KAPU SACRED HAWAIIAN BURIALS TRANSCRIPT 

Produced and directed by Keoni Kealoha Alvarez

​

Chanting by Charles Kaupu 

E lohe i ka leo o ko kākou mau kūpuna. 

I kai lewa ‘ia e ka makani. 

Lilo i ka pō, 

E ku‘i hekili, 

E ‘ōlapa ka uila i ke ao, 

E uē ka lani, 

E uwō ke kai,

E lua‘i pele, 

E ‘ōpa‘ipa‘i ka honua, 

No nā kūpuna o Hawai‘i nei. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

Aloha no kākou. My name is Keoni Kealoha Alvarez. I'm the great, great grandson of Joseph Kahihikolo, and Kealoha Lapaku Kaui. My home is located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Thousands of miles away from any country or continent of this world. Over two thousand years ago, my ancestors discovered these islands and named it Hawaiʻi. I'm not a chant writer, nor a chanter, but I thought to myself, what would I sound like, expressing my feelings in the Hawaiian language of what our ancestors are going through, and it sounded like this. 

​

E lohe i ka leo o ko kākou mau kūpuna. 

I kai lewa ‘ia e ka makani. 

Lilo i ka pō, 

E ku‘i hekili, 

E ‘ōlapa ka uila i ke ao, 

E uē ka lani, 

E uwō ke kai, 

E lua‘i pele, 

E ‘ōpa‘ipa‘i ka honua, 

No nā kūpuna o Hawai‘i nei. 

​

It's been ten long years since I returned to this place. It is a secret that I held for so long. Culturally, this place is kapu, sacred. I'm just creating this trail. Just so, I can, you know, get back to this place. We're kind of heading more towards that direction. I live in the Puna district, which is the rural part of our island. Raised here, our lifestyle was simple: hunting, fishing and surfing. My family wasn't a traditional Hawaiian family, speaking the Hawaiian language, dancing the hula, or practicing the Hawaiian beliefs, and this is because parts of our Hawaiian culture were not passed down to my family. This is my mother, and she's my pohaku or rock. She shared with me the little values passed down from her grandparents. When I watch her, I kind of see the tradition of our past unfold before me. 

​

Aileen Alvarez 

And put it on each other. We're going to make laulaus okay. I have five sons, and Keoni is the youngest of the five. He was a very good child. He loves animals of all kinds. He always found things to do. Out of all my children. He was the most creative. 

 

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez

I feel closely connected to the sacred place, surrounded by nature and the history of my ancestors. Our people were spiritual people, and had respect for everything they believed in. From the tips of the mountains to the depths of the ocean, we are connected. When I was eight years old, my brothers discovered a cave in the forest near our home. They did not know what was within the cave. So as kids, they went into it to play. They realized that there was something in there. They discovered human skeletal remains. My mom called the police to report what they found. Archaeologists positively identified the remains as ancient Hawaiians. I grew up taking care of this burial cave and took it upon myself as my responsibility. I kept it safe from being desecrated. 

​

Ricky Alvarez

As kids, at first, we were scared of the burial site Keoni, took it a notch further and he realized that when we're older that it's not something to be scared about. It's something to take care of and watch over it. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez

Aloha. 

 

Hawaiʻi Island County Council 2000 

Aloha. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

Hi, my name is Keoni Alvarez. 

​

Hawaiʻi Island County Council 2000

We have a resolution before us to 244-06. Do you agree with the resolution or should it be amended in some way, do you think? 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

I'm in support for 224, and I think everybody can reach a common goal on that. The resolution is supporting the efforts to protect native Hawaiian ancestral remains, funerary objects, and the desecration and destruction of burial sites. 

I always thought that they were United States laws that protect Hawaiian rights as indigenous peoples of the land. Years later, I found out our reporting of the burial site was lost due to poor record keeping by the government. Today, when I hear bulldozers nearby, I remember the screeching sounds of the wheels turning. It was like a ticking time clock letting me know that I must hurry up to protect the burial cave because I don't have very much time. 

​

KGMB 9 Hawaiʻi News Now Reporter  

With development booming on the Big Island, the Puna district is primed for progress. But some native Hawaiians say it's running roughshod over ancestral remains. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

If we knew that it wasn't flagged, you know, it would have given us enough time to preserve this site. 

​

KHON 2 News Reporter 

The story of a young man trying to protect an ancient burial site next to his Big Island home. He's guarding something more valuable than treasure, more precious than gold and construction everywhere. Hawaiians fear every time a lot is cleared, another burial cave is destroyed. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez

When they started to bulldoze forests, they started to hit sensitive areas to our Hawaiian people, meaning that it’s cultural sites and especially our burials. I decided to do some research on my own, hoping to find a solution to protect the cave. Online, there are many articles and cases of Hawaiian burials being desecrated in Hawaiʻi. Seeing some of the outcomes of what could happen was really disturbing. There is a law in the Hawaiʻi state statutes, which protects prehistoric and Hawaiian burials. Under this law, burial councils are set up on each major Island. I remember the first time I had a meeting with the burial council. Yes, this is me. To be seated in front of this burial council. I felt intimidated because they have the power to recognize descendants to keep burials in place, or to remove burials from their locations. At my first burial council meeting, I was denied cultural descendancy. So, I took the counsel's advice to do more research about my genealogy. My mother took out the time to explain our family genealogy with me. Of all our family, she knew the most. 

