Bringing you today’s stories on issues important to Native communities. Native NewsClips is a complimentary service of the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement.  For information and updates on our training workshops and events, please visit our Web site: www.hawaiiancouncil.org.

 

 

 

January 19, 2005

 

 

 

 

Akaka bill to get Senate vote

 

But a key senator says he would prefer different measures

 

By Nelson Daranciang
ndaranciang@starbulletin.com

 

January 13, 2005

WASHINGTON, DC - The Akaka bill to grant federal recognition for native Hawaiians will get a vote in the U.S. Senate despite objections from the new chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, Sen. Daniel Inouye said yesterday.

Inouye said he met Tuesday with the committee chairman, Sen. John McCain, who had said last week he would rather increase funding for existing native Hawaiian programs than pass the Akaka bill. "It was very productive, it was very friendly and we will have a hearing as soon as possible," Inouye said, noting that McCain does not oppose the bill. So far, the Akaka bill has failed to get a vote on the Senate floor because of opposition by key Republican senators, even though a similar measure passed twice in the U.S. House.

Just prior to last year's elections, Inouye and Sen. Daniel Akaka received assurances from majority Senate Republicans who had prevented a vote on the measure that the bill would pass out of committee and onto the Senate floor for a vote.

Akaka said he was surprised by McCain's remarks and planned to talk to the Arizona Republican. Gov. Linda Lingle, who is working with Hawaii's congressional delegation for passage of the Akaka bill, said she also planned to talk to McCain when she is in Washington, D.C., next month to attend the annual National Governors Association conference.

Inouye is optimistic of the bill's passage.

"I'm convinced that if all parties, all interested parties, were made aware of all of the facts and history of this measure, they'll go for it," Inouye said.

And Inouye said he believes the Hawaii contingent can convince President Bush to approve the bill as well.

 

 

 

 

Community Members Gather to Learn about Native Funding Opportunities

 

Honolulu, HI – Today marked the conclusion of a three-day workshop conducted at the Honolulu Airport Hotel by the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement (CNHA) on the Administration for Native Americans (ANA) Grants Program.  Over 90 community members attended this extremely successful proposal development workshop where they learned about the requirements of the ANA Grants Program and worked on developing their proposals. 

 

“This proposal development workshop has been very productive,” said Lilia Kapuniai, CNHA Vice President and co-presenter at the workshop.  “We are continuously inspired by the countless creative project ideas that our participants seek funding for.”  Some of the project ideas are aimed to improve education, health and cultural preservation in Native communities.”

 

ANA is the only federal funding source committed to promoting self-sufficiency among all Native peoples – Native Hawaiians, American Indians, Alaska Natives, and the Native peoples of American Samoa, Guam, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI).  ANA supports local, community-based efforts in the areas of social development, economic development, and Native language preservation.  Each year, ANA awards more than $25 million in grants to Native communities across the U.S.

 

This proposal development workshop is the first in a series of ANA workshops taking place across throughout the pacific region.  The Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement is a national, member-based nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting community development in Native communities.  For more information about CNHA and upcoming training opportunities, please call 808.521.5011 (toll free at 808.709.2642) or visit www.anapacific.org.

 

 

 

 

Council set to kill leasehold conversion

 

The mayor says he will sign any repeal of the law that is passed

 

By Crystal Kua
ckua@starbulletin.com

 

January 14, 2005

HONOLULU, HI - The City Council appears headed toward dismantling mandatory condominium lease-to-fee conversion after a key committee approved a measure yesterday that would repeal the law.

"Unless anybody changes their mind ... I think it's a good indication how the Council will act on the 26th of January," when the full Council is expected to vote on the bill, said Executive Matters Committee Chairman Romy Cachola.

Cachola and Council members Ann Kobayashi, Rod Tam, Donovan Dela Cruz, Nestor Garcia and Todd Apo approved the measure, while Charles Djou, Barbara Marshall and Gary Okino objected.

The Executive Matters Committee, made of up all nine Council members, also approved an amendment that would make it impossible for any pending leasehold conversions not already approved by the City Council to continue.

