HA‘ENA — With construction of a controversial home above dozens of ancient Hawaiian burials picking up steam on the North Shore, bickering between the landowner, a state agency and angry cultural practitioners has heated up in recent weeks. “Where can
HA‘ENA — With construction of a controversial home above dozens of ancient Hawaiian burials picking up steam on the North Shore, bickering between the landowner, a state agency and angry cultural practitioners has heated up in recent weeks.
“Where can you dig a burial and move it?” asks Robert Pa, almost in disbelief. “Where else but in Hawai‘i can you do that?”
Pa and several other Hawaiians have been involved in a long-standing fight to stop construction of a house that will sit atop a burial site with at least 44 remains of ancient Hawaiians, known as iwi.
“How could you do that?” he asks, his eyes red with astonishment.
Joseph Brescia, the owner of the property located in Naue on Kaua‘i’s North Shore, has been planning a single-family residence since 2001. He is currently suing some Kauaians for trespassing, conspiracy and slander. The case is scheduled to go on trial in October 2010, and some of the defendants could face fines exceeding $350,000 for causing construction delays.
Pa and other Hawaiians set up camp on the beach by Brescia’s property, where they have been watching construction gain momentum.
“They’re bringing people and driving heavy trucks across the bridge,” said Pa, adding that construction has never stopped. “They’ve been working in between.”
“What is it going to take for them to leave these burial sites alone?”
Pa accused the State Historic Preservation Division of not doing anything to protect the burials. “The Burial Council is there to remove burials,” Pa said. “They are separating us from the iwi.”
“Where is the law?” Pa questioned several times throughout an interview in his Hanalei home this week.
However, SHPD Archaeology and Preservation Manager Nancy McMahon said no such law prohibiting construction over burial sites exists. In fact, McMahon said the practice existed before Captain Cook ever set foot in Hawai‘i.
“The Hawaiians did it all the time,” said McMahon, explaining that Hawaiians used to bury their family members and then build their homes over the burials. McMahon said it is common practice in today’s Hawai‘i to build over cultural and burial sites. “We do that with (cultural) deposits all time.”
“We did that in Kapa’a,” she said. “There’s a huge cultural deposit, and you drive on top of it all the time.” McMahon said the area goes all the way through Kapa’a, and has burials in it, also.
According to McMahon, there’s a distinct difference between a cemetery and a burial ground. A cemetery is a western term, “very modern, very clear,” easily distinguished, with holes and headstones.
“They’re saying a concentration of burials is a cemetery,” McMahon said. “In Hawaiian terms it was called a burial ground.”
She said a cemetery would fall under the Department of Health jurisdiction. “Anything outside the cemeteries is ours.”
Despite the distinction, not even cemeteries are immune to development. McMahon said O‘ahu’s Kawaiaha‘o Church has asked to close its adjacent cemetery so they can build on it. “So they’re going to close and disinter.”
Pa still remembers when a burial ground was found in a lot close to Brescia’s property.
“They dug out the bones, mixed them all up, heads and bones and bodies, all inside one trunk,” he said.
“All together inside a trunk,” repeated Pa, shaking his head. “They wrapped chains around it and put a dead ti leaf on top, left it there for two weeks.”
Brescia’s attorney, Calvert Chipchase, said his client has all the necessary permits, and despite still waiting for the approval of a burial treatment plan, construction is unimpeded.
The controversial issue has sparked many disagreements.
McMahon said Brescia did not have permission from the Kaua‘i-Ni‘ihau Island Burial Council to cap the burials, explaining that construction workers have placed large circular cement slabs over the burials, a few feet below the surface, and then covered them with dirt.
“He wasn’t supposed to do that, they never got that approval,” McMahon said. “They did that on their own, without consulting the burial treatment plan.”
“We’ll let her lie,” Chipchase fired back, explaining that the plan under review by the SHPD says that the burials must be preserved in place. “Capping is one part of that.”
Chipchase said the only caps that were placed are within the house’s blueprint. The house will sit on stills above the ground. “Nothing actually rests on the burials themselves.”
McMahon’s reasoning for the caps was that they would protect the burials from being driven over by workers, which would not make much sense if the only caps placed are within the house’s blueprint. The archaeologist said despite the house’s deep footings not hitting any burials, they probably have burials underneath them.
Meanwhile, construction goes on without an approved burial treatment plan.
“How come they continue to build when they had an order to present a burial council treatment plan for the lot?” asked Pa.
Pa, who is part Hawaiian, and prefers to be called a Polynesian, said it’s his duty to protect the iwi. According to him, the burial council has saved “not even one handful” of graves, while more than 3,000 have been taken out.
McMahon rebutted that. “He doesn’t work in this office, so he wouldn’t know that.”
But she also added that after 20 years working for the state, there were so many cases that she is unable to come up with a statewide percentage.
Local culture says the first Hawaiian, a stillborn, was reborn on the land as a taro, and taken care of by his younger brother. This relationship would ensure the continuation of the Hawaiian people.
“We all have ties to the land,” Pa said. “We are all related together.”
Today, the very land where they return to is a place of unrest.
Pa and others are taking a stance to change that. He still hopes that Brescia leaves the burials and walks away from it. He suggested that the house is taken down and a monument is built on top of the cement already poured.
“Every time I hear a pin, it’s like someone is poking my back, it hurts,” Pa said. “That pin is going through bodies.”
Throughout the neighborhood at Naue, those pins are still being heard.
• Léo Azambuja, freelancer, can be reached via news editor Nathan Eagle at 245-3681 (ext. 227) or via e-mail at neagle@kauaipubco.com
