Included in the harms caused by western contact in the Hawaiian Islands was the incessant foreign desire to collect ancestral skeletal remains and their funerary possessions, as well as cultural items including sacred objects. Hawaiian values placed high priority on the care and protection of places of burial of family members. We know this because our traditional values taught us this lesson. 

First, mai kaula‘i i nā iwi i ka lā, which means “don’t expose the bones to sun, to light.”  In addition, mai lawe wale i nā mea i ho’omoepū ‘ia, which means“don’t wantonly take the possessions of the dead.” 

In other words, the theft of the bones of the ancestors and their possessions is an overt act of thievery and desecration meeting the standard of ‘context of injustice.’ The fact that a museum has grandmother’s head is proof positive of injustice, which is best defined from the perspective of the victim and not the violator. This is why Hawaiians, like Māori, Native Americans, Aborigines, Okinawans, Rapa Nui descendants and others, work so hard to locate their ancestors and return them home for reburial.

HISTORICAL WRONGS

For Hawaiians, the time frame for thievery of our ancestors started when westerners first arrived, so following 1778. Colonialism was griping the world whereby the empires were enforcing their influence and control upon Aboriginal societies. One critical manner by which these powerful countries sought to justify their violence upon others was to promote the principle of biological superiority and manifest destiny. To substantiate this racist principle, world wide efforts to collect human remains of conquered peoples was undertaken to prove that Western Europeans possessed intellectual superiority as demonstrated by larger brain vaults through the measurement of skulls. The principal guilty parties include the British, French, Germans, Russians, Americans, Japanese and Australians.  In response to these historical wrongs, there was a recognized need to repatriate.