"What you have put down now ... will kill the possibilities of these people going forward," said Joachim Cox, attorney for lessees of the Kahala Beach condominium, who have been battling landowner Kamehameha Schools for years to purchase the fee interest in land under their building.

After approving the amendment, the committee voted to defer acting on two pending leasehold conversion applications for lessees living at the Camelot and Discovery Bay condominiums.

Lessors fighting to stop condominium leasehold conversions were elated with yesterday's outcome.

"I think it's long overdue," said landowner Hans Peter Jensen, whose family owns a portion of the land beneath the Camelot.

But Jensen said that he realizes there are a lot of "political maneuverings behind the scene ... so I think the matter will not rest until the final vote."

Mayor Mufi Hannemann reiterated his position yesterday that he will sign any bill that comes before him that repeals the current law. "This is something now that's in the Council's bailiwick, and once they come up with a final product, we'll look at it at that point."

In 1991 an ordinance known as Chapter 38 was passed to help condominium leasehold owner-occupants gain title to the land under their units. The city would use its powers of eminent domain to condemn the land and turn over the fee interests to the eligible unit owners.

Yesterday's action by the committee came after hours of testimony.

Landowners said the leasehold conversion law needs to be repealed because it is flawed and has led to revisions.

Members of charitable trusts such as the Kamehameha Schools and the Queen Liliuokalani Trust said that if the law is not repealed, their organizations could lose income that helps to fund needed services.

"Chapter 38 must be repealed because of the potentially devastating impacts on important programs for Hawaiian children and Hawaiian families," said Diane Plotts, chairwoman of the Kamehameha Schools board of trustees.

But lessees contend that they are not taking the land from the landowner, because they compensate the lessors for the fee interest. They said the law is needed to give them the tools for home ownership and to avoid losing their homes because of high lease payments.

George Heil said he bought his Waikiki condominium on leasehold land and has applied for conversion to fee simple.

"I applied, have been approved, sent my $1,000 in, employed a lawyer with 28 others in the Wailana (condominium), and we are now at the stage of nothing because of (Bill 53)," Heil said. "I think the timing is bad, and they should give those applicants that applied ... a chance to purchase."

 

 

 

 

Posted on: Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Hawaiian Relations office lists job opening

By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer

WASHINGTON, DC - The U.S. Department of Interior is recruiting staff members for the new Office of Native Hawaiian Relations, an agency Congress established a year ago to deal with the legal relationship between Hawaiians and the federal government.

The department has set a deadline of Friday to apply for the first job opening, a program analyst who would be paid between $74,782 and $97,213 a year.

U.S. Rep. Ed Case, D-Hawai'i, has a link to the job posting atop his congressional Web site (www.house.gov/case). According to the job description, the function of the Office of Hawaiian Relations is to help Interior's deputy assistant secretary in analyzing policies relating to Hawai'i.

The duties would include reviewing federal legislation and regulations that affect Interior's Hawai'i programs and studying Hawaiian policy and program issues involving resource management, land use, recreation, environmental quality, and other Department of Interior responsibilities, the listing says.

A link is provided to the online application system known as ROARS; those without Internet access or who need other help can call (703) 787-1446.

 

 

 

 

Bush Plans Sharp Cuts in HUD Community Efforts

 

By Jonathan Weisman

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, January 14, 2005; Page A01

WASHINGTON, DC - The White House will seek to drastically shrink the Department of Housing and Urban Development's $8 billion community branch, purging dozens of economic development projects, scrapping a rural housing program and folding high-profile anti-poverty efforts into the Labor and Commerce departments, administration officials said yesterday.

The proposal in the upcoming 2006 budget would make good on President Bush's vow to eliminate or consolidate what he sees as duplicative or ineffective programs. Officials said yesterday that economic development programs are scattered too widely in the government and have proved particularly ineffectual at HUD. 

Advocates for the poor, however, contended that the White House is trying to gut federal programs for the poorest Americans to make way for tax cuts, a mission to Mars and other presidential priorities. Administration officials would not say how much the consolidation would save, but it could lead to steep funding cuts. That is because the HUD programs would have to compete for resources in Commerce and Labor budgets that are not likely to expand to accommodate the shuffle.