​

Aileen Alvarez 

It was a total I think of twenty six children altogether, but we're considered the second half of the Kahihikolo family. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

Our genealogy goes back seven generations to the Hawaiian Kingdom time period. The old photos of my great, great grandparents took me back in time as my mother told their stories. I could see it in her eyes how she missed her grandparents. I wanted to learn more about Hawaiian burial sites. So, I went to the library to do some research. 

​

Linda K. Sueyoshi 

Let me show you a couple of books in this section here. David Malo and Samuel Kamakau were two well-known Hawaiian scholars. This is David Malo’s book, Hawaiian Antiquities. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

Wow, okay. 

​

Linda K. Sueyoshi 

It's pretty good. He writes about a lot of different Hawaiian traditions, including burial. 

​

Piʻilani Kaʻawaloa 

Burials were sacred. Burials were important. When a person dies their corpse remain, but their spirit takes another journey. 

 

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

Hawaiian burial traditions are never the same. The ceremony depends on the family practices, status, local surroundings, and even the circumstances of how a person died. The women would help in the burial process. They would gather natural herbs, and prepare needed supplies that the men would need to bury the body. Women would make kapa, a material made of mamaki, also known as the mulberry tree. The bark of the tree was skillfully pounded into a strong fiber cloth, and oftentimes, used to wrap the deceased body or bones before burial. Only a few chosen kane, or men, prepare the body for the nighttime burial. During the burial preparation, men and women worked separately in different houses. 

​

Hank Fergerstrom 

Because Hawaiians were very thorough. They knew every bone in your body and every muscle and I how it linked. They didn't know that by just putting it on site, they went through it. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

Hawaiians use several different burial methods. If the ground was dirt, a pit was dug. But if the ground was solid rock, stones were stacked over the body. Some burials were in lava tubes and in caves, or in sand dunes near the ocean. In the library, it is very difficult to find information about Hawaiian burials and practices. It was no surprise to me that the subject was kapu. Not to be published or is subject to be studied or written about. I found a book which was promising to me. It was written in the 1800s called the Kuʻe Petition, which documented Hawaiians who were against the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. This book held over twenty-two thousand signatures, which included the locations they lived in at the time. And soon enough, I found my great, great grandparents’ signatures. It was the Kaui lineage. It identified their location of residence. To my amazement, they lived in my district, then I wonder that maybe the burials in the cave could be my direct relatives. I visited a small old Hawaiian cemetery on the island of O‘ahu called the Queen Liliʻuokalani Protestant Church. When my mum was a little girl, her grandmother told her, this is where her Kaui family line is buried. 

​

Aileen Alvarez 

This whole graveyard looks so different, it wasn't like this at all. Every time my grandma would go to funerals of our family, I was always the one that was taken along. So, I wasn't in fear of burials or death or anything. I took Keoni to where his great, great, great, great grandparents were all buried. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

My mom found her relatives. It's her grandmother's sister, Mary, and her brother David Kahihikolo. These headstones did not just refer to them by name, but it has their photo. In an album, I found a young picture of my great grandmother, and this is her sister Mary's photo on the headstone. 

​

Aileen Alvarez 

It was very interesting for him to learn where he's from, who our family heritage is, and to just be respectful, not only of our ohana's grave, but anybody else's grave. You don't step on somebody's grave. You go around it, you know, as respect for the individual. I really believe that when they lawnmower and they grew grass, they grew it right over our families. Hey Gilliam, isn't it the Gilliam family, our family? Lapaku Kaui here. This is our lineage because that's our great great grandmother's, our great grandmother's name is Lapaku Kaui, and then the next generation over is another Lapaku Kaui and then our great grandfather's is also Lapaku Kaui. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

It's awesome to see that we still have our tombstones still here. Lapaku Kaui and he was born on December 20, 1863, and he died on May 29, 1931. So it's very important that we have these kinds of sites still around. For over two-thousand years, there was a common way Hawaiians have practiced to bury our people. The method they use was to arrange them in the fetal position for its burial. Hawaiians prepared the body by tying a rope to the knee joints, and pulling it around the neck until the knees touch the chests. The rounded body was tightly wrapped in kapa cloth, and a round hole was dug to kanu the body, or plant it. Like a tree, the body was planted in the earth to be reborn to the spirit world of Kane. People today are just developing everywhere. The subdivision I'm at, people are starting to bulldoze and getting closer and closer to our burial cave, and this worries me. It worries me a lot to know that people can go ahead and sell cultural sites or even our burials, and possibly even develop on it. I visited the first public graveyard in Hawaiʻi. It was created in 1844, called the Oʻahu Cemetery. This site is eighteen acres, which houses over thirty five-thousand individual graves from around the world. 

