[Chanting by Charles Kaupu 00:00:07] E lohe i ka leo o ko kākou mau kūpuna.

I kai lewa ‘ia e ka makani.

Lilo i ka pō, E ku‘i hekili, E ‘ōlapa ka uila i ke ao, E uē ka lani, E uwō ke kai, E lua‘i pele, E ‘ōpa‘ipa‘i ka honua, No nā kūpuna o Hawai‘i nei.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 00:15 Aloha no kākou.

My name is Keoni Kealoha Alvarez.

I'm the great, great grandson of Joseph Kahihikolo, and Kealoha Lapaku Kaui.

My home is located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Thousands of miles away from any country or continent of this world.

Over two thousand years ago, my ancestors discovered these islands and named it Hawaiʻi.

I'm not a chant writer, nor a chanter, but I thought to myself, what would I sound like, expressing my feelings in the Hawaiian language of what our ancestors are going through, and it sounded like this.

E lohe i ka leo o ko kākou mau kūpuna.

I kai lewa ‘ia e ka makani.

Lilo i ka pō, E ku‘i hekili, E ‘ōlapa ka uila i ke ao, E uē ka lani, E uwō ke kai, E lua‘i pele, E ‘ōpa‘ipa‘i ka honua, No nā kūpuna o Hawai‘i nei.

It's been ten long years since I returned to this place.

It is a secret that I held for so long.

Culturally, this place is kapu, sacred.

I'm just creating this trail.

Just so, I can, you know, get back to this place.

We're kind of heading more towards that direction.

I live in the Puna district, which is the rural part of our island.

Raised here, our lifestyle was simple: hunting, fishing and surfing.

My family wasn't a traditional Hawaiian family, speaking the Hawaiian language, dancing the hula, or practicing the Hawaiian beliefs, and this is because parts of our Hawaiian culture were not passed down to my family.

This is my mother, and she's my pohaku or rock.

She shared with me the little values passed down from her grandparents.

When I watch her, I kind of see the tradition of our past unfold before me.

Aileen Alvarez 03:50 And put it on each other.

We're going to make laulaus okay.

I have five sons, and Keoni is the youngest of the five.

He was a very good child.

He loves animals of all kinds.

He always found things to do.

Out of all my children.

He was the most creative.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 04:16 I feel closely connected to the sacred place, surrounded by nature and the history of my ancestors.

Our people were spiritual people, and had respect for everything they believed in.

From the tips of the mountains to the depths of the ocean, we are connected.

When I was eight years old, my brothers discovered a cave in the forest near our home.

They did not know what was within the cave.

So as kids, they went into it to play.

They realized that there was something in there.

They discovered human skeletal remains.

My mom called the police to report what they found.

Archaeologists positively identified the remains as ancient Hawaiians.

I grew up taking care of this burial cave and took it upon myself as my responsibility.

I kept it safe from being desecrated.

Ricky Alvarez 05:22 As kids, at first, we were scared of the burial site Keoni, took it a notch further and he realized that when we're older that it's not something to be scared about.

It's something to take care of and watch over it.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 05:55 Aloha.

Hawaiʻi Island County Council 2000 Aloha.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez Hi, my name is Keoni Alvarez.

Hawaiʻi Island County Council 2000 05:58 We have a resolution before us to 244-06.

Do you agree with the resolution or should it be amended in some way, do you think?

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 06:07 I'm in support for 224, and I think everybody can reach a common goal on that.

The resolution is supporting the efforts to protect native Hawaiian ancestral remains, funerary objects, and the desecration and destruction of burial sites.

I always thought that they were United States laws that protect Hawaiian rights as indigenous peoples of the land.

Years later, I found out our reporting of the burial site was lost due to poor record keeping by the government.

Today, when I hear bulldozers nearby, I remember the screeching sounds of the wheels turning.

It was like a ticking time clock letting me know that I must hurry up to protect the burial cave because I don't have very much time.

KGMB 9 Hawaiʻi News Now Reporter 06:58 With development booming on the Big Island, the Puna district is primed for progress.

But some native Hawaiians say it's running roughshod over ancestral remains.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 07:08 If we knew that it wasn't flagged, you know, it would have given us enough time to preserve this site.

KHON 2 News Reporter 07:14 The story of a young man trying to protect an ancient burial site next to his Big Island home.

He's guarding something more valuable than treasure, more precious than gold and construction everywhere.

Hawaiians fear every time a lot is cleared, another burial cave is destroyed.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 07:32 When they started to bulldoze forests, they started to hit sensitive areas to our Hawaiian people, meaning that it’s cultural sites and especially our burials.

I decided to do some research on my own, hoping to find a solution to protect the cave.

Online, there are many articles and cases of Hawaiian burials being desecrated in Hawaiʻi.

Seeing some of the outcomes of what could happen was really disturbing.

There is a law in the Hawaiʻi state statutes, which protects prehistoric and Hawaiian burials.

Under this law, burial councils are set up on each major Island.

I remember the first time I had a meeting with the burial council.

Yes, this is me.

To be seated in front of this burial council.

I felt intimidated because they have the power to recognize descendants to keep burials in place, or to remove burials from their locations.

At my first burial council meeting, I was denied cultural descendancy.

So, I took the counsel's advice to do more research about my genealogy.

My mother took out the time to explain our family genealogy with me.

Of all our family, she knew the most.

Aileen Alvarez 08:50 It was a total I think of twenty six children altogether, but we're considered the second half of the Kahihikolo family.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 08:58 Our genealogy goes back seven generations to the Hawaiian Kingdom time period.

The old photos of my great, great grandparents took me back in time as my mother told their stories.

I could see it in her eyes how she missed her grandparents.

I wanted to learn more about Hawaiian burial sites.

So, I went to the library to do some research.

Linda K. Sueyoshi 09:29 Let me show you a couple of books in this section here.

David Malo and Samuel Kamakau were two well-known Hawaiian scholars.

This is David Malo’s book, Hawaiian Antiquities.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez Wow, okay.

Linda K. Sueyoshi It's pretty good.

He writes about a lot of different Hawaiian traditions, including burial.

Piʻilani Kaʻawaloa 09:51 Burials were sacred.

Burials were important.

When a person dies their corpse remain, but their spirit takes another journey.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 10:05 Hawaiian burial traditions are never the same.

The ceremony depends on the family practices, status, local surroundings, and even the circumstances of how a person died.

The women would help in the burial process.

They would gather natural herbs, and prepare needed supplies that the men would need to bury the body.

Women would make kapa, a material made of mamaki, also known as the mulberry tree.

The bark of the tree was skillfully pounded into a strong fiber cloth, and oftentimes, used to wrap the deceased body or bones before burial.

Only a few chosen kane, or men, prepare the body for the nighttime burial.

During the burial preparation, men and women worked separately in different houses.

Hank Fergerstrom 11:01 Because Hawaiians were very thorough.

They knew every bone in your body and every muscle and I how it linked.

They didn't know that by just putting it on site, they went through it.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 11:12 Hawaiians use several different burial methods.

If the ground was dirt, a pit was dug.

But if the ground was solid rock, stones were stacked over the body.

Some burials were in lava tubes and in caves, or in sand dunes near the ocean.

In the library, it is very difficult to find information about Hawaiian burials and practices.

It was no surprise to me that the subject was kapu.

Not to be published or is subject to be studied or written about.

I found a book which was promising to me.

It was written in the 1800s called the Kuʻe Petition, which documented Hawaiians who were against the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

This book held over twenty-two thousand signatures, which included the locations they lived in at the time.

And soon enough, I found my great, great grandparents’ signatures.

It was the Kaui lineage.

It identified their location of residence.

To my amazement, they lived in my district, then I wonder that maybe the burials in the cave could be my direct relatives.

I visited a small old Hawaiian cemetery on the island of O‘ahu called the Queen Liliʻuokalani Protestant Church.

When my mum was a little girl, her grandmother told her, this is where her Kaui family line is buried.

Aileen Alvarez 12:49 This whole graveyard looks so different, it wasn't like this at all.

Every time my grandma would go to funerals of our family, I was always the one that was taken along.

So, I wasn't in fear of burials or death or anything.

I took Keoni to where his great, great, great, great grandparents were all buried.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 13:22 My mom found her relatives.

It's her grandmother's sister, Mary, and her brother David Kahihikolo.

These headstones did not just refer to them by name, but it has their photo.

In an album, I found a young picture of my great grandmother, and this is her sister Mary's photo on the headstone.

Aileen Alvarez 13:47 It was very interesting for him to learn where he's from, who our family heritage is, and to just be respectful, not only of our ohana's grave, but anybody else's grave.

You don't step on somebody's grave.

You go around it, you know, as respect for the individual.

I really believe that when they lawnmower and they grew grass, they grew it right over our families.

Hey Gilliam, isn't it the Gilliam family, our family?

Lapaku Kaui here.

This is our lineage because that's our great great grandmother's, our great grandmother's name is Lapaku Kaui, and then the next generation over is another Lapaku Kaui and then our great grandfather's is also Lapaku Kaui.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 14:54 It's awesome to see that we still have our tombstones still here.

Lapaku Kaui and he was born on December 20, 1863, and he died on May 29, 1931.

So it's very important that we have these kinds of sites still around.

For over two-thousand years, there was a common way Hawaiians have practiced to bury our people.

The method they use was to arrange them in the fetal position for its burial.

Hawaiians prepared the body by tying a rope to the knee joints, and pulling it around the neck until the knees touch the chests.

The rounded body was tightly wrapped in kapa cloth, and a round hole was dug to kanu the body, or plant it.

