Post by L Roebuck on Sept 20, 2005 7:24:46 GMT -5
Suit involves Hawaiian funeral customs:-
HONOLULU | September 20, 2005 11:12:02 AM IST
Two groups of native Hawaiians have taken a dispute about a hoard of funeral items to a federal appeals court in San Francisco.
The 83 items were originally in Honolulu's Bishop Museum. But five years ago the museum loaned them to Hui Malama, a group formed in 1988 to preserve traditional Hawaiian funerary artifacts, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin reported.
Hui Malama buried the hoard in a cave. The objects rested there peacefully until La'akea Suganuma, an expert in the Hawaiian martial practice of lua, and Abigail Kawananakoa, a descendent of Hawaiian royalty, filed a federal lawsuit against the museum and Hui Malama.
A federal judge ordered the objects returned to the Bishop Museum, to remain in storage there until their ultimate fate is decided. Hui Malama has asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to overturn that order.
The newspaper says that a number of groups are now involved in the case, disputing the nature of ancient Hawaiian funerary customs, whether cave burials were done for the ancestors and whether commoners like those in Hui Malama should be able to handle ritual objects.
news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=118026&cat=World
HONOLULU | September 20, 2005 11:12:02 AM IST
Two groups of native Hawaiians have taken a dispute about a hoard of funeral items to a federal appeals court in San Francisco.
The 83 items were originally in Honolulu's Bishop Museum. But five years ago the museum loaned them to Hui Malama, a group formed in 1988 to preserve traditional Hawaiian funerary artifacts, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin reported.
Hui Malama buried the hoard in a cave. The objects rested there peacefully until La'akea Suganuma, an expert in the Hawaiian martial practice of lua, and Abigail Kawananakoa, a descendent of Hawaiian royalty, filed a federal lawsuit against the museum and Hui Malama.
A federal judge ordered the objects returned to the Bishop Museum, to remain in storage there until their ultimate fate is decided. Hui Malama has asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to overturn that order.
The newspaper says that a number of groups are now involved in the case, disputing the nature of ancient Hawaiian funerary customs, whether cave burials were done for the ancestors and whether commoners like those in Hui Malama should be able to handle ritual objects.
news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=118026&cat=World