 

Nanette Napoleon - Oʻahu Cemetery Historian 

Traditional Hawaiians did not have markers per se, and so, it's been a trouble, a problem, finding traditional Hawaiian burial sites for us because there's no markers. But our moʻoleoʻs tell us some stories about where to go and where somebody was buried. A lot of people tell me when they come to Oʻahu cemetery that they noticed that there are so many famous people here, and there are. There are hundreds of famous people here. Because a lot of people just associate them with being repositories for the dead. I call them outdoor museums and outdoor historic sites, because they tell our history. That's, to me, one of the most important, if not, the most important function of a graveyard. So this is the grave of Samuel Mānaiakalani Kamakau. He is among the top five Hawaiian historians in the history of Hawaiʻi. He was important in his lifetime, he is important to all of us Hawaiians today because he has taught us in written form, so it has been able to be passed on to future generations. So, this guy is huge in Hawaiian culture. Why do we have cemeteries? Why do we have markers as human beings no matter where you are in the world? What function does it serve us to have these places? And from country-to-country, culture-to-culture, a difference but many commonalities is that we need basic to our core of who we are as human beings, we need to memorialize our ancestors. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez

And who is this? 

​

Nanette Napoleon - Oʻahu Cemetery Historian 

This is Mariah Kahanamoku. Was one of eight siblings in the Kahanamoku clan, who’s most famous Kahanamoku, of course, was our Duke Kahanamoku who was a famous surfer, canoe paddler. This is the only full-bodied sculpted piece of a real person in any graveyard in Hawaiʻi. So here's some more contemporary Hawaiian patriot. His name was Dr. Kekuni Blaisdell. So, he was an important mentor for me and he always encouraged me to do the work that I'm doing. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

Amazing… Amazing good mentor. Here, you can leave a hoʻokupu for our people. On the windward side of the island, surrounded by beautiful jagged mountains and valleys, this place is called Hawaiian Memorial Cemetery. My mom's grandmother, who adopted her and raised her as her own, lay in rest here. It was nice to be with my family, my mom, her sister, and their brother. We adorned her headstone with fresh flowers and reminisced about my great grandmother's love for our family. It was a beautiful thing. It was not a custom for Hawaiians to mark their burial site locations. Though uncommon, sometimes an ahu, or an altar of stone or wood, was made near the burial site. Only the family would use this platform to place offerings on it. This is how we as Hawaiians do our offering, and it's not for anybody to open my offering and to see what's in it. You know, this is something personal to me, and this is my gift to my kupuna. To my ancestors who's buried in this cave, nobody else. In the forests, we have many different types of plants. As indigenous people of the forest, it's a refuge knowing that every living thing within it can be utilized. This plant right here is very special to our Hawaiian people, it is called the ki plant. Every part of this plant was used in the Hawaiian culture. There's another way that Hawaiians use a ki plant, and what they’ll do with the root is they'll chop it up, and they'll smash it. And out of the root, fluid would come out, and they would actually use that as an embalming fluid when the person died. So whenever you see this plant, you're gonna see most likely it's planted around families’ homes, or you're gonna see it in culture sites, and especially burial sites, because part of its properties was to ward off evil, and that's the reason why a lot of people use this plant around their homes or in special areas that they want to protect. This forest that surrounds the cave is sacred. When I come here, it reminds me of a Hawaiian elder who shared with me an untold story of a burial method his family used in the forests. 

​

Robert Keliʻihoʻomalu

What my mama said, there is a couple who loves so dearly. There was a young girl, she took ill and she died and they loved her so much. What they did is prepared all these herbs and put it on different areas where they could drain all the liquid out and they kept her. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

When a person lived in the mountains passed away, their organs was also removed, and their body was filled with pulu, or the hairy part of the hapu ferns. This was another way Hawaiians buried their people. 

​

Bo Palacat 

Some bodies were treated in a fashion called iʻaloa, the longfish, where they would do an incision and remove as much of the body organs as can and they would pack the cavity with paʻakai Hawaiian salt. 

​

Mary M. Kalili

Important part of the body, they wrap it up with salt and bandage it up. And the mouth, they put salt in the mouth, and closed the mouth. Everything is prepared. That's when they find the bodies, their bodies don't decay fast. It takes time, because the salt is what preserves the body. I told my aunty ah boy? So that was my lesson. To me, it was a lesson. 

 

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

My worst fears came true. A for sale sign was posted in front of the burial cave property. It was sold to a developer whose plans were to develop two homes on the burial cave property. You know, in Hawaiʻi, there's a lot of places that still undeveloped, there's a lot of forests. And a lot of times, people are purchasing these properties because a lot of realtors today they're not disclosing the information to the people was purchasing the properties, and then by the time we, as descendants, confront the people and let them know it's already too late. You know the place is destroyed, and this place has a lot of old forests and trees, and you wouldn't know what's under here until you understand the history. I drove to a place to meet a Hawaiian elder named Sam Kaleiliki who is on the east side of our Island. He wanted to show me a culturally sensitive place, which he knows it is for sale. 

​

Sam Kaleiliki

All along this route here, you'll find signs like that Kapu, no trespassing Hawaiian burial site protected by law. But whenever we come up to a site that's preserved, or it says, Kapu, that's exactly what we do. We understand what Kapu means, it's sacred, and yet you have realtors who put their signs up. This is the kind of things that the western culture do. The westerners come here and they know this is sacred land. The problem for the people that's gonna buy this land is they got to deal with the descendants. 

​

Piʻilani Kaʻawaloa 

Every person, whether you were great aliʻi, or a kawa, a servant, a slave, you had sacred or rituals in which your bones or your body was prepared. 