Like a tree, the body was planted in the earth to be reborn to the spirit world of Kane.

People today are just developing everywhere.

The subdivision I'm at, people are starting to bulldoze and getting closer and closer to our burial cave, and this worries me.

It worries me a lot to know that people can go ahead and sell cultural sites or even our burials, and possibly even develop on it.

I visited the first public graveyard in Hawaiʻi.

It was created in 1844, called the Oʻahu Cemetery.

This site is eighteen acres, which houses over thirty five-thousand individual graves from around the world.

Nanette Napoleon - Oʻahu Cemetery Historian 16:39 Traditional Hawaiians did not have markers per se, and so, it's been a trouble, a problem, finding traditional Hawaiian burial sites for us because there's no markers.

But our moʻoleoʻs tell us some stories about where to go and where somebody was buried.

A lot of people tell me when they come to Oʻahu cemetery that they noticed that there are so many famous people here, and there are.

There are hundreds of famous people here.

Because a lot of people just associate them with being repositories for the dead.

I call them outdoor museums and outdoor historic sites, because they tell our history.

That's, to me, one of the most important, if not, the most important function of a graveyard.

So this is the grave of Samuel Mānaiakalani Kamakau.

He is among the top five Hawaiian historians in the history of Hawaiʻi.

He was important in his lifetime, he is important to all of us Hawaiians today because he has taught us in written form, so it has been able to be passed on to future generations.

So, this guy is huge in Hawaiian culture.

Why do we have cemeteries?

Why do we have markers as human beings no matter where you are in the world?

What function does it serve us to have these places?

And from country-to-country, culture-to-culture, a difference but many commonalities is that we need basic to our core of who we are as human beings, we need to memorialize our ancestors.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 18:15 And who is this?

Nanette Napoleon - Oʻahu Cemetery Historian 18:16 This is Mariah Kahanamoku.

Was one of eight siblings in the Kahanamoku clan, who’s most famous Kahanamoku, of course, was our Duke Kahanamoku who was a famous surfer, canoe paddler.

This is the only full-bodied sculpted piece of a real person in any graveyard in Hawaiʻi.

So here's some more contemporary Hawaiian patriot.

His name was Dr. Kekuni Blaisdell.

So, he was an important mentor for me and he always encouraged me to do the work that I'm doing.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 18:56 Amazing… Amazing good mentor.

Here, you can leave a hoʻokupu for our people.

On the windward side of the island, surrounded by beautiful jagged mountains and valleys, this place is called Hawaiian Memorial Cemetery.

My mom's grandmother, who adopted her and raised her as her own, lay in rest here.

It was nice to be with my family, my mom, her sister, and their brother.

We adorned her headstone with fresh flowers and reminisced about my great grandmother's love for our family.

It was a beautiful thing.

It was not a custom for Hawaiians to mark their burial site locations.

Though uncommon, sometimes an ahu, or an altar of stone or wood, was made near the burial site.

Only the family would use this platform to place offerings on it.

This is how we as Hawaiians do our offering, and it's not for anybody to open my offering and to see what's in it.

You know, this is something personal to me, and this is my gift to my kupuna.

To my ancestors who's buried in this cave, nobody else.

In the forests, we have many different types of plants.

As indigenous people of the forest, it's a refuge knowing that every living thing within it can be utilized.

This plant right here is very special to our Hawaiian people, it is called the ki plant.

Every part of this plant was used in the Hawaiian culture.

There's another way that Hawaiians use a ki plant, and what they’ll do with the root is they'll chop it up, and they'll smash it.

And out of the root, fluid would come out, and they would actually use that as an embalming fluid when the person died.

So whenever you see this plant, you're gonna see most likely it's planted around families’ homes, or you're gonna see it in culture sites, and especially burial sites, because part of its properties was to ward off evil, and that's the reason why a lot of people use this plant around their homes or in special areas that they want to protect.

This forest that surrounds the cave is sacred.

When I come here, it reminds me of a Hawaiian elder who shared with me an untold story of a burial method his family used in the forests.

Robert Keliʻihoʻomalu 19:32 What my mama said, there is a couple who loves so dearly.

There was a young girl, she took ill and she died and they loved her so much.

What they did is prepared all these herbs and put it on different areas where they could drain all the liquid out and they kept her.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 22:26 When a person lived in the mountains passed away, their organs was also removed, and their body was filled with pulu, or the hairy part of the hapu ferns.

This was another way Hawaiians buried their people.

Bo Palacat 22:44 Some bodies were treated in a fashion called iʻaloa, the longfish, where they would do an incision and remove as much of the body organs as can and they would pack the cavity with paʻakai Hawaiian salt.

Mary M. Kalili 23:05 Important part of the body, they wrap it up with salt and bandage it up.

And the mouth, they put salt in the mouth, and closed the mouth.

Everything is prepared.

That's when they find the bodies, their bodies don't decay fast.

It takes time, because the salt is what preserves the body.

I told my aunty ah boy?

So that was my lesson.

To me, it was a lesson.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 23:52 My worst fears came true.

A for sale sign was posted in front of the burial cave property.

It was sold to a developer whose plans were to develop two homes on the burial cave property.

You know, in Hawaiʻi, there's a lot of places that still undeveloped, there's a lot of forests.

And a lot of times, people are purchasing these properties because a lot of realtors today they're not disclosing the information to the people was purchasing the properties, and then by the time we, as descendants, confront the people and let them know it's already too late.

You know the place is destroyed, and this place has a lot of old forests and trees, and you wouldn't know what's under here until you understand the history.

I drove to a place to meet a Hawaiian elder named Sam Kaleiliki who is on the east side of our Island.

He wanted to show me a culturally sensitive place, which he knows it is for sale.

Sam Kaleiliki 25:07 All along this route here, you'll find signs like that Kapu, no trespassing Hawaiian burial site protected by law.

But whenever we come up to a site that's preserved, or it says, Kapu, that's exactly what we do.

We understand what Kapu means, it's sacred, and yet you have realtors who put their signs up.

This is the kind of things that the western culture do.

The westerners come here and they know this is sacred land.

The problem for the people that's gonna buy this land is they got to deal with the descendants.

Piʻilani Kaʻawaloa 25:47 Every person, whether you were great aliʻi, or a kawa, a servant, a slave, you had sacred or rituals in which your bones or your body was prepared.

Bo Palacat 26:05 As Hawaiians we believe that our Mana, our spiritual power, that each and every one of us have, is housed or contained within the iwi, within the bones.

And so, iwi is very, very sacred.

Pualani Kanakaʻole-Kanahele 26:22 Iwi is the bone structure of anything, humans, it's a skeletal remain.

The rest of your body is flesh, it has feelings, it is all of that.

Your iwi is your foundation, it's the basis on which you exist.

Piʻilani Kaʻawaloa 26:41 In ancient times, they would place the body in an imu, or in an underground oven, so that the flesh would be easy to take off.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 26:54 The pela of the body was burned in a pit of fire and turned into lehu or ashes.

In a special place, the Kahuna would then pour the ashes into the ocean.

The night was like a cloak, it was a protection for the burials and the people who are bearing them.

Piʻilani Kaʻawaloa 27:14 And the bones possess the greatest of the mana.

With great care, they would take this and wrap it in a puʻolo or a kapa or an ʻie, a basket.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 27:27 For very important chiefs the kaʻai was woven from the ʻieʻie roots, they were decorated to look or represent the human being, including ears and mouths.

Pualani Kanakaʻole-Kanahele 27:42 Other Hawaiians believe that they should be put into sand dunes.

Advantage of putting them into sand dunes is that eventually they will rot down to the bones and become part of that sand.

So the ocean and the things of land become one and the same within the sand dune.

Unlike the ground where you can dig it up and you still have a sense of something being done there, Sand Dunes you couldn't do that.

They can cover up the sand very well, people would never know that you were buried there last night.

KHON 2 News Reporter 28:16 KHON 2 news has learned that public sand was taken in large quantities from Dillingham airfield and Mokuleia and the digging unearth human remains in an old family burial ground.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 28:29 Many sand dunes have been documented as historical burial grounds.

Today, it's been sold off and illegally mined for home development golf courses, and to make high rise concrete buildings in Hawaiʻi.

I met Clare Apana on Maui.

She's a protector of sand dune burials where her ancestors lay.

These burials are zoned and protected as a Hawaiian burial preserve.

Clare Apana 29:00 This is a place that has always been dear to my heart because I was born here in the sand dunes of Wailuku Waikapu.

The sand dunes, as other sand dunes all throughout the islands of Hawaiʻi, are traditional places to bury our people.

This is a place that they came to lay to rest.

This particular puʻu is my ohana.

I've been through acres and acres of sand dunes, and this is where my ohana is.

You may not drive on this road and through this gate, which is probably a good idea because I believe that our kupuna are all over this entire area, not just inside this fence.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 29:45 I know it's very sacred, you know and it needs to be preserved, and for me, I like to see what a preserve looks like.

And this is you know a little step towards preservation of having a sign, having a fence, and I think it's awesome that the government or people are starting to realize that we need these preserves to protect our iwi kupuna and they are important.

On the Island of Kauaʻi, I received news of a desecration of an old Hawaiian burial ground called Naue that was secretly being dug up.

Shovels and excavators were used to dig trenches to set the cement foundation for a home to be built on.

In the process, over thirty Hawaiian burials were discovered throughout the property.

Descendants and islanders soon became aware of what was happening.

Before the digging started at Naue, I interviewed Auntie Louise, a descendant of the burials.

Louise Sausen 30:46 This is the front entrance to what I call Na Iwi o Naue Cemetery, and this is Joe Brescia's property.