"I'm always willing to look at consolidation, but clearly they're using consolidation as a shield for substantial budget reductions," said Rep. Barney Frank (Mass.), the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, which has jurisdiction over housing and community development programs.

The plan was detailed in a December memo from the White House Office of Management and Budget to HUD. The document provides one of the first concrete examples of the types of cuts in the works as the administration comes to grips with a soaring deficit.

"The purpose of the exercise has nothing to do with achieving or not achieving savings," said one administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid preempting the Feb. 7 release of the president's fiscal 2006 budget request.

"What we are trying to accomplish is to meet our obligation to people living in distressed communities, to hold communities accountable for helping those people and to become more efficient in the process," another official said.

Congressional housing aides say the $4.7 billion Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program -- the bulk of the community planning budget -- could be cut as much as 50 percent. Cities have become dependent on HUD's development programs, especially the CDBG, which has existed for 30 years, city officials said. Stanley Jackson, director of the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development, said the city has used CDBG grants of $21 million to $22 million a year for clinics, recreation centers, day-care facilities, literacy programs and housing development.

With housing and property values skyrocketing, the need for such programs for low-income families has never been higher, he said.

"If this is a backdoor way of eliminating a program like CDBG, it would have a profoundly negative impact on cities," said Jim Hunt, a vice president of the National League of Cities and a city council member in Clarksburg, W.Va.

Under the plan, the CDBG program -- which provides multipurpose development grants to state and local governments -- would be sent to the Commerce Department. The Urban Empowerment Zones and the Renewal Community programs -- both of which offer tax incentives for development in urban or other troubled areas -- would also go to Commerce, as would the Brownfields Economic Development Initiative, designed to revitalize abandoned industrial sites.

Youthbuild USA, a $62 million program to teach teens home-construction skills, would be sent to the Labor Department. The $24 million rural housing and economic development program would probably be eliminated.

HUD would maintain the Home Investment Partnerships to build or buy affordable housing, homeless assistance programs and housing assistance for AIDS sufferers. The budget would eliminate $260 million in economic development projects earmarked for this year by lawmakers. HUD could ultimately lose a quarter of its $31 billion budget.

White House officials said HUD employees would have to stay on the job to oversee outstanding grants for some time. But with Bush promising an aggressive attack on domestic spending, the 817 HUD community planning and development employees are girding for the worst.

"It's a body blow," said one career employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of being fired.

The proposal could face an uphill fight in Congress, said Frank, who called the proposal "just appalling." With budgets tight, vested interests in the Commerce and Labor departments would be expected to favor their programs over the newcomers from HUD. "It wouldn't even be a fair fight," he said.

Moreover, HUD has evolved into an agency designed to support urban interests and low-income citizens, while Commerce and Labor are more receptive to business needs. Indeed, community development programs at HUD are far larger than those at Commerce and Labor, said Saul Ramirez Jr., executive director of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials and a former deputy secretary of housing. The Commerce Department's Economic Development Administration has a $320 million budget, a fraction of CDBG's allocation.

"If there are any programs in Commerce that encourage direct economic development to some of the most disadvantaged and blighted areas, those programs are dwarfed by these programs," he said. "If [consolidation] is what they want, the reverse should be proposed."

One White House official agreed that HUD programs have more of a community focus, while the Commerce Department's Economic Development Administration is more interested in economic growth. But, he said, "they're funding a lot of the same things."

HUD's city focus may be why the White House is dismantling the HUD programs, Frank charged. "HUD is the place where mayors and urban interests can put up the strongest fight," he said.

 

 

 

 

Posted on: Thursday, January 13, 2005


Charter schools' troubles audited


By Derrick DePledge
Advertiser Capitol Bureau



HONOLULU, HI - Hawai'i's charter school law is poorly written and vague, creating confusion at the state Board of Education that has contributed to a lack of oversight of the state's 27 charter schools, a state audit has found.