​

Bo Palacat

As Hawaiians we believe that our Mana, our spiritual power, that each and every one of us have, is housed or contained within the iwi, within the bones. And so, iwi is very, very sacred. 

​

Pualani Kanakaʻole-Kanahele

Iwi is the bone structure of anything, humans, it's a skeletal remain. The rest of your body is flesh, it has feelings, it is all of that. Your iwi is your foundation, it's the basis on which you exist. 

​

Piʻilani Kaʻawaloa  

In ancient times, they would place the body in an imu, or in an underground oven, so that the flesh would be easy to take off. 

 

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez  

The pela of the body was burned in a pit of fire and turned into lehu or ashes. In a special place, the Kahuna would then pour the ashes into the ocean. The night was like a cloak, it was a protection for the burials and the people who are bearing them. 

 

Piʻilani Kaʻawaloa

And the bones possess the greatest of the mana. With great care, they would take this and wrap it in a puʻolo or a kapa or an ʻie, a basket. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

For very important chiefs the kaʻai was woven from the ʻieʻie roots, they were decorated to look or represent the human being, including ears and mouths. 

​

Pualani Kanakaʻole-Kanahele 

Other Hawaiians believe that they should be put into sand dunes. Advantage of putting them into sand dunes is that eventually they will rot down to the bones and become part of that sand. So the ocean and the things of land become one and the same within the sand dune. Unlike the ground where you can dig it up and you still have a sense of something being done there, Sand Dunes you couldn't do that. They can cover up the sand very well, people would never know that you were buried there last night. 

​

KHON 2 News Reporter 

KHON 2 news has learned that public sand was taken in large quantities from Dillingham airfield and Mokuleia and the digging unearth human remains in an old family burial ground. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

Many sand dunes have been documented as historical burial grounds. Today, it's been sold off and illegally mined for home development golf courses, and to make high rise concrete buildings in Hawaiʻi. I met Clare Apana on Maui. She's a protector of sand dune burials where her ancestors lay. These burials are zoned and protected as a Hawaiian burial preserve. 

 

Clare Apana

This is a place that has always been dear to my heart because I was born here in the sand dunes of Wailuku Waikapu. The sand dunes, as other sand dunes all throughout the islands of Hawaiʻi, are traditional places to bury our people. This is a place that they came to lay to rest. This particular puʻu is my ohana. I've been through acres and acres 

of sand dunes, and this is where my ohana is. You may not drive on this road and through this gate, which is probably a good idea because I believe that our kupuna are all over this entire area, not just inside this fence. 

 

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez

I know it's very sacred, you know and it needs to be preserved, and for me, I like to see what a preserve looks like. And this is you know a little step towards preservation of having a sign, having a fence, and I think it's awesome that the government or people are starting to realize that we need these preserves to protect our iwi kupuna and they are important. On the Island of Kauaʻi, I received news of a desecration of an old Hawaiian burial ground called Naue that was secretly being dug up. Shovels and excavators were used to dig trenches to set the cement foundation for a home to be built on. In the process, over thirty Hawaiian burials were discovered throughout the property. Descendants and islanders soon became aware of what was happening. Before the digging started at Naue, I interviewed Auntie Louise, a descendant of the burials. 

 

Louise Sausen 

This is the front entrance to what I call Na Iwi o Naue Cemetery, and this is Joe Brescia's property. Normally, we have a beach access here that we allow the people to walk through during the weekdays. If no one's here at the camp, I keep it locked, just to help me maintain that no construction will start on this property. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

On the property, archaeologists identified thirty Hawaiian burials. Each burial location was marked with orange flags or wooden pegs. 

​

Kaʻiulani Mahuka 

As you can see behind me there are between thirty and forty eight burials here, they're all numbered along with the depth of the burial. The archaeologists have said between the 10th and 13th century, making this cemetery at least seven hundred years old. Each of the sticks that you see have a number on them, and then they also have a body identification tag, which lists the body number and the depths it’s at. So this is body number twenty eight, at a depth of fifty inches, so this is one of the older burials. 

​

Louise Sausen  

So kupuna is buried under here in the sand area, and it's right, you know, fronting the ocean. My understanding why Hawaiians bury their deceased here is because it keeps the bones and the flesh. It has time to dry and keeps them intact, and like this one is eighteen inches. So eighteen inches deep, you dig down eighteen inches and you'll be on the poʻo of our kupuna. You know, kupuna is right here in this whole area. 

​

Andrew Cabebe

Aloha kapuna, kapuna… Aloha, mahalo kupuna. This is it; you know? All women and children here, buried, and they want to dig it up, you know. 

​

Louise Sausen 

You tell me why can't you walk away from this? And I'm going to tell you, every time Joe Brescia comes into this neighborhood, he brings security guards. Nobody else brought security guards over here. Why he makes us feel like this? You tell me. This is not the first time I've been up against this man. He moved my kupuna to put a septic tank. He's trying to control our culture, and in the way of controlling our culture, he is ruining our graveyards. Cemetery just like in your culture. Burial sites is the same thing. Walk away from it. [Chanting 00:33:51]. So every evening at sunset, we light a fire at the campfire and we also like all these torches, and each of these are actual burials. Each torch represents a burial site where there's human remains. To count there's forty two, and there may be more, we're not sure. But as you can see, this is a cemetery, this is a burial site. This is where they were placed, and this is where their remains are. They're actual people. Keiki and wahine, that’s plenty. 