Normally, we have a beach access here that we allow the people to walk through during the weekdays.

If no one's here at the camp, I keep it locked, just to help me maintain that no construction will start on this property.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 31:11 On the property, archaeologists identified thirty Hawaiian burials.

Each burial location was marked with orange flags or wooden pegs.

Kaʻiulani Mahuka 31:22 As you can see behind me there are between thirty and forty eight burials here, they're all numbered along with the depth of the burial.

The archaeologists have said between the 10th and 13th century, making this cemetery at least seven hundred years old.

Each of the sticks that you see have a number on them, and then they also have a body identification tag, which lists the body number and the depths it’s at.

So this is body number twenty eight, at a depth of fifty inches, so this is one of the older burials.

Louise Sausen 31:53 So kupuna is buried under here in the sand area, and it's right, you know, fronting the ocean.

My understanding why Hawaiians bury their deceased here is because it keeps the bones and the flesh.

It has time to dry and keeps them intact, and like this one is eighteen inches.

So eighteen inches deep, you dig down eighteen inches and you'll be on the poʻo of our kupuna.

You know, kupuna is right here in this whole area.

Andrew Cabebe 32:47 Aloha kapuna, kapuna… Aloha, mahalo kupuna.

This is it; you know?

All women and children here, buried, and they want to dig it up, you know.

Louise Sausen 33:03 You tell me why can't you walk away from this?

And I'm going to tell you, every time Joe Brescia comes into this neighborhood, he brings security guards.

Nobody else brought security guards over here.

Why he makes us feel like this?

You tell me.

This is not the first time I've been up against this man.

He moved my kupuna to put a septic tank.

He's trying to control our culture, and in the way of controlling our culture, he is ruining our graveyards.

Cemetery just like in your culture.

Burial sites is the same thing.

Walk away from it.

[Chanting 00:33:51].

So every evening at sunset, we light a fire at the campfire and we also like all these torches, and each of these are actual burials.

Each torch represents a burial site where there's human remains.

To count there's forty two, and there may be more, we're not sure.

But as you can see, this is a cemetery, this is a burial site.

This is where they were placed, and this is where their remains are.

They're actual people.

Keiki and wahine, that’s plenty.

Mahina Gronquist 35:37 You talk about Keoni and mālama i ka aina these burials, it's not about bringing it to anybody's attention.

It is already at our attention as Hawaiian people.

What he has learned from his, instilled in him, and that is respect for their place.

Wendell Kaʻehuʻaeʻa 35:56 Those people that own the property, did they ever go down there?

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 35:59 No, No, No.

For us as Native Hawaiians, I believe it should be our responsibility to make sure that this burial site is being protected, preserved as is.

Wendell Kaʻehuʻaeʻa 36:10 So, you're gonna keep it as natural as possible?

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 36:12 Yeah, natural as possible.

It’s just a matter of just trying to protect it, the best way we can.

When I see these flags it just brings back a lot of emotion, a lot of feeling of how I felt at that time of them surveying the property, and also even going into the burial cave.

So, you know, for me, this is a sacred place to me.

You know, I had like a lot of mixed emotions about letting people even in there, especially foreigners, who care nothing about our culture, who know nothing about our culture, who's not even connected to it.

That was the hard part for me.

It was fifteen years ago when this happened.

I remember a conference call I had with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs Burial Council about the invasive cave survey that took place.

Hawaiian Affairs Burial Council 37:09 So far this is a lava tube that you found.

How far does it extend onto Rapozo’s land?

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 37:14 200 to 300 feet in, I'd say it's about maybe twenty feet high, maybe about twenty five to thirty feet wide, and what I'm saying is that this kind of caves with our iwi I mean, it's for future generations, because I mean, they're taking everything.

They're not only taking the land and taking our iwi too.

Hawaiian Affairs Burial Council 37:32 We're going to support the previous identified status and then NHCC recommending that staff and admin continue to assist you, which could be on multiple different levels.

Could be financial, could be letter writing support of testimony, all kinds of different things.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 37:51 Okay, and that's regarding for capping the cave, or whether it be just capping the cave or to even purchase it also could be in that same category right?

Hawaiian Affairs Burial Council 38:01 Yeah, all those issues and more.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 38:04 Okay…okay okay that sounds great.

Hawaiian Affairs Burial Council Aloha.

Mahalo.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez After numerous meetings with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, they have never provided me financial help to defend my rights nor have they assisted to purchase the historic property off the land market.

It always ended up in the same result, nothing being accomplished.

Phone Call Recording 38:35 Hey Keoni Alvarez, this is Wendy Machado from Historic Preservation.

You called earlier.

I checked into our files about the cave, it has been really well documented with the county, DLNR and above to the chair and the burial council members and like I said they dropped the bulldozer… call.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 38:50 Soon after that, the developer brought a bulldozer to move forward on breaking ground on the burial site.

I was so upset by the landowner’s actions.

As I drove to the burial sites, the sounds of the bulldozer pushing ground grew louder and louder.

When I arrived there, I noticed my mother had already confronted the bulldozer operator and the developer and told them to stop immediately.

I then rushed into the forests.

The only thing that ran through my mind was to make sure that our ancestors was protected and wasn't desecrated by this bulldozer.

When I looked around, he did not want to listen to me.

I even told the land owner, I always get choked up, because but I just told him that, if he lands that bulldozer on this property and I'm going to call the cops and he's gonna get arrested for desecrating our burial So, it is so hard, you know that people just don't understand, what it means, what our kupuna mean to us, you know?

And for me, I just know that once you bulldoze the site, two swipes on this little piece of property, it's gone and it's gone forever.

I was shocked to see that one swipe of this bulldozer, of the damage that it caused to the forest.

Aileen Alvarez 40:31 He is the guardian over the iwi kupunas.

You Hawaiian?

Bulldozer Operator 40:32 No, we all Hawaiian.

Aileen Alvarez 40:36 But you know what, what you going destroy kupuna iwi?

Bulldozer Operator 40:37 We're not gonna destroy nothing.

Aileen Alvarez 40:41 That is why I am asking you, are you Hawaiian?

Contractor 40:42 No.

Aileen Alvarez 40:43 Okay, then you don't understand.

Contractor I don’t understand Aileen Alvarez You don't understand the culture.

Contractor I don’t, I don’t.

Aileen Alvarez That’s the problem.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 40:49 What do you guys are doing?

You guys are destroying this place.

Contractor 40:53 I bought the land, I bought the land.. I’m not trying to make humbug.

I got permits to build.

I don't know about this all… you know what I mean.

Aileen Alvarez 41:01 You know what your, there is boundaries that you have to stay away from.

Contractor Go talk to the state, not me.

Bulldozer Operator Yeah, yes.

Aileen Alvarez No Bulldozer Operator Your realtor was supposed to tell them… tell you.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 41:14 So, do you know the history about this area?

This area has burials in it, and you just going ahead with your bulldozer.

Yeah, and you just pushing this place, you know, desecrating our burials is a crime, right?

Aileen Alvarez 41:26 This is a cultural thing, and if you don't understand that, you need to learn the culture of Hawaiʻi, and how our people feel about their kupuna iwi.

Unknown Speaker 41:38 I have no problems with that.

Aileen Alvarez 41:40 I try to tell you, I don't know what in the world about your… about your realtor, but they're supposed to know there is boundaries that you cannot over go.

You cannot overstep certain boundaries.

That whole place is boundary.

Unknown Speaker 41:58 We're not going to touch the burial site.

I guarantee.

I the one on the dozer.

I don’t what hard luck, I know what it is.

I'm not touching um I not gonna go close.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 42:06 As I looked at my mom, I knew something didn't settle right with her.

So I decided to call the county police department to let them know what was going on, on this historic property.

I showed my documentation of the burial ground by the government.

The land developer then halted his project.

Caves were sacred and had the right conditions.

Rainwater seeping through the lava make caves a pure and peaceful resting place.

Pualani Kanahele 42:50 Burial caves are usually, the opening of the burial caves was usually very small and hard to get in.

So once you get that burial in, the loved ones who has passed on will be saved in that particular place.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 43:05 Also, caves were perfect hiding place to bury bones.

For Hawaiians, it was not in their nature to be entering, venturing the depths of a cave, especially if they knew it was a burial cave.

Hawaiians believed it to be a pathway to milu, the underworld of spirits.

The consequences of looking into burial caves or desecrating a burial was horrific.

It was known that Hawaiians would restrain criminals and clubbed them to death.

If the war implement was not around, then they will find the biggest rock and bash your face in for what you saw.

Hawaiians often took it a step further into the afterlife, placing the mutilated body on an altar, letting it decay and rot as an offering to appease the gods.

Hank Fergerstrom 44:04 Hawaiian laws was so clear and so easy to understand.

You knew if you were or were not a Kapu breaker, and you also know there's a penalty for Kapu breaking was death.

Piʻilani Kaʻawaloa 44:16 Great lengths were taken to conceal the burial site so that nobody would know.

So that you wouldn't even be tempted to reveal the location of the burial.

You yourself committed suicide.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 44:38 You know, looking at this binder, it just kind of shows me how persistent I was in protecting our burial cave.

Although I was recognized as a descendant by the Hawaiʻi Island Burial Council, the State Historic Preservation Department intervened.

The developer then halted his project.

He made me an offer of three months to come up with fifty-thousand dollars to save the burial cave.

I printed flyers and posted them around town, asking the community and businesses for donations to raise the money.

Aloha, hi, how are you doing?

My name is Keoni.

I'm trying to save a Hawaiian burial cave from being destroyed by development, and we have family ties to this burial cave.

