Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 6, Number 12, 1 December 1989 — You can protect 'ohana bones [ARTICLE]

You can protect 'ohana bones

By Ann L. Moore At the Natiue Hawaiian Būrials Seminar heid recent\y at the state capital, Linda Delaney, OHA's land and natural resources diuision officer, offered some positiue measures people could take to protect known buriai sites, identifypossible locations ofbūrial sites, and preserue their rights to uisit and maintain 'ohana buriai sites when land is sold. She began with a plea for help in identifying undocumented burial places. What foilows are excerpts of her remarks. There is a lot we ean do for ourselves. We ean eull from our own memories what we ean protect and maintain for ourselves. If your 'ohana was in the construction business and someone saw or knows of places where bones were discovered, encourage them to eome forward and tell someone. Someone may remember hearing stories in the 'ohana about a plaee where there was a great battle because, as a child, someone saw a great amount of bones in one area. It is possible these "battlegrounds" were really burying grounds. People thought it was a battle because there were so many bodies. Ask about continued on page 3

You ean protect 'ohana bones

from page 1 the stories in your 'ohana, ask your kupuna to search their memories. The least we ean do is keep maps with notations. OHA and DLNR keep such maps but there is limited access to them. However, if we have the notated maps we ean alert you when a problem is on the horizon. People ean also contact the burial commission to have 'ohana burial sites placed on record. On private lands, burial sites were often in the corner of a lot. If the land is sold an easement ean be placed in the deed allowing the 'ohana to visit and care for the graves.

If you know family land was sold and there were burials there, say so. Often there were no tombstones and the only way we will know is if people tell us. If part of the family wants to sell the land for development and others do not, there is need for mediation within the family so the burials are protected. Learn to put covenants in deeds to protect access to burial sites. We ean do this with existing laws. In the last legislature a bill was introduced whieh would protect burial sites from the eurious, and from possible desecration or looting, by making information on burial loeations confidential. This provision will be actively pressed forward in the 1990 legislature.