 

Mahina Gronquist 

You talk about Keoni and mālama i ka aina these burials, it's not about bringing it to anybody's attention. It is already at our attention as Hawaiian people. What he has learned from his, instilled in him, and that is respect for their place. 

 

Wendell Kaʻehuʻaeʻa 

Those people that own the property, did they ever go down there? 

 

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

No, No, No. For us as Native Hawaiians, I believe it should be our responsibility to make sure that this burial site is being protected, preserved as is. 

​

Wendell Kaʻehuʻaeʻa 

So, you're gonna keep it as natural as possible? 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

Yeah, natural as possible. It’s just a matter of just trying to protect it, the best way we can. 

When I see these flags it just brings back a lot of emotion, a lot of feeling of how I felt at that time of them surveying the property, and also even going into the burial cave. So, you know, for me, this is a sacred place to me. You know, I had like a lot of mixed emotions about letting people even in there, especially foreigners, who care nothing about our culture, who know nothing about our culture, who's not even connected to it. That was the hard part for me. It was fifteen years ago when this happened. I remember a conference call I had with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs Burial Council about the invasive cave survey that took place. 

​

Hawaiian Affairs Burial Council 

So far this is a lava tube that you found. How far does it extend onto Rapozo’s land? 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

200 to 300 feet in, I'd say it's about maybe twenty feet high, maybe about twenty five to thirty feet wide, and what I'm saying is that this kind of caves with our iwi I mean, it's for future generations, because I mean, they're taking everything. They're not only taking the land and taking our iwi too. 

​

Hawaiian Affairs Burial Council 

We're going to support the previous identified status and then NHCC recommending that staff and admin continue to assist you, which could be on multiple different levels. Could be financial, could be letter writing support of testimony, all kinds of different things. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

Okay, and that's regarding for capping the cave, or whether it be just capping the cave or to even purchase it also could be in that same category right? 

​

Hawaiian Affairs Burial Council 

Yeah, all those issues and more. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez  

Okay…okay okay that sounds great. 

​

Hawaiian Affairs Burial Council 

Aloha. Mahalo. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

After numerous meetings with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, they have never provided me financial help to defend my rights nor have they assisted to purchase the historic property off the land market. It always ended up in the same result, nothing being accomplished. 

​

Phone Call Recording 

Hey Keoni Alvarez, this is Wendy Machado from Historic Preservation. You called earlier. I checked into our files about the cave, it has been really well documented with the county, DLNR and above to the chair and the burial council members and like I said they dropped the bulldozer… call. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

Soon after that, the developer brought a bulldozer to move forward on breaking ground on the burial site. I was so upset by the landowner’s actions. As I drove to the burial sites, the sounds of the bulldozer pushing ground grew louder and louder. When I arrived there, I noticed my mother had already confronted the bulldozer operator and the developer and told them to stop immediately. I then rushed into the forests. The only thing that ran through my mind was to make sure that our ancestors was protected and wasn't desecrated by this bulldozer. When I looked around, he did not want to listen to me. I even told the land owner, I always get choked up, because but I just told him that, if he lands that bulldozer on this property and I'm going to call the cops and he's gonna get arrested for desecrating our burial So, it is so hard, you know that people just don't understand, what it means, what our kupuna mean to us, you know? And for me, I just know that once you bulldoze the site, two swipes on this little piece of property, it's gone and it's gone forever. I was shocked to see that one swipe of this bulldozer, of the damage that it caused to the forest. 

​

Aileen Alvarez 

He is the guardian over the iwi kupunas. You Hawaiian? 

​

Bulldozer Operator 

No, we all Hawaiian. 

​

Aileen Alvarez 

But you know what, what you going destroy kupuna iwi? 

​

Bulldozer Operator 

We're not gonna destroy nothing. 

​

Aileen Alvarez 

That is why I am asking you, are you Hawaiian? 

​

Contractor 

No. 

​

Aileen Alvarez  

Okay, then you don't understand. 

​

Contractor 

I don’t understand.

​

Aileen Alvarez 

You don't understand the culture. 

​

Contractor 

I don’t, I don’t. 

​

Aileen Alvarez 

That’s the problem. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

What do you guys are doing? You guys are destroying this place. 

​

Contractor

I bought the land, I bought the land.. I’m not trying to make humbug. I got permits to build. I don't know about this all… you know what I mean. 

​

Aileen Alvarez

You know what your, there is boundaries that you have to stay away from. 

​

Contractor 

Go talk to the state, not me. 

​

Bulldozer Operator 

Yeah, yes. 

​

Aileen Alvarez 

No.

​

Bulldozer Operator 

Your realtor was supposed to tell them… tell you. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez  

So, do you know the history about this area? This area has burials in it, and you just going ahead with your bulldozer. Yeah, and you just pushing this place, you know, desecrating our burials is a crime, right? 

​

Aileen Alvarez 

This is a cultural thing, and if you don't understand that, you need to learn the culture of Hawaiʻi, and how our people feel about their kupuna iwi. 

​

Unknown Speaker 

I have no problems with that. 

​

Aileen Alvarez

I try to tell you, I don't know what in the world about your… about your realtor, but they're supposed to know there is boundaries that you cannot over go. You cannot overstep certain boundaries. That whole place is boundary. 