I needed to move quickly to stop the developer from moving forward with breaking ground on the burial cave property.

So I researched online and I found a person whose name is Palikapu Dedman, and he was involved in protecting a mass burial ground in 1989 against the Ritz Carlton Kapalua hotel.

Davianna Pomaikaʻi McGregor 45:51 It's been said that there are a lot of times that bones have been taken out in the past, and up to a point there have been bones taken up here.

And the thing is that we have watched it, and at this time, we can no longer stand it.

As Hawaiians, we feel that our bones cannot be taken out anymore, and we're not going to allow this to happen anymore.

And it took this case, it took the finding of this many bones here at the disinterment of 870 bones for us to come to that realization that we have to take a stand and stop this from happening here on Maui, on Hawaiʻi, on Oʻahu, on Kauaʻi, wherever it happens.

We have to stop the state from giving permits to developers to take our bones out.

We don't want them out, and we want these bones here returned.

Palikapu Dedman 46:34 To speak for thousands of years of Hawaiians before and thousands to come.

Regardless of what other nationalities may think.

We as Hawaiians think this is sacrilegious.

It's against our traditional beliefs that it has to stop.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 46:49 Pali we're here at Honokahua and how do you remember this place?

You remember?

Palikapu Dedman 46:54 None of this was here when we were here protesting.

It was just brand new ground being opened up, the burials inside.

But the dunes were there and it was like facing the beach.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 47:08 Just going walk little bit.

Palikapu Dedman 47:11 Yeah.

Well, that wasn't here.

There was a lot of things not here.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez Okay.

Ritz Carlton Employee 47:18 This is an area that is not open for walking on unless you have permission from certain people.

Do you have permission already from those people?

Palikapu Dedman 47:28 My ancestors?

Ritz Carlton Employee 47:30 I'm sorry, sir.

It's our job to ask the people don't walk on this area unless they've been given permission from the person who is the caretaker of this area.

Palikapu Dedman 47:41 It's a family's job to come look at our family.

Ritz Carlton Employee 47:43 I understand that, but I don't know who you are.

Palikapu Dedman 47:47 Well, I'm a Hawaiian look… Ritz Carlton Employee 47:49 Just doing my job.

Palikapu Dedman 47:50 This is my job.

I'm over here that's over there.

That's your job.

God, ignorant people, man.

I mean, we're how far we've come from that time to know.

You know, that she know that we were here stopping him from digging us up?

She doesn't know that.

She doesn't really know the real meaning of this.

Why doesn't she know?

Your cultural specialist who's in charge of culture is not orientation to this lady about who we are and how we should be treated.

That's not a specialist.

It's just a job opportunity man.

Because he's got a job, he's got brown skin.

You get one brown skin name, he's an expert?

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 48:36 I listened to Pali at Honokahua as he shared with me the burials he saw at the desecrated burial site.

Palikapu Dedman 48:44 But it was very desecrating as bad feelings because you would see little pieces of tarps and if you lift up the tarp, there was a skull, or there were some bones and they were all over the place.

So what the archaeologists did was hire everybody he could: amateur archaeologist, part time job, anybody that was in the field, or get done his job or his contract, before we came.

There was so much iwi that he couldn't do it.

I don't care how many people he hired, I mean they stopped at twelve hundred, how much was more left in them?

So it was a major burial site.

Ipo Nihipali 49:25 I feel our ancestors crying out.

I cannot see the children being dug up like this.

I cannot see people or ancestors being dug up like this, pau.

Can you see your grandparents and your families being dug up?

We don't go to your grave sites and dig up your families, and take your jewelry, or take all your possessions, or your all your private possessions out and put them in your museums to show the tourists.

Piʻilani Kaʻawaloa 49:57 They took great lengths to make sure that the deceased didn't go barren, and barren met without anything.

If a warrior died at battle, then upon his death, his war gear would go with him.

His finest malo would be buried with him or he would be buried in his finest malo, his cape, his weapons, his gods.

And so these items were of great mana, to the person, not to anybody else.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 50:37 The news of the desecration spread throughout the Hawaiian Islands.

Soon after an overnight vigil was held at the state capital on the island of Oʻahu.

Mililani Trask 50:50 I arrived early in the day.

When I got there, there were less than one hundred people.

But each hour on the hour, more and more Hawaiians came.

When work ended, hundreds of Hawaiians came.

The drumbeat every hour, we prayed every hour, and we prayed that the Akua, who would awaken in the hearts and minds of the legislature and understanding that the desecration had to stop.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 51:16 This event reached the hearts of many Hawaiians, old and young to take a stand.

At that time, the Hawaiʻi State Government had no formal process, or Hawaiian burial laws when dealing with desecration.

Hawaiian Governor John Waiheʻe, had some decisions to make.

John Waiheʻe 51:36 But the problem was that they kept finding bodies.

And you know, in a few days, it's like, ten, the next day is like twenty.

And then, you know, we started hitting up, and at some point, this whole thing became ridiculous.

I mean, what do you do?

You can’t have that, and in the course of all of this, you know, discovering that this is a very important place.

Palikapu Dedman 51:58 The governor walked across the street at 11:30, and took us upstairs, six of us upstairs and started crying about how the situation is.

But you know, I understand his emotion, we went through that emotion too you know.

So he was late in his crying, you know, we did ours, and it was emotional.

So I'm glad that he was a Hawaiian governor at that time, I don't know how any other governor would have reacted.

So I can at least say that he did the right thing, and I get respect for him for that, from one Hawaiian to another Hawaiian, that he stopped it.

He said, you know, as of right now, it's over.

John Waiheʻe 51:58 But more importantly, it underscored the need to deal with this issue in a kind of straightforward way.

And so, we passed this legislation to create the burial councils, which were established to, you know, work with all the new development.

Palikapu Dedman 53:09 I quit the burial council the first year they had one, they put me on it.

And I quit because the guys who made the rules were just as bad without even have rules.

Because they appoint people on these commission that were very strong Christian Hawaiians, and Christians dig up a lot of things and move them.

So you weren't gonna get the respect from the burial council with these kinds of people that's having the say so.

And two of them on the burial council are non-Hawaiians.

I mean, what?

Does any race call some foreign race to talk about their races, burials?

But you could in Hawaiʻi.

And you know, the burials we're talking about is not western contact or the church is responsible?

No, these were traditional before western man came around.

So there's a different treatment and the different respect for that.

It was up to us to deepen ourselves, to dig out the Hawaiianness of what that was to stop the development and protect them.

It had to take the whole moral inside to come out.

Island Archaeology Channel 54:29 Doesn't archaeology contribute to the understanding of the Hawaiian culture, and wouldn't it be of benefit to open it up, study it and continue our knowledge of these people?

Haunani Kay Trask 54:39 I think something has to be said right off the bat, the issue here is a moral ethical issue.

And the fact is that these three men are foreigners in our land.

They are guilty of desecration.

They are guilty.

They are guilty of disturbing the bones.

Nathan Napoka, the State Historic Sites Division saw a photograph which were not made available to the public in Hilo showing these men fraudulent, unqualified people holding skulls.

Holding skulls of Hawaiians.

Now, the problem with this is if this had been done to a Christian graveyard, if this had been done to a Shinto graveyard, to a Buddhist graveyard, people would be outraged.

And these people, we hope, will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for criminal violations.

Never mind moral violations, ethical violations.

But to me, that is the main issue.

Archaeology is secondary in this case.

We don't even have professionally trained people.

Archaeologists.

Trained ethnographers to go in there and say what this cave means.

These three fraudulent people are telling us in Hawaiʻi, this is what the cave means, and I say, who are you?

Who the hell are you?

You're nobody.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 55:50 I went to an outlook on one of the major Hawaiian Islands.

They showed me the outcome of where the United States government is heading with our beautiful island.

With all the development here, I can't imagine how many burials and historical sites were destroyed in the process to allow this to happen.

So we're in the middle of Waikīkī.

And Waikīkī, there's like a lot of development.

You got hotels, you got shopping centers, you got stores, you got homes in this area, and they developed on all this area.

This mound is actually from all the burials that they found in Waikīkī, from all the development, from all the hotels and all the shopping centers.

They decided to grab all these bones, and then put them in one area.

This is a United States practice, this is not a Hawaiian practice.

It's an American practice that they do this, and the sick thing about it is a lot of our Hawaiian people are falling into that it's okay.

It's not okay.

And just because they make it beautiful on the outside, that's a sick thing about it.

That's what makes it worse, actually.

Is they’re making it look like it's okay, and it's not.

Putting up the signs, the ki leaves, the Hawaiian flags, but what they did was wrong.

Those people in there had to have a life.

There was protocol when they put those bones in the ground by the families, and that's what this whole state is erasing.

That there was a belief system, there was respect out of this place.

It’s so sad, you know.

And then you put a flame on the top, that's not one Hawaiian practice.

You know, this thing is supposed to be hidden away from the community.

In old time, when a person died, it was an emotional thing.

Sometimes women would beat their chests and scratch their faces.

Men would gouge out their eyes, take out their niho, their teeth, and disfigure their body.

This was an expression to show their deep pain and feelings of their loss to onlookers.

If someone was greatly missed, by the deceased loved one, a bone would be taken and sewn into a pillow.

So, a loved one could be near them.

Oftentimes, instead of bones, the palm of the hand would be cut off, dried in the sun, and taken to be saved.

And if not the hand, the fingernails, teeth, or even hair of a person.

Over the many years, I've been to numerous burial council and board meetings to protect our burial cave.

