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Human remains taken from Hawaii in the name of science have been returned to the islands after more than a century in a museum in England.
Twenty skulls originally from Nuuanu, Waialae and Honolulu and taken from Hawaii in the 19th century arrived here Sunday evening following a 10-year campaign to persuade the University of Cambridge to part with the items.
“This is a long time in coming,” Office of Hawaiian Affairs Community Engagement Director Mehana
Hind said Monday.
The homecoming represents the latest effort
in a growing initiative by OHA and Native Hawaiian cultural practitioners to
repatriate iwi kupuna,
or skeletal remains, from
international collections.
Last week, in a move to bring even more iwi kupuna home, a delegation of
Native Hawaiians met with six German institutions regarding claims for repatriation of iwi kupuna, moepu (funerary possessions) and mea kapu (sacred objects).
In 2017 the Museum of Ethnology Dresden in Germany handed over three iwi kupuna to OHA and cultural practitioners, the first time the eastern German state of Saxony repatriated indigenous human remains.
On Saturday a ceremony was held in England marking the latest iwi kupuna transfer, the first time the University of Cambridge had returned remains based on a request from
an indigenous group, officials said.
The university acquired the Hawaiian remains from three separate private collections between 1866 and 1903, and they joined one
of the world’s largest
research repositories of
human remains at the Duckworth Laboratory Collection in that institution’s Department of Archaeology.
In a statement, Stephen J. Toope, University of Cambridge vice chancellor, said, “The University of Cambridge is honored to be able to return the iwi kupuna to their ancestral home. The iwi kupuna came to be in Cambridge many decades ago and it is only appropriate that we now do what we can to help them complete their journey. I am sorry that their journey home has been so long interrupted but I hope they may now travel in peace.”
Edward Halealoha Ayau, former executive director of Hui Malama i na Kupuna o Hawai‘i Nei, helped to negotiate the return of the remains.
Ayau said the most significant thing to come out of the effort was the apology.
“They are one of the leading institutions in the world. For them to say that sends a signal to the rest of the museums,” he said.
Hind said Hawaiians are witnessing “an awakening of humanity” among museum directors following many years of persistent badgering.
“It took a lot of years of not accepting the answer no,” she said.
Native Hawaiians traditionally believe that the mana, or the spiritual essence and power, of a person resides in the bones, or iwi. For many Native Hawaiians it is important for the bones of a deceased person to complete their journey and return to the ground
to impart their mana.
“This is an historic
moment in the history of
repatriation from British institutions,” said Cressida Fforde, who led historic documentation research
efforts on behalf of OHA. “Cambridge University should be congratulated for recognizing the right of indigenous peoples to the repatriation of their human remains, as is enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”
In addition to Hind and Ayau, the Hawaiian delegation that traveled to Europe included Noelle M.K.Y.
Kahanu of the University of Hawaii at Manoa and cultural practitioners Mana Caceres and Keoki Pescaia.
The next step for the remains is for the Oahu Island Burial Council and the State Historic Preservation Division to identify lineal and cultural descendants, followed by consultations regarding reburial.
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