 

Unknown Speaker 

We're not going to touch the burial site. I guarantee. I the one on the dozer. I don’t what hard luck, I know what it is. I'm not touching um I not gonna go close. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

As I looked at my mom, I knew something didn't settle right with her. So I decided to call the county police department to let them know what was going on, on this historic property. I showed my documentation of the burial ground by the government. The land developer then halted his project. Caves were sacred and had the right conditions. Rainwater seeping through the lava make caves a pure and peaceful resting place. 

​

Pualani Kanahele

Burial caves are usually, the opening of the burial caves was usually very small and hard to get in. So once you get that burial in, the loved ones who has passed on will be saved in that particular place. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez  

Also, caves were perfect hiding place to bury bones. For Hawaiians, it was not in their nature to be entering, venturing the depths of a cave, especially if they knew it was a burial cave. Hawaiians believed it to be a pathway to milu, the underworld of spirits. The consequences of looking into burial caves or desecrating a burial was horrific. It was known that Hawaiians would restrain criminals and clubbed them to death. If the war implement was not around, then they will find the biggest rock and bash your face in for what you saw. Hawaiians often took it a step further into the afterlife, placing the mutilated body on an altar, letting it decay and rot as an offering to appease the gods. 

​

Hank Fergerstrom 

Hawaiian laws was so clear and so easy to understand. You knew if you were or were not a Kapu breaker, and you also know there's a penalty for Kapu breaking was death. 

​

Piʻilani Kaʻawaloa

Great lengths were taken to conceal the burial site so that nobody would know. So that you wouldn't even be tempted to reveal the location of the burial. You yourself committed suicide. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

You know, looking at this binder, it just kind of shows me how persistent I was in protecting our burial cave. Although I was recognized as a descendant by the Hawaiʻi Island Burial Council, the State Historic Preservation Department intervened. The developer then halted his project. He made me an offer of three months to come up with fifty-thousand dollars to save the burial cave. I printed flyers and posted them around town, asking the community and businesses for donations to raise the money. Aloha, hi, how are you doing? My name is Keoni. I'm trying to save a Hawaiian burial cave from being destroyed by development, and we have family ties to this burial cave. I needed to move quickly to stop the developer from moving forward with breaking ground on the burial cave property. So I researched online and I found a person whose name is Palikapu Dedman, and he was involved in protecting a mass burial ground in 1989 against the Ritz Carlton Kapalua hotel. 

 

Davianna Pomaikaʻi McGregor

It's been said that there are a lot of times that bones have been taken out in the past, and up to a point there have been bones taken up here. And the thing is that we have watched it, and at this time, we can no longer stand it. As Hawaiians, we feel that our bones cannot be taken out anymore, and we're not going to allow this to happen anymore. And it took this case, it took the finding of this many bones here at the disinterment of 870 bones for us to come to that realization that we have to take a stand and stop this from happening here on Maui, on Hawaiʻi, on Oʻahu, on Kauaʻi, wherever it happens. We have to stop the state from giving permits to developers to take our bones out. We don't want them out, and we want these bones here returned. 

​

Palikapu Dedman 

To speak for thousands of years of Hawaiians before and thousands to come. Regardless of what other nationalities may think. We as Hawaiians think this is sacrilegious. It's against our traditional beliefs that it has to stop. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

Pali we're here at Honokahua and how do you remember this place? You remember? 

​

Palikapu Dedman 

None of this was here when we were here protesting. It was just brand new ground being opened up, the burials inside. But the dunes were there and it was like facing the beach. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

Just going walk little bit. 

​

Palikapu Dedman 

Yeah. Well, that wasn't here. There was a lot of things not here. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

Okay. 

​

Ritz Carlton Employee 

This is an area that is not open for walking on unless you have permission from certain people. Do you have permission already from those people? 

​

Palikapu Dedman 

My ancestors? 

​

Ritz Carlton Employee 

I'm sorry, sir. It's our job to ask the people don't walk on this area unless they've been given permission from the person who is the caretaker of this area. 

​

Palikapu Dedman

It's a family's job to come look at our family. 

​

Ritz Carlton Employee 

I understand that, but I don't know who you are. 

​

Palikapu Dedman 

Well, I'm a Hawaiian look… 

​

Ritz Carlton Employee 

Just doing my job. 

​

Palikapu Dedman 

This is my job. I'm over here that's over there. That's your job. God, ignorant people, man. I mean, we're how far we've come from that time to know. You know, that she know that we were here stopping him from digging us up? She doesn't know that. She doesn't really know the real meaning of this. Why doesn't she know? Your cultural specialist who's in charge of culture is not orientation to this lady about who we are and how we should be treated. That's not a specialist. It's just a job opportunity man. Because he's got a job, he's got brown skin. You get one brown skin name, he's an expert? 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

I listened to Pali at Honokahua as he shared with me the burials he saw at the desecrated burial site. 

​

Palikapu Dedman 

But it was very desecrating as bad feelings because you would see little pieces of tarps and if you lift up the tarp, there was a skull, or there were some bones and they were all over the place. So what the archaeologists did was hire everybody he could: amateur archaeologist, part time job, anybody that was in the field, or get done his job or his contract, before we came. There was so much iwi that he couldn't do it. I don't care how many people he hired, I mean they stopped at twelve hundred, how much was more left in them? So it was a major burial site. 

