Hawaii Court To Order Artifacts Removed From Cave

Last December, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an earlier district court ruling involving a dispute between competing native Hawaiian groups over valuable burial artifacts. A native Hawaiian group was ordered to return 83 valuable burial objects to the Bishop Museum so that 13 other claimants could help decide their final resting place. Following that decision, federal trial court Judge David Ezra ordered the parties to conduct a Hawaiian mediation process called hooponopono to decide how the items could be removed from Kawaihae, or Forbes Cave, and where they should then be kept. Today’s Honolulu Star Bulletin reports that since then the sides have been meeting under the guidance of mediators, but yesterday it was reported that still no resolution had been reached. So Judge Ezra will now issue a court order requiring the cave to be opened and the objects to be removed in the safest possible way, so all claimants can examine them and have input into their final disposition. (See other related postings, 1, 2, 3.)