Office of Hawaiian Affairs I would like to call Keoni Kealoha Alvarez.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez Aloha no kākou, my name is Keoni Kealoha Alvarez.

I am from the island of Hawaiʻi.

You know, when I was eight years old, my ohana has discovered a native Hawaiian burial cave, in the forest near our home.

So I set myself on a journey throughout Hawaiʻi Island as well as our neighbor islands to learn what was the traditional burial practices of our Native Hawaiian people.

Today, the United States government has continually turned its back towards Hawaiians, and their mission is to devalue, destroy our Hawaiian culture, our culture sites, and this includes our burial grounds.

Over the years, I've seen so many families struggle to find a common ground with land owners and developers.

At these burial council meetings, too often I hear how developers dig up my ancestors and push forward to continue with their projects.

Nico Fuentes 59:38 Apparently, the permit was approved without archaeological monitoring.

Upon further investigation, what I noticed was that the person was displaced completely into large clumps as if they were dug up in two subsequent scoops.

So, now you have the stockpile of material that is holding, but you also have a spread to the right.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 1:00:04 Sometimes landowners and developers choose not to cooperate with the process, and descendants are finding themselves locked out of their ancestral burial grounds or in lawsuits with developers.

Jennifer Noelani Ahia 1:00:17 This project is gross SHPD negligence.

This letter says, our records indicate that no archaeological inventory survey has been conducted, and that no archaeological historic properties have been identified within the subject parcel or nearby.

Okay, so then we did a little more digging.

It turns out there is an AIS, three of which are located on the subject property.

2704 historic cemetery.

2705 auwai.

2706, subsurface cultural deposit.

This is more evidence of either the gross corruption or the gross negligence of SHPD.

This is unacceptable, these burials did not have to be disturbed.

Kaniloa Kamauna 1:01:06 But I'm mahaʻoi, you know, the guys who are mahaʻoi they don't want to bring out, I think all these people came out here just to stay behind the computers and talk.

They come out to stand in front of the people who don’t like see them stand.

Kuʻe for us.

This is our people to sit down and listen to people talk about their everyday business so they can cash their checks is hewa.

Anchor 1:01:36 Go ahead and what's your question, please?

Caller My question or concern is you know, you blame it on the white man about on how we came over and take your land.

This is America, you know, I mean… Haunani Kay Trask 1:01:46 I need to say something to this caller.

This is not America.

This is Polynesia.

Our country was stolen.

That's one of your problems: you're ignorant, woefully ignorant.

But you, caller, need to learn about Hawaiian history and about where you are.

You think you are in America, you are not in America.

You are in a colony that is in Polynesia; that was forcibly taken.

Just as, I might add, all of Eastern Europe was forcibly taken by the Soviet Union, which Americans think is a very, very bad place.

The bad bad Soviet Union.

Well, the bad bad United States of America took Puerto Rico, took Alaska, stole Indian land.

It took Hawaiʻi, it took Guam, it took Micronesia, Palau.

And you had better learn that history because you are the recipient of an imperialist tradition.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 1:02:41 This is ʻIolani Palace, which means Hawk of Heaven.

It was a royal residence of the Hawaiian dynasty.

And on this palace grounds, some of the high ruling chiefs are also buried on this sacred land.

In 1890, Hawaiʻi’s King Kalākaua left Honolulu for San Francisco, California.

During his visit, he died there.

Upon his return to the islands, Hawaiians number thousands to attend the funeral and to show their aloha to the royal family of their loss.

His queen, Kapiʻolani, watch from the balcony of the palace as King Kalākaua’s funeral procession made its way to the throne room to lie in state.

And what room is this?

Zita Cup Choy 1:03:37 This is a throne room.

Was used as an informal reception room, audience room, it was used for balls.

It was also used as a place for our aliʻi to lie in state prior to their funerals.

Kalākaua lay in state here for about a week, whereas for most of that time, it was just family and close friends attending his coffin.

And then we the community only had two hours to come in and pay our respects, one afternoon.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 1:04:07 One of Hawaiʻi’s saddest images is captured of Queen Kapiʻolani, leaning over her husband's casket as she mourns her loss of her beloved King.

I visited a place called the Hawaiʻi State Archives.

It's known to hold the largest Hawaiian collection of historical photographs, government records, and laws of Hawaiʻi’s history.

I wanted to inquire if the Hawaiian government was concerned or had written laws to protect Hawaiian burials during the monarchy time period.

Susan Shanen 1:04:48 Keoni was interested and he asked me if there were any laws on burials in Hawaiʻi and since I didn't know for sure, I had a researcher look for us and this is the laws of 1860.

If any person not having legal right to do so, shall willfully dig up, disinter, remove, or conveyor away any human body from any burial place shall be punished by imprisonment at hard labor for not more than two years, or by a fine not exceeding one-thousand dollars.

A thousand dollars in 1860 was a lot of money.

So, obviously, that this was a heinous crime and they had to make sure that they put enough of a fine and time in prison so that people would not do it.

Keanu Sai 1:05:33 This was a statute that was passed in 1860 in the Hawaiian Kingdom by its legislature, protecting burial sites, whether in caves or in the ground.

Right.

And it is a violation and a crime to dig up a grave and remove the bodies.

Current understanding on the English common law and American common law, iwi or bones, the body is not considered property.

But here in Hawaiʻi, in 1860 as a country, they didn't follow that logic.

They say no, iwi is property and it demands protection, and that was the basis of the subculture law.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 1:06:13 This law has protected Hawaiian burials during the rule of the Hawaiian Kingdom from desecration.

I'm here at Mauna ‘Ala.

It is a very special place to our Hawaiian people.

It's also known as the Royal Mausoleum.

This is where Kamehameha’s dynasties are buried.

As you see we have Kamehameha II, we have Kamehameha III, IV, and V, and then also you have distant relatives like Queen Emma.

We have Bernice Pauahi Bishop.

And then later, as the monarchy started to grow, then you have other monarchs who's also buried here.

And we also have our queen, Queen Liliʻuokalani is also buried here.

So, a lot of times our Hawaiian people view this place as a sacred place.

They come here, they bring flowers, leis to pay homage to our ruling chiefs of Hawaiʻi and today I'm going to be doing that of leaving my own hoʻokupu or my offering here.

Located in the center of the Royal cemetery is a crypt.

I pay my respects to the royal family of Kalākaua's dynasty.

Protected and locked with an iron gate, one of Hawaiʻi’s famous royals lay in state here, Hawaiʻi’s last queen, Queen Liliʻuokalani.

[Chanting 01:07:58] E lohe i ka leo o ko kākou mau kūpuna.

I kai lewa ‘ia e ka makani.

Lilo i ka pō, E ku‘i hekili, E ‘ōlapa ka uila i ke ao, E uē ka lani, E uwō ke kai, E lua‘i pele, E ‘ōpa‘ipa‘i ka honua, No nā kūpuna o Hawai‘i nei.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez I am honored to be able to visit our royals and pay tribute to our beloved Queen Liliʻuokalani.

Paul Neves 1:08:49 What a woman.

You talk about a warrior.

What a woman.

Her strength alone, her courage, her dignity, you know.

And then after all those injustices and insults, and the taking of her whole country.

Not a little part, not a couple of acres, the whole country by the great military power of the United States.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 1:09:34 In 1993, on the 100th anniversary of the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, President Bill Clinton signed an apology resolution into law, acknowledging the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom by the United States of America.

Paul Neves 1:09:53 Too bad she didn't live for 193 years so she can hear that apology.

And I think if you heard that apology, which you'd say, you're a hundred years too late, and where's the restitution of my government and the dignity of my people?

Her iwi is still waiting for restitution.

Haunani Kay Trask 1:10:17 The fighting about this also includes the burials that are beneath the ceded lands, and of course, Hawaiian's are buried everywhere, and people don't know where they're buried because it's a different entity, now, it's the west.

And because of that, there has been tremendous conflict between Hawaiians and the state.

Dave Brown 1:10:35 Under my obligation, I had to follow my administrators’ rules.

And I didn't know if burials being stored in restroom closets, in cardboard boxes on the Big Island, I know of burials being stored in rusty containers on Kauaʻi outdoors.

Moses Haia Just because these remains are not identified with you know, a headstone doesn't mean that they're not important to Native Hawaiians.

Palikapu Dedman 1:11:02 So we got to do something.

And I don't think that people, maybe people think it's all okay, it's not okay, and it's never got fixed.

So for those who say it's fixed, it's not, and I'm here to tell you that.

And the development on this island, especially, is growing rapidly, and digging up all the iwi's as much as possible.

So I would say that the thousands that was at Honokahua, we got thousands now.

And it's two hundred here, three hundred there, two hundred here, and it all comes up way past thousands.

So, numbers are not the point, just stop digging.

Healani M. Cahill 1:11:38 And the legal notices are calling families to come forward now, and to identify who they are because they have connections to the land that's here.

Norman Kaleiolaʻakea Gonsalves 1:11:53 Somebody will map to show the location of some of these sites, and this is how we can tell what's here, if we're lucky.

We find them on a map, the family kuleana where they built their homes and of course, in the old days, they buried their iwi, or they write on the property itself.

They want to come here and develop this land, and they have to come in here and prove that there is no iwi on the land.

So what they do is they go in and they put in a test dig like this.

However, on this one here, the iwi's gone.

It wasn't like this, when we were last here.

This is criminal, but greed, of course, you know, they can bend the laws with greed.

Healani M. Cahill 1:12:44 When we first came here the first time, there weren't that many tapes, marking different areas.

As time has gone by this year, so you'll see stripes, you'll see solid colored flagging, some of them are tied on the trees above the site itself.

