04-05-2025
Office of Hawaiian Affairs team retrieves ancestral remains
A team from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and Hui Iwi Kuamoo is heading home to Hawaii after taking back five sets of ancestral Hawaiian remains during formal ceremonies from the National Museums of Northern Ireland—Ulster Museum.
Ethnologist Gordon Augustus Thomson of Belfast, Ireland, traveled to Hawaii island in 1840, found and removed the iwi kupuna from burial caves and donated them to the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society in 1857, according to OHA.
The items were included in a 1910 donation to the Belfast Museum and Art Gallery, a precursor to Ulster Museum and NMNI.
'With deep humility and reverence we witness the healing of a long-standing kaumaha (sadness ). The return of our iwi kupuna is about restoring dignity, healing generations, and reaffirming the living spirit of our ancestors, ' said OHA CEO Stacy Ferreira said in a news release.
OHA started the repatriation process in October 2021 with a claim for five iwi kupuna and five mea kapu (sacred objects ) believed to be at the museum in Northern Ireland.
After museum staff could not find three sets of remains, a team from Hawaii traveled to Ireland in April 2022 and retrieved two iwi kupuna plus the mea kapu. The museum staff found the missing remains in November.
Hui Iwi Kuamoo and OHA collaborated with the museum to make arrangements for a second repatriation.
The group has provided 'care for iwi kupuna ' and other sacred objects since 1989.
Hui Iwi Kuamoo founder Halealoha Ayau said in a news release that taking remains from Hawaii was 'illicit and a form of desecration, ' adding that the iwi will be reinterred on Hawaii island.
'We don't have to know who these people are, we just have to know they are Hawaiian, ' Ayau told the BBC News. 'The living have a responsibility to bring them back and to replant them into our land. They can continue their journey to decompose, become elemental again, and their spirit (s ) allowed to travel on.'
Kathryn Thomson, chief executive of NMNI said in a statement that the repatriation represents the museum's commitment to right wrongs of the past.
'Whilst the motivation behind the acquisition of ethnological material can appear strange today, it reflected curiosity about the wider world and a desire to represent diverse cultures. However, the European bias and power imbalances that often characterized this collecting have left a complex and sensitive legacy for us to address today, ' she said.
The repatriation team included Hale aloha Ayau, Halona Tanner, Mana and Kalehua Caceres, Kamana Caceres, Keoki Pescaia, Ulu Cashman, Koiahi Panua and Kalei Velasco representing Hui Iwi Kuamoo ; representing OHA were Kamakana Ferreira, OHA compliance archaeologist, and Kuike Kamakea Ohelo, director of oiwi well-being and aina momona.
