Rail workers have reportedly uncovered 14 distinct sets of iwi kupuna, or ancestral human remains, in the path of Oahu’s future rail transit line so far. This week island burial leaders endorsed a plan for most of those remains to stay protected where they lie.
The Oahu Island Burial Council voted unanimously Wednesday to recommend preserving in place 12 of the 13 iwi kupuna found in rail-related archaeological survey digs between Chinatown and Ala Moana Center. The last of those 13 iwi kupuna, a fragment, will be moved from one trench in the middle of Halekauwila Street to a nearby trench along the sidewalk, rail officials told the burial council.
Meanwhile, a 14th set of remains was discovered Dec. 4 near McGrew Point in Aiea, rail officials said. It’s the first iwi kupuna reported discovered during project construction. Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation officials said they’ve reported the remains to the State Historic Preservation Division to follow the protocol for such findings.
All of the survey remains in town, confirmed by rail consultants to be at least 50 years old and of Hawaiian origin, will be covered by plywood boxes filled with gravel, as well as a concrete slab set above the plywood and a layer of dirt.
The concrete will feature a metal label reading KAPU ("forbidden") and an official state contact to try to ensure that the remains aren’t further disturbed sometime in the future.
"We are OK (with the plan) because they’ve been diligent in addressing the concerns of the recognized descendants," burial council leader Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu said Wednesday of HART.
Paulette Kaanohiokalani Kaleikini, a recognized descendant of iwi kupuna in Honolulu, told the council Wednesday that she supports the plan and has participated in talks on how to handle the remains. Kaleikini had successfully sued in state court in 2012 to halt the rail project until its full 20-mile archaeological survey was completed.
The island burial council’s recommendation goes to the Historic Preservation Division, which is charged with reviewing proposed developments to help protect culturally and historically important sites.
The Kakaako area approaching the rail system’s end at Ala Moana Center was always where officials anticipated finding the most iwi kupuna in their surveys. Workers found seven sets during rail’s initial archaeological survey and five more sets during more extensive trench work required by the division, rail officials said. An additional set was found during a survey related to changing rail’s route along Queen Street.
Three of the sets were near-complete skeletal remains found in a "flexed" position, officials said, meaning that’s likely where they were originally buried before being discovered by workers.
During the archaeological surveys in the Kakaako area, HART contracted cultural monitors — Hawaiian experts on iwi kupuna who knew what to look for and how to handle any discoveries.
Such cultural monitors are only employed on an on-call basis for construction in West and Central Oahu because the chances of finding iwi kupuna there are believed to be slim, HART Executive Director Dan Grabauskas said Wednesday. Monitors will be contracted full-time for four different sites around the airport where chances of finding remains are high.
They’ll also be present full-time again in the Chinatown and Kakaako areas when construction reaches there, Grabauskas said.
After the latest discovery near McGrew Point, Michael Kumukauoha Lee, a recognized cultural descendant and an advocate for stronger protections of historically and culturally significant sites along the rail line, said that he pressed HART for a stronger cultural monitoring presence.
"You’re spending billions … I cannot believe that they cannot afford people who are already contracted to do this," Lee said. He said that he recommended there be monitors for when crews would be digging holes only several feet deep, where remains would likely to be found in the fill material there.
Lee said cultural monitoring is likely unnecessary at greater depths.
"You can’t convince me that those costs would be too exorbitant," he said. "This is where I think HART is really missing the boat."
Nonetheless, Grabauskas contends cultural monitoring at sites where the agency considers it unlikely to find remains would be impractical for a project that’s already facing massive cost overruns and budget shortfalls.
"I don’t think it would merit it," he said Wednesday. "We’re doing this above and beyond, but we don’t want to waste money."