Some of them are actually on the ground tied around rocks.

This orange fencing here, they use for the developers in the bulldozers to know where the buffer zones are.

A lot of it is because they haven't completed their research in this area, and this is really indicative of a lot of development here.

It's the research and the important things that should be done before grubbing is done, is not done until they've already gone in and destroyed, and then they come back in later and want to research and want to run studies on you know, what was here.

Moses Haia 1:13:41 First experience I had was a case on the Big Island in the Kona side, Hokulia, and it's just interesting because it reaffirmed how important native Hawaiian burials are.

And the reason I say that is because when head archaeologists come there, and this person writes, archaeologists can't figure out whether it's human or bone, so he just threw it.

And that you know, made a huge impact on me.

But also it became a significant part of our case.

Is that how you treat what may be human remains?

So it was just, you know, things like that I started to understand that.

Even when our ancestors are on their way to Pō, they’re still with us.

[Chanting 01:14:52].

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 1:15:04 Hawaiians had a strong belief that the funerary objects had mana, or power, which is placed with a burial called Moepu.

Moe means to lie, and pu is to lie with.

Moepu.

Piʻilani Kaʻawaloa 1:15:21 And today, we don't know how the person who died took care of these objects.

We don't know the chance of the prayers that he or she utilized in the care for of these objects.

So who are we to possess them now?

Who are we to say, this is from my kupuna.

I deserve to have this.

I don't.

I don’t deserve to have it because it wasn't mine.

It wasn't given to me.

I was not taught how to mālama, I wasn't given that kuleana.

Nobody.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 1:16:14 In the Hawaiian culture, Kahuna were central to Hawaiian life.

Without them nothing moves forward.

Kahuna's were masters in many trades, but commonly known as priests for healing and foretelling the future.

The Kahuna ʻAnāʻanā, were feared by the Hawaiian people.

Sometimes their method was to obtain personal items, to cast spells out on their victims, to cause harm and death to their enemies.

Hank Fergerstrom 1:16:48 I do know of a very beautiful, implant funerary items that were made distinctly to harass that spirit throughout his lifetime.

You know and it was buried with him so he never forgets it.

So it's not necessarily the best of intent.

And so, for those who wander around thinking that, oh, look, I found this old item.

I would be very, very, very careful.

Because when somebody goes, especially if it was a negative thing, if somebody goes through all that trouble to make something that heavy to put into that grave, you're not going to be the one who wants to carry that burden.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 1:17:31 Today, caves and graves have been desecrated or looted by foreigners, and sold on the black market.

Museums and private collections have been involved in acquiring these objects.

News Reporter 1:17:45 The items were taken from the cave back in 1905, and kept at the Bishop Museum until six years ago.

The museum loaned them to the group Hui Mālama, which then reburied them in the cave.

News Reporter 1:17:55 Our membership is steadfast and that we will not recover.

We will not be an accomplice to theft.

News Reporter 1:18:03 Federal prosecutors charged two Big Island merchants with stealing more than 150 repatriated Hawaiian artifacts from Kanupa cave two years ago.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 1:18:15 I decided to visit Bishop Museum.

It was founded in 1889 by Charles Reed Bishop in honor of his late wife, Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the last descendant of the Kamehameha family.

Today, Hawaiian Hall is the central part of the Bishop Museum.

This room has three levels and holds the largest pre-contact Hawaiian artifacts collection in the world.

I met with Bishop Museum’s historian DeSoto Brown, who shared with me what he studied about the artifacts and kiʻi, or statues, displayed in Bishop Museum.

DeSoto Brown 1:18:54 Some of them have bone or shell, some of them have human hair attached to them, others do not.

They are ranged in size from very tall to very small, some are very muscular, some are tall and skinny.

The kiʻi is just one manifestation of a force that was much greater than just this one carved image.

So this may have been a receptacle for that or a home where that deity could live and inhabit if you went through the ritual to call the deity to come and live there.

But it didn't just come because you carved it, you had to go through a ritual to do it.

Respect them but don't mess around if you don't know the protocols, and it is possible that nobody today does know the proper protocols that were used originally for them.

Rocky Kaʻiouliokahihikoluʻehu Jensen 1:19:47 My stuff belongs in the hale mana which we don't have.

My stuff belongs with the rest of those images in the Bishop Museum where it should be housed in the hale mana the way it was in the past.

They didn't belong to decoration on your museum to show off, we’re not dead yet.

You still treat our stuff like toys.

This image I created, again, it's a 20 century, 21st century.

It's based upon Hinamoe.

Hinamoe was considered the patroness of death.

See how the Hawaiians were, they have an image of the discipline of the practice that it takes.

The sacrifice it's going to take for you to recognize the passing of a person.

Piʻilani Kaʻawaloa 1:20:48 But today, modern Hawaiians, they gotta have um.

Yeah, we can study it, but we can know what it was like for our kupuna.

That's why the term Hala.

Ua hala, those times are pau.

Those were left with our kupuna and they should remain with our kupuna.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 1:21:13 Bishop Museum was in a court case battle, which was entwined with NAGPRA, a federal law made to protect indigenous skeletal remains and funerary items to be displayed in museums.

Hale Aloha was arrested for refusing to retrieve stolen funerary items to Bishop Museum.

Mililani Trask For this, we are put in prison and treated as though we were thieves, treated as though we were common criminals.

It's an outrage.

Kale Gumapac 1:21:42 For us, everything that we have, is a living museum, including the artifacts and the burial caves.

And so the people that are putting it, you know, trying to buy these things up and preserve it for collection and so forth.

What they're doing?

As soon as they buy or what they do?

They store it in some closet.

They can, quote, protect it from the elements, quote, protected from somebody.

Would be thieves that might come in and steal this stuff, when they, in fact, are the thieves themselves.

You know, it's like, the thief stealing from the thief.

Paul Neves 1:22:20 We're living people, we are not museum pieces, and our iwi should never be a museum piece ever.

Edward Hale Aloha Ayau 1:22:29 You know, you have to always look at these situations and ask yourself, what is the lesson that the kupuna want us to have to learn from?

That lesson is that we may look in the mirror and see one Hawaiian, that doesn't necessarily mean that in naʻau, that's how we feel.

Because we have gotten so damn far off the trail, it's not funny.

To the point where we actually engage in a public discussion on whether the family of this chief buried in this cave had the right to bury him with these moepu.

That we, today, have the right to second guess them and take them away, put them in a museum, to educate ourselves.

The irony of educating ourselves about hewa, and to me that was the lesson in Kawaihae.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 1:23:29 Hihuwai was an ancient tradition.

Hawaiians believe would cleanse themselves off after the body was buried.

At dawn, the limu kala, olena and the ki leaf were used to perform the purification ceremony.

The Kahuna would pray for those who helped them in the burial, and they could return in good health to the village and their families.

All who had taken part would be themselves in the ocean to conclude the ritual.

People around the world donated it to my cause, but the funds were not coming in quick enough to reach the developers deadline.

I left home and moved to the capitol of Oʻahu.

It's a small city.

I went there for a job to help raise more money faster.

I live in central town where every inch of our paradise is paved over with development.

Seeing this place, I at times lose myself and wonder where am I?

Where is my culture?

Where is the native forests and trees I'm so used to?

This is not Hawaiʻi.

Living here has been tough for me.

It's been an experience placing me out of my comfort zone.

Out of all places for affordable living.

I moved to Downtown Chinatown, Honolulu.

I never thought I'd be living here.

This place is really different than what I'm used to, but I just try to stay positive.

Looking at things in a brighter light, which keeps me going.

I received the letter in the mail, from a realty company.

It was shocking news to me.

It mentions in this letter that the land owner of the Bureau cave property recently passed away.

I could not believe what I was reading.

Aileen Alvarez 1:26:00 I'm happy to say now he is the owner of that burial cave today.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 1:26:10 You know, I just knew that was something that needed to be protected, and that's part of our kuleana or our responsibility as Hawaiian people to perpetuate that and continue that.

After many years passed, I decided to follow up with the current Island burial council board members of my accomplishments.

Hawaiʻi Island Burial Council 1:26:27 Keoni, you're here for.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 1:26:29 Mahalo nui, thank you so much for allowing me to be on the agenda.

I just kind of wanted to give everybody an update.

You know, it's been about 25 years in the fighting of to try and get our burial cave protected and preserved.

So today I own the whole entire cave.

I don't consider myself as an owner, I'm a steward, always been.

Hawaiʻi Island Burial Council 1:26:49 So do you own the whole property that caves on or just with the length of the cave?

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 1:26:53 No, I own the whole thing.

Hawaiʻi Island Burial Council So you own the whole thing?

All the boundaries, everything then?

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez Yeah so I own, it's in three parcels right now.

From the owner myself, I'm saying that I would like the whole property to be a buffer zone.

I don't want anything to be built on there, any hale in perpetually, forever.

Hawaiʻi Island Burial Council 1:27:16 It's very special that you are a descendant and the landowner.

You're… What you're doing is exactly what needs to be done.

But the beauty of it is that you don't have to pull teeth with some landowner who is you know, from the aina ē and everything and doesn't know left and right.

You are, as an ohana, making the decisions that are best for your iwi kupuna.

Hawaiʻi Island Burial Council 1:27:40 Keoni, mahalo for your testimony, and I personally will support you and your effort.

But then again, thank you so much for your testimony.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez Yes, mahalo nui.

Hawaiʻi Island Burial Council 1:27:54 It's refreshing to have a young person such as yourself undertaking this kuleana.

It's refreshing.

I love it.

It's so good.