 

The absence of effective oversight hinders the state school board's ability to determine whether the experimental schools are accountable for student performance and sound management of public money. The audit, according to a draft circulated among policy makers, found that the school board uses the "vaguely worded charter school law to justify its passive oversight over charter schools."

 

Gov. Linda Lingle has wanted the state Legislature to lift the cap on new, start-up charter schools, but the audit raises doubts about whether the school board and the state Department of Education are ready for the added responsibility. Democrats, who control the Legislature, will consider several changes to charter school operations this session and are citing the audit's findings as guidance.

 

Jim Shon, executive director of the state's charter schools, said he will give the school board suggestions for greater academic and financial accountability within the next few months. He described past oversight by the board as "velvet-gloved," but said the schools probably needed some early leeway.

 

"They were given a certain childhood. Now they are emerging from adolescence into adulthood," Shon said.

 

Vague status

Charter schools were created by the Legislature in 1999 to give parents alternatives to traditional public schools. The schools have grown in popularity — enrollment increased nearly 15 percent this school year to about 5,000 — and some have shown signs of academic success. Charter school students are doing about as well or better than students statewide on the state's proficiency tests, although direct comparisons are problematic because some charter schools do not have enough students taking the tests to make the results statistically meaningful.

 

Many charter schools have had financial trouble or have had to overcome management challenges to stay open. The school board has been aware of the schools that have had deficits and has sought better ways to monitor, sanction and revoke the charters of problem schools. But limited staff at the school board and the DOE to deal specifically with charter schools, along with delays in naming and then working with a charter school executive director, have led to inaction.

 

The audit, conducted between June and November of last year, centers on Waters of Life, a Big Island charter school the state had attempted to close because of mismanagement in 2002. At that time, the school board was being criticized for not setting up enough financial oversight of charter schools. Katheryn Crayton-Shay, who has since become the principal at Waters of Life, said she could not comment on the audit until it is completed and released.

 

The audit characterizes the charter school law as too broad and confusing, making it unclear just how much authority the school board has over the schools. The board, the audit found, has been given different advice about whether the law exempts the schools from all but state collective bargaining, employment discrimination and health and safety laws, or whether the schools are only exempt from laws that relate to public schools. Other inconsistencies have left some charter school employees, including administrators, out of the state's benefits package even though they are state employees.

 

But the audit determined that the school board does have the authority to develop oversight policies but had missed an opportunity to provide leadership. Auditors noted that some board members seemed unprepared for the responsibility even though the law was no surprise.

 

School squabbles

The audit also found that the school board had not done independent evaluations of charter schools despite approving the first charters four years ago.

 

Breene Harimoto, the school board's chairman, said he has committed to improving oversight of charter schools this year. "I think we've done the best we could," he said. "I don't think we've been negligent in any way in the past, but I think we need to be a little more forceful."

 

Charter school administrators have had disputes with the school board and the DOE over whether they get adequate state resources and, occasionally, whether they are being micromanaged. One dispute that dragged on for months involved the selection of a charter school executive director. Charter schools picked attorney Dewey Kim as their only choice and refused to give the school board other candidates, but, after the board hired him, Kim quit after less than six months over the conflict of being an advocate for charter schools while also reporting to the board. Shon replaced Kim as executive director last year.

 

Seeking solutions

Shawn Bolan, whose son is in the fifth grade at Wai'alae Elementary, which converted to a charter school, said charter schools need autonomy to be innovative but should have some additional oversight as the movement grows. "But I don't know if I'd want it to be the traditional BOE oversight," he said.

 

Educators and lawmakers envision that Shon's office will provide charter schools with organizational advice and oversight in collaboration with the school board.

 

The audit recommends that the Legislature and the school board clarify oversight responsibilities of charter schools and address questions about employee benefits, legal exemptions and facilities costs. Democrats will likely review whether the charter-school funding formula should be updated, so the schools could get more money, as well dealing with the issues raised by the audit.

 

State Rep. Roy Takumi, D-36th (Pearl City, Palisades), chairman of the House Education Committee, said he wants to make sure there is adequate oversight before expanding the number of start-up charter schools. The state has reached the cap of 23 start-up schools and has four charter schools that converted from traditional schools. The law allows for another 21 conversion schools.