​

Ipo Nihipali  

I feel our ancestors crying out. I cannot see the children being dug up like this. I cannot see people or ancestors being dug up like this, pau. Can you see your grandparents and your families being dug up? We don't go to your grave sites and dig up your families, and take your jewelry, or take all your possessions, or your all your private possessions out and put them in your museums to show the tourists. 

​

Piʻilani Kaʻawaloa 

They took great lengths to make sure that the deceased didn't go barren, and barren met without anything. If a warrior died at battle, then upon his death, his war gear would go with him. His finest malo would be buried with him or he would be buried in his finest malo, his cape, his weapons, his gods. And so these items were of great mana, to the person, not to anybody else. 

 

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez

The news of the desecration spread throughout the Hawaiian Islands. Soon after an overnight vigil was held at the state capital on the island of Oʻahu. 

​

Mililani Trask 

I arrived early in the day. When I got there, there were less than one hundred people. But each hour on the hour, more and more Hawaiians came. When work ended, hundreds of Hawaiians came. The drumbeat every hour, we prayed every hour, and we prayed that the Akua, who would awaken in the hearts and minds of the legislature and understanding that the desecration had to stop. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

This event reached the hearts of many Hawaiians, old and young to take a stand. At that time, the Hawaiʻi State Government had no formal process, or Hawaiian burial laws when dealing with desecration. Hawaiian Governor John Waiheʻe, had some decisions to make. 

​

John Waiheʻe 

But the problem was that they kept finding bodies. And you know, in a few days, it's like, ten, the next day is like twenty. And then, you know, we started hitting up, and at some point, this whole thing became ridiculous. I mean, what do you do? You can’t have that, and in the course of all of this, you know, discovering that this is a very important place. 

 

Palikapu Dedman 

The governor walked across the street at 11:30, and took us upstairs, six of us upstairs and started crying about how the situation is. But you know, I understand his emotion, we went through that emotion too you know. So he was late in his crying, you know, we did ours, and it was emotional. So I'm glad that he was a Hawaiian governor at that time, I don't know how any other governor would have reacted. So I can at least say that he did the right thing, and I get respect for him for that, from one Hawaiian to another Hawaiian, that he stopped it. He said, you know, as of right now, it's over. 

​

John Waiheʻe

But more importantly, it underscored the need to deal with this issue in a kind of straightforward way. And so, we passed this legislation to create the burial councils, which were established to, you know, work with all the new development. 

 

Palikapu Dedman 

I quit the burial council the first year they had one, they put me on it. And I quit because the guys who made the rules were just as bad without even have rules. Because they appoint people on these commission that were very strong Christian Hawaiians, and Christians dig up a lot of things and move them. So you weren't gonna get the respect from the burial council with these kinds of people that's having the say so. And two of them on the burial council are non-Hawaiians. I mean, what? Does any race call some foreign race to talk about their races, burials? But you could in Hawaiʻi. And you know, the burials we're talking about is not western contact or the church is responsible? No, these were traditional before western man came around. So there's a different treatment and the different respect for that. It was up to us to deepen ourselves, to dig out the Hawaiianness of what that was to stop the development and protect them. It had to take the whole moral inside to come out. 

 

Island Archaeology Channel 

Doesn't archaeology contribute to the understanding of the Hawaiian culture, and wouldn't it be of benefit to open it up, study it and continue our knowledge of these people? 

​

Haunani Kay Trask 

I think something has to be said right off the bat, the issue here is a moral ethical issue. And the fact is that these three men are foreigners in our land. They are guilty of desecration. They are guilty. They are guilty of disturbing the bones. Nathan Napoka, the State Historic Sites Division saw a photograph which were not made available to the public in Hilo showing these men fraudulent, unqualified people holding skulls. Holding skulls of Hawaiians. Now, the problem with this is if this had been done to a Christian graveyard, if this had been done to a Shinto graveyard, to a Buddhist graveyard, people 

would be outraged. And these people, we hope, will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for criminal violations. Never mind moral violations, ethical violations. But to me, that is the main issue. Archaeology is secondary in this case. We don't even have professionally trained people. Archaeologists. Trained ethnographers to go in there and say what this cave means. These three fraudulent people are telling us in Hawaiʻi, this is what the cave means, and I say, who are you? Who the hell are you? You're nobody. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