Good, really well, my manaʻo is maikaʻi.

You're setting a plate for future generations to succeed and also an example for our young people to come forward and step up to this.

But I just congratulate you, it's really awesome, your work.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 1:28:24 Mahalo nui, Thank you.

Hawaiʻi Island Burial Council 1:28:24 Holomua.

Mahalo Keoni.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 1:28:24 Thank you.

Hawaiʻi Island Burial Council Mahalo, mahalo nui.

Ricky Alvarez 1:28:27 Yeah, Keoni has taught me a lot about the burial sites.

You know, what it took, the timing that it took and the amount of preparation that the Hawaiians would go into a ceremonial, burial site, and they were really respectful of their gods and they really wanted to protect the souls that comes from these people.

And that's what makes it so interesting, because it's not just one part of Hawaiʻi, it will spread straight across a way in every island.

For him to educate people and for him to, you know, teach me and educate me, just makes us all like, really appreciate where we’re from.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 1:29:15 Although I was successful in saving my burial cave, the desecration continues today.

Hawaiian burials marked in known cemeteries have also been desecrated.

This is Kawaiahaʻo Church.

It is the first Christian missionary church in Hawaiʻi, built in 1842.

This building represents a milestone in Hawaiian history when the Hawaiian chiefs adopted Christian beliefs and banished many old traditional Hawaiian beliefs.

Surrounding the church is an old cemetery, consisting of traditional and Christian burials, which lay to rest.

I visited a coral memorial, which includes a large bell located In the middle of the cemetery.

This memorial has a dark history.

In 1940, Kawaiahaʻo moved one hundred skeletal remains to another cemetery for the purpose of building Lekeke Hall, a recreation center for the church.

Years passed and the reburial cemetery property was sold.

The 140 burials were exhumed again from their graves, then all the remains were cremated all together.

Their ashes were taken back to the Kawaiahaʻo cemetery to be reburied here.

You got baby, yeah, baby one, baby two, baby three, baby four.

So you got a variety of men, women and children that's buried here.

And just looking on this list, you know, I see my family last name, Kaui, and I'm pretty sure in some way we're connected.

And we weren't notified that they were going to be moved and grouped up with the rest of all these people that was buried at the cemetery.

Paulette Kaleikini 1:31:04 These are our graves of Native Hawaiians that had turned to be Christians, you know, and learned of their god forsaking their own ancient gods, learned of the new gods, and this is what they do to them?

And the graves that are being disturbed today at Kawaiahaʻo, our Native Hawaiians.

Okay, and these are families of the people who built that church, right on the other side of the footprint of the new building, right on the other side.

And these missionaries are there under the trees with their huge tombstones, and a peace while our kupuna are in turmoil.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 1:31:55 In 2008, Kawaiahaʻo church was repeating its history of desecrating over six-hundred burials to build a recreational center for the church.

Over ten years have passed since its desecration and the burials have not been reburied.

They have been stored in the basement of a church.

Kamuela Kalaʻi 1:32:16 But the church is just dragging their feet.

I don't know if they're hoping we're gonna get tired and just, you know, say forget it.

But I cannot rest until they're resting in the basement of the church.

So the first sixty-nine kupuna that were taken out, see the bell tower up there?

They’re in the bottom of the bell tower.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 1:32:35 I joined a protest during Sunday morning service to put the bones back into the ground.

We are here at Kawaiahaʻo church.

You know, doing a peaceful protest.

Over six-hundred burials are held at the bottom of the bell tower for over ten years.

We're just letting them know what they're doing is wrong.

Bones need to be turned back into the cemetery from where they came from.

And the family, as well as the communities here, and we're just putting up signs and letting people and bringing awareness about what's going on.

Lua men protest chant E kaua, E kaua, Hoʻomaka ʻotou tuʻu aliʻi mana, ʻotou tuʻu aliʻi mana, ʻotou tuʻu aliʻi mana, ʻotou tuʻu aliʻi mana, Ma mua o ka hā o luna, ma mua o ka hā o luna Kamuela Kalaʻi 1:33:50 This is the site of where they disinterred over six hundred iwi kupuna, and they actually went all the way down to the coral bedrock.

So from what I understand some of the graves were stacked like six high.

So you know that's either family or it's a multi-burial because no more room, have to stack them on top six high.

That's pretty deep.

So he took them all out and they are in the basement of the church.

But to think that this could ever happen here with the shadow of the aliʻi church, when they dug out.

I mean, this is like a nightmare.

It's like a living nightmare to me and I don't come over here very often because it's so hard to look at and to feel.

These kupuna belong to somebody.

These kupunas are somebody's, they’re somebody's children.

There's somebody's sister, brother, mother, father and grandparent.

What happened over here is so wrong, it is beyond words.

So my goal is, until these kupuna are resting again in the place that the church took them out of, I'm not going to rest.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 1:35:15 The headline on the front page of the newspaper shows the second desecration of Kawaiahaʻo, over twenty-five burial headstones were vandalized in the cemetery.

Kamuela Kalaʻi 1:35:28 It had to have taken a person or persons that were so determined to make a point of whatever that was, whatever the message is.

I mean, the stones are all down.

The church managed to put a few back up, but the ones that couldn't put back up, are literally broken off their stands.

These stones are not moved easily.

These stones have been in place.

Some of them since the late 1800s, early 1900s, over hundred years.

But you can see the thickness of this foundation, that pohaku got to weigh a couple of hundred pounds.

And then you have a headstone that's really big and thick.

Once again, why would anybody do this?

Except to send a message either to the church or to the Hawaiian community?

I don't know.

I just don't know.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 1:36:24 On the island of Oʻahu, there is a United States cemetery called the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

It is high above Honolulu, which rests in the middle of a crater known today as Punchbowl.

At this burial ground thousands of United States veterans are located here.

Today is Memorial Day.

A lot of families out here and they're visiting their loved ones, and they're giving leis, they're giving flowers.

There's thousands of burials within this area.

Marking each burial there is small American flags, and it's very patriotic for the United States government.

So they're marking each grave, and it gives a good visual of how many burials are here on this site.

This cemetery is federally protected and considered to be hallowed ground by the United States, which means anyone caught desecrating or disturbing this site would go to a federal prison.

Visiting this place, I think to myself that Hawaiian battlefields and burial grounds should be treated and respected with the same rights of those United States soldiers.

The American army, military, and even the Air Force has used Hawaiian sacred places as a target practice.

The island of Kahoʻolawe has been bombed for several decades by the United States Air Force, which destroyed many burials and historical sites on the island.

Sacred valleys of Mokapu on the island of Oʻahu, and Pohakuloa on Hawaiʻi Island, have been used as an Army military training.

During their training, the use of trucks and tanks trampled over many burial grounds.

Our highest peaks such as Mauna Kea and Haleakala are sacred places in Hawaiʻi nei.

On these mountains, it holds the remains of the ancient Hawaiian ancestors.

I never did this kind of march before, it is my first march.

And it's basically protecting all rights of Hawaiians, whether it be about Hawaiian burial sites, sacred places, the mauna.

It's very important that everybody's coming together in unity, and it's awesome to see, and I'm happy to be here with everybody and supporting this.

Hawaiians and Hawaiian royalty from across the islands unite as one and protest to protect the burials and sacredness of our mountains.

Poʻokela and Aʻopohakuku Rodenhurst 1:39:02 You know, it's not Hawaiʻi Hawaiians reside in America, it's America reside in our Hawaiʻi nei.

This is our country and we will live and die free in our country.

Aloha is ours.

Aloha is not theirs, aloha is not foreign, aloha is ours.

And with us aloha is actually make, that's why aloha is make because how can we live aloha when they taking our aloha?

Kauaʻi Unknown Speaker 1:39:31 This is our aina, my ohana is resting in the ground.

Please keep them in peace.

Desecration is not correct.

Please don't disturb them.

Don't disturb their bones.

Pele Hanoa 1:39:58 The state and the county allowed this to happen.

So bad they even destroyed our burial to put the house on.

With all the land they have, forty-seven acres, why is it they allowed to be on a cemetery of our iwi kupuna, our ancestor’s bones?

I’m very oluhua, disgusting of our government allowed this to happen.

Abel Simeona Lui 1:40:26 Things that are really that stay buried should be left alone already.

It's kapu.

All the people out there, the different world, the different race, they all like come Hawaiian, and they all like come to this place and they all know these word: ALOHA.

Sam Kaleiliki 1:41:24 We Hawaiian people with it, this is the only place we have, and this is where we are going to be buried.

We don't go to Japan and dig up Hirohito or any of those Americans in a civil war, you know when they're dead.

We don't go there desecrate those people.

So there's no reason they should come here to Hawaii nei and desecrate our burial sites.

Aileen Alvarez 1:41:51 And no one has the right to move anybody because it wasn't their right then and it's not their right now today, just because they want to put a building up.

You know, the Hawaiians were here, before the buildings ever came.

Pualani Kanakaʻole-Kanahele 1:42:10 A lot of people that come to Hawaii for their own purposes, disregarding the fact that they're people that already lived here before they did.

Disregarding the fact that this is a native land, and there are natives here.

And the irony of it is we have people from all over the world living in Hawaiʻi.

And people who come from lands that demand the respect for the natives that live there, and yet they don't show us any kind of respect at all.

So if they will show us respect, how are they going to respect our dead?

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 1:42:50 Recently, a close family member passed away, it was my dad.

The day of my dad's Hihuwai, or purification ceremony, it was a beautiful occasion to have my family together.

Sharing the memories of my dad and our heartfelt loss.

He loved each and every one of us.

