananakoa believes that Kawaiaha’o church officials and construction workers dug up and disturbed the burial plot of her ancestor Queen Kapi’olani and those of other Hawaiian families. She also alleged that the church skirted state burial laws, with the help of state officials, to fast-track the construction of the project. “This project is about greed, not God,” Princess Kawananakoa said in an e-mail to The Advertiser. “I must take this to court because I cannot allow the desecration of Hawaiian graves to continue.”
In April, church officials denied that the Kapi’olani plot had been impacted. However, a month later, they said they were unsure whether construction work had dug into the Kapi’olani plot.
George Van Buren, an attorney for Princess Kawananakoa, wrote in the lawsuit that the church and DLNR officials should have known it would find human remains because the property used to be part of the cemetery. Van Buren also stated that church officials and the DLNR disregarded the advice of the church’s archaeological consultants, who recommended a “subsurface archaeological study for iwi, or bones, and other cultural artifacts” before beginning construction. “Kawaiaha’o Church was concerned that any archaeological inventory survey would discover a concentration of human burial remains in the graveyard that could hinder and/or perhaps halt construction of the multipurpose center,” Van Buren said.
DLNR officials would not comment, saying they have not yet reviewed Kawananakoa’s lawsuit.
SECOND KAWAIAHA’O LAWSUIT
The Advertiser also reported that Dana Naone Hall, former chairwoman of the Maui-Lana’i Island Burial Council, also plans to sue DLNR and church officials over their handling of the matter. Naone Hall, who has relatives buried within the church’s cemetery ground, said that state law requires Kawaiaha’o officials to do an environmental assessment of the property since the church is a “designated historic site.”
In her July 2, 2009 letter to DLNR, the Department of Health, and the Oahu Island Burial Council, Naone Hall has brought up the following serious concerns:
(1) The necessity to be clear about burial sites and cemeteries on Kawaiaha’o Church properties;
(2) The history of repeated disinterment of Native Hawaiian burials should not continue without any standards;
(3) DLNR has not conducted the Historic Preservation Review required by its own rules;
(4) Kawaiaha’o is not a cemetery as defined in HRS Chapter 441 and HRS 6E-41;
(5) The burials that were identified during construction were known about beforehand not “inadvertent discoveries.”
(6) DLNR and DOH do not possess the legal authority to disinter burials at Kawaiaha’o Church in the manner suggested in DLNR’s June 11, 2009 letter to Kawaiaha’o Church; and
(7) The agencies cannot permit any further construction on the Kawaiaha’o Church property until the Environmental Assessment is lawfully concluded.
Until the next time. Aloha pumehana.
Tags: DLNR, Kahana Valley, Kawaiaha'o Church, Mauna Kea, Princess Abigail Kawananakoa, SHPD
Posted in Culture, Government, Land, OHA