I went to an outlook on one of the major Hawaiian Islands. They showed me the outcome of where the United States government is heading with our beautiful island. With all the development here, I can't imagine how many burials and historical sites were destroyed in the process to allow this to happen. So we're in the middle of Waikiki. And Waikiki, there's like a lot of development. You got hotels, you got shopping centers, you got stores, you got homes in this area, and they developed on all this area. This mound is actually from all the burials that they found in Waikiki, from all the development, from all the hotels and all the shopping centers. They decided to grab all these bones, and then put them in one area. This is a United States practice, this is not a Hawaiian practice. It's an American practice that they do this, and the sick thing about it is a lot of our Hawaiian people are falling into that it's okay. It's not okay. And just because they make it beautiful on the outside, that's a sick thing about it. That's what makes it worse, actually. Is they’re making it look like it's okay, and it's not. Putting up the signs, the ki leaves, the Hawaiian flags, but what they did was wrong. Those people in there had to have a life. There was protocol when they put those bones in the ground by the families, and that's what this whole state is erasing. That there was a belief system, there was respect out of this place. It’s so sad, you know. And then you put a flame on the top, that's not one Hawaiian practice. You know, this thing is supposed to be hidden away from the community. In old time, when a person died, it was an emotional thing. Sometimes women would beat their chests and scratch their faces. Men would gouge out their eyes, take out their niho, their teeth, and disfigure their body. This was an expression to show their deep pain and feelings of their loss to onlookers. If someone was greatly missed, by the deceased loved one, a bone would be taken and sewn into a pillow. So, a loved one could be near them. Oftentimes, instead of bones, the palm of the hand would be cut off, dried in the sun, and taken to be saved. And if not the hand, the fingernails, teeth, or even hair of a person. Over the many years, I've been to numerous burial council and board meetings to protect our burial cave. 

​

Office of Hawaiian Affairs 

I would like to call Keoni Kealoha Alvarez. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

Aloha no kākou, my name is Keoni Kealoha Alvarez. I am from the island of Hawaiʻi. You know, when I was eight years old, my ohana has discovered a native Hawaiian burial cave, in the forest near our home. So I set myself on a journey throughout Hawaiʻi Island as well as our neighbor islands to learn what was the traditional burial practices of our Native Hawaiian people. Today, the United States government has continually turned its back towards Hawaiians, and their mission is to devalue, destroy our Hawaiian culture, our culture sites, and this includes our burial grounds. Over the years, I've seen so many families struggle to find a common ground with land owners and developers. At these burial council meetings, too often I hear how developers dig up my ancestors and push forward to continue with their projects. 

​

Nico Fuentes 

Apparently, the permit was approved without archaeological monitoring. Upon further investigation, what I noticed was that the person was displaced completely into large clumps as if they were dug up in two subsequent scoops. So, now you have the stockpile of material that is holding, but you also have a spread to the right. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez

Sometimes landowners and developers choose not to cooperate with the process, and descendants are finding themselves locked out of their ancestral burial grounds or in lawsuits with developers. 

​

Jennifer Noelani Ahia 

This project is gross SHPD negligence. This letter says, our records indicate that no archaeological inventory survey has been conducted, and that no archaeological historic properties have been identified within the subject parcel or nearby. Okay, so then we did a little more digging. It turns out there is an AIS, three of which are located on the subject property. 2704 historic cemetery. 2705 auwai. 2706, subsurface cultural deposit. This is more evidence of either the gross corruption or the gross negligence of SHPD. This is unacceptable, these burials did not have to be disturbed. 

​

Kaniloa Kamauna 

But I'm mahaʻoi, you know, the guys who're mahaʻoi they don't want to bring out, I think all these people came out here just to stay behind the computers and talk. They come out to stand in front of the people who don’t like see them stand. Kuʻe for us. This is our people to sit down and listen to people talk about their everyday business so they can cash their checks is hewa. 

 

Anchor 

Go ahead and what's your question, please? 

​

Caller 

My question or concern is you know, you blame it on the white man about on how we came over and take your land. This is America, you know, I mean… 

​

Haunani Kay Trask

I need to say something to this caller. This is not America. This is Polynesia. Our country was stolen. That's one of your problems: you're ignorant, woefully ignorant. But you, caller, need to learn about Hawaiian history and about where you are. You think you are in America, you are not in America. You are in a colony that is in Polynesia; that was forcibly taken. Just as, I might add, all of Eastern Europe was forcibly taken by the Soviet Union, which Americans think is a very, very bad place. The bad bad Soviet Union. Well, the bad bad United States of America took Puerto Rico, took Alaska, stole Indian land. It 

took Hawaiʻi, it took Guam, it took Micronesia, Palau. And you had better learn that history because you are the recipient of an imperialist tradition. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez

This is ʻIolani Palace, which means Hawk of heaven. It was a royal residence of the Hawaiian dynasty. And on this palace grounds, some of the high ruling chiefs are also buried on this sacred land. In 1890, Hawaiʻi’s King Kalākaua left Honolulu for San Francisco, California. During his visit, he died there. Upon his return to the islands, Hawaiians number thousands to attend the funeral and to show their aloha to the royal family of their loss. His queen, Kapiʻolani, watch from the balcony of the palace as King Kalākaua’s funeral procession made its way to the throne room to lie in state. And what room is this? 

 

Zita Cup Choy

This is a throne room. Was used as an informal reception room, audience room, it was used for balls. It was also used as a place for our aliʻi to lie in state prior to their funerals. Kalākaua lay in state here for about a week, whereas for most of that time, it was just family and close friends attending his coffin. And then we the community only had two hours to come in and pay our respects, one afternoon. 

​

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 

One of Hawaiʻi’s saddest images is captured of Queen Kapiʻolani, leaning over her husband's casket as she mourns her loss of her beloved King. I visited a place called the Hawaiʻi State Archives. It's known to hold the largest Hawaiian collection of historical photographs, government records, and laws of Hawaiʻi’s history. I wanted to inquire if the Hawaiian government was concerned or had written laws to protect Hawaiian burials during the monarchy time period.