You know, my dad was never ashamed of saying that, of how much he loved us, and he's proud of us.

And today, I'm here to honor him, and express myself of how I know I can express him, and the best way I can do that is Hawaiian, that's the only way I can do that.

The sky was clear and the ocean was blue.

We picked a spot along the ocean shore to pour my dad's pela, or ashes, in the ocean.

I wanted to express myself.

So I wrote an oli, or Hawaiian chant, of my feelings for my dad.

[Chanting 01:43:56].

When I chanted for my dad that day, I did it deep from my puʻuwai, my heart.

This was a very important thing for me, and I wanted to say it in Hawaiian of what we were doing that day and how important my dad was to a family.

I wanted to incorporate our Hawaiian practice in our ceremony.

You know, the ocean is just an extension of the land, and we sometimes forget that there are many variables within the ocean.

You know, and we need to respect that and that's what I wanted to do too is honor not only my dad, but all the burials that are buried within the ocean at Pohoiki.

And one of my oldest brothers, he really felt it, and how he was just kind of being with my dad and the ocean and just letting everything and being in the moment.

My other brother, Danny, he was the person who was in charge of pouring my dad out from the ʻumeke into the ocean.

And he started to pour my dad's ashes out into the ocean, and there was like a little wave that came and it kind of went into the bowl.

So it kind of made the ashes, you know, with some kai, with some ocean.

And the ʻumeke, it had a lot of my dad's ashes in it still.

He just poured a little bit out but there was a lot that was still in the bowl when he filled it with all the kai.

And then he just raised the ball up high in his arms, and then he just poured the ashes, like on him.

Man, I just seen that like, and I just knew, like, that's how much love my brother had for my dad.

A lot of people, they might say, you know, wow, you know, that was too much or whatever.

But you know, that was a very Hawaiian thing to do.

You know, with the Hihuwai, it's not only pouring my dad out and being in the kai with kane, you know, the whole Hawaiian beliefs with all that.

But with that, it comes mano, right, it comes with the shark, you know.

And for me, I did a little koa fishing shrine, and I forgot to tell my brothers that if you ever see something weird, whether it be a rainbow, or a mano, a shark, in the ocean, all that it's just all signs of our ohana.

I wanted to not only honor my dad, but honor even my culture.

And a lot of times, you know, it takes preparation.

It takes protocol in order to do something sacred like this.

Hank Fergerstrom 1:47:04 If you look at the tree of life, we find the trunk, they find all these branches, and all these other branches that come off it, and all the little leaves, and these are all our family members.

What's important here is the iwi kupuna that is the root of that tree.

So to allow desecration that is being done rapidly in Hawaiʻi, all those bones is literally an attack on the very foundation of your tree of life.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 1:47:38 You know, this is like so tradition, you know?

People don't get that this is Hawaiʻi.

Before anybody came here, we had a people, a population of people who lived here thousands of years before anybody came here.

And then they're going to tell us how we got to treat our burials, and that's not sacred to us anymore?

And then twist our own people to think that way?

And then the traditional practitioners who’s really trying to uphold them, making them look like the criminals, making them look like the bad people?

It's so messed up.

Sam Kaleiliki 1:48:26 What other people think of our iwi is irrelevant.

Very irrelevant.

As long as we know what our iwi's mean to us, that that's our kupuna, that's our loved one, one which we respected, and we continue to respect in their demise.

This is the way we’re taught.

Pualani Kanakaʻole-Kanahele 1:48:53 What we should be talking about is what they left us and hunting down their graves is not a way of finding out what they left us.

Let the dead past bury its dead.

Palikapu Dedman 1:49:10 That's a killer, and I'm just saying as one species, like every other species, I like stay who I am as long as I can because that was my purpose in this universe, like everybody said to get their purpose.

Mine is to stay Hawaiian as long as I can be one.

And if it takes me standing up for it, then I gotta do it.

And it takes me to tell another Hawaiian he’s wrong, I'll tell him.

If you like me half step caring for Hawaiian, I am not going to do that.

I am hundred percent all the time.

So that's what you scared dealing with.

It's the hundred percent bradda not the fifty, not the half.

I not half a glass, and that's what I think a lot of Hawaiians are, that is not their fault.

But bruh, you know how fast you can turn on light up and down on a switch?

Try turn your switch on, that's how fast it is.

Just turn them on.

You’re in your own house and you don't know how to act, and you letting other people run your house, especially the iwi.

I'm not talking about stereo, or my car, I'm talking about this moral things that every race respects the most is their ancestors.

Piʻilani Kaʻawaloa 1:50:36 Outsiders don't realize what they're doing to our families.

You know, and if that's something you know, that they want to change, then they should go back to which where they came from.

You know if Hawaiʻi is not suitable for them, then by all means, find someplace else that is suitable for them.

Our life was beautiful, but because of all this change, our life now is difficult.

I cannot be a Hawaiian in another country.

I cannot be a Hawaiian in another state.

I am Hawaiian because I am of Hawaiʻi, because I am Hawaiʻi.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 1:51:37 For the past ten years, I've been making videos about my life.

Documenting the burial cave as learning from it, and trying to preserve the site.

Now I took my one-man campaign online.

Aloha no kākou.

My name is Keoni Kealoha Alvarez and I live in the islands of Hawaiʻi.

The knowledge that I gained from my elders about burials has allowed me to share my story and to share our burial practices.

Preservationist in Hawaiʻi and in the United States learned about my one man campaign online.

This opportunity allowed me to be on TV shows, the radio, schools and colleges.

To people who are interested in what I did, and how I learned it.

I even made it into National Geographic.

News Reporter 1:52:30 It's the power of the internet.

Good for you Keoni.

Keoni Kealoha Alvarez 1:52:42 Today I'm very happy of the accomplishments that I've done.

Over the years, I preserved one burial site, and then I preserved another burial site, and just recently, I preserved the third.

So I'm very happy preserving their burial sites and keeping it sacred.

And this goes for the future generation, and that's kind of what my legacy is to make sure and ensure that our ancestors are going to be protected forever, and this is how I want to see it for many generations after.

A forest, pristine, sacred place for ancestors and for people can come and visit.

If I could share with anybody about burials, and everything that I've learned, I would share with them, especially in Hawaiʻi, is not to go into caves, and especially if they know it’s burial caves.

Everything that I do, my family does.

You know, I've learned a lot about, you know, traditional Hawaiian burials, I learned about our culture, and I pass that on to my own family.

And meaning that when I come to our burial cave, I teach them how to mālama, how to take care, of this site.

One thing that I make sure that my family know is to have that ike, or to have that respect.

It's not about the objects that's in a burial cave that's important, but more so having that ike or having that respect is actually greater than having any of those possessions.

You know having those possessions doesn't make you any more Hawaiian, and that's what I tell my family is that you need to have respect for the sacred because our burials were meant to be kapu, were meant to be sacred, and not to be seen by people, and that is part of culture.

That is part of what tradition is.

Looking back on this journey, I feel good about myself, to be able to be the guardian of our burial cave, ever since I was eight years old.

Today is a special day.

It's my hihuwai, or cleansing.

To be able to move forward in my life now that the burial cave is safe under my protection and everything that I've learned came to a full circle.

This kahea, or calling, is special.

It is a gift that I'll continue to pass on to my ohana and the next generation.

I have committed myself like our people have done for over two-thousand years protecting our Hawaiian burials ensuring that our ancestors will remain hidden, sacred, and kapu in Hawaiʻi nei.

[Hawaiian Chant] ‘O nā iwi kapu o ko‘u mau kūpuna Kau i ka wēkiu A ma ʻō ke kai Hoʻohuna maluhia ‘ia iā loko o nā hi‘ohi‘ona ʻāina o Hawaiʻi nei Maluhia nō kahi ‘oe e ho‘omaha nei like nō me ka lani ki‘eki‘e E ala hou a pi‘i ko kākou po‘e Hawaiʻi e like me ka lā e ‘ōili mai A e ho‘omakapō i nā mea a pau a pō‘ele‘ele Kapu nō ho‘i nā iwi kūpuna E ho‘opilikia ‘ole ‘ia ai E mālili a palahū nā lima E like me nā lā‘au haki wale E ho‘omaha ko kākou mau kūpuna i ka maluhia A ho‘opilikia ‘ole ‘ia ai ‘Emo ‘ole i ka make loa No ka ha‘iha‘i ‘ia ‘ana o nēia kapu E lohe i ka leo o ko kākou mau kūpuna.

I kai lewa ‘ia e ka makani.

Lilo i ka pō, E ku‘i hekili, E ‘ōlapa ka uila i ke ao, E uē ka lani, E uwō ke kai, E lua‘i pele, E ‘ōpa‘ipa‘i ka honua, No nā kūpuna o Hawai‘i nei.

[English Translation] Sacred bones of my ancestors High in the mountains and along the shores Safely hidden within the landscapes of Hawai‘i Peaceful are the place your reside Like the heavens above May our people rise like the morning sun Blinding all that brings darkness Forbidden are the iwi kupuna Never to be touched May your hands wither and rot Like brittle leaves and wood May our ancestors rest in peace And never to be disturb Sudden death is the penalty For breaking the Kapu Hear the voice of our ancestors.

Hidden bones of Hawaiʻi May our people rise like the morning sun Blinding all that brings darkness Forbidden are the iwi kupuna Never to be touched May our ancestor rest in peace And never be disturb Carried by the wind.

May the day turn into night, May the thunder rumble, May the lighting fill the sky, May the rain fall, May the ocean roar, May the volcano erupt with fire and sulfur, May the ground shake, For the ancestors of Hawai‘i