 

"As of today, I think there is some concern about whether they are all on solid footing," Takumi said.

 

 

 


 

U.S. voter turnout jumps, with Hawaii last

 

Star-Bulletin staff and news services

 

January 15, 2005

HONOLULU, HI - Hawaii came in dead last compared with other states in voter turnout for the 2004 presidential election, while the national average increased to the highest level since 1968, a report released yesterday shows.

The national presidential election turnout was 60.7 percent last year, up by 6.4 percentage points over 2000, the biggest election-to-election increase since 1952, according to the report by the Center for the Study of the American Electorate. The center attributed the increase to deep divisions over the war in Iraq and intense voter registration drives.

The national center's calculations put Hawaii last among the states with a 48.9 percent turnout of eligible voters, everyone over 18. But state election figures showed a 67 percent turnout based on the number of registered voters.

"That skews our turnout rate," Hawaii's chief election officer, Dwayne Yoshina, said. "We have a large number of nonresident military and a large number of aliens, people not really eligible to vote."

The turnout of eligible voters here was closer to 50.8 percent after nonresident aliens and military are subtracted, said state election spokesman Rex Quidilla.

But under the rankings released yesterday, Hawaii still would come in last with a 50.8 percent turnout.

He said the difference has to be explained frequently because the U.S. Census Bureau and Federal Election Commission also use figures based on the voting-age population.

"It's an especially crude tool when you apply it to the state of Hawaii; it doesn't take into account the population composition," Quidilla said.

In Hawaii, 431,662 people voted out of about 647,000 registered voters. The adult, or eligible voter, population in the state was about 848,000, according to the last U.S. Census, Quidilla said.

Nationwide, 122.3 million voted in the Nov. 3 elections, according to CSAE.

In 1968, when Republican Richard Nixon beat Democrat Hubert Humphrey, 61.9 percent of those eligible nationally cast ballots. Turnout stayed below 60 percent during the eight presidential elections in between.

About the 2004 election, the report said: "Both parties spent unprecedented resources on mobilization.

"In certain respects the 2004 election was all about motivation and mobilization. The substantial increase in turnout was due largely to the deep emotions surrounding the presidency of George W. Bush."

Bush received 62,028,719 votes, or 50.8 percent. Democrat John Kerry received 59,028,550 votes, or 48.3 percent.

Both candidates drew more votes than their parties' nominees in 2000, CSAE said. President Bush gained more than 11.5 million votes over the 50.5 million votes he received four years earlier. Kerry won some 8 million more votes than the 51 million received by Al Gore in 2000.

Even so, 78 million eligible citizens did not vote -- considerably more than the number of votes won by either candidate.

The modern record for voter turnout was 1960, when 65 percent of those eligible cast ballots.

The CSAE report was based on final and official registration and voting statistics certified by the chief election officers of all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and the number of citizens age 18 and over.

 

 

 

 

Smithsonian joins U. to log tribal languages

 

By Stephen Speckman
Deseret Morning News

 

January 18, 2005

 

PROVO, Utah - Out of 175 American Indian languages, only about 20 are being taught to children as generations of Indians die off and leave little or no evidence of their languages or cultures.

 

"This is probably the hottest topic in linguistics right now," said Lyle Campbell, director of the University of Utah's Center for American Indian Languages (CAIL). "The languages are becoming extinct at such an accelerated rate.

"This is a worldwide problem," Campbell added. "All of the Utah (Indian) languages are in trouble."

It's a big enough problem that the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., has decided to partner with the U. center in an effort to record and archive Indian languages, stories and cultural histories in video, audio and book form.


When languages are lost, Campbell said, "then we're all diminished, because we don't have access to their experiences."


One of the U.'s current projects, funded by an ongoing grant, involves the preservation of endangered languages in northern Argentina and Brazil.


The Smithsonian is lending its support to the U. center with the use of linguists and anthropologists.


"They have very similar interests to ours, so it was a natural collaboration," Campbell said. "We'll be able to get more people involved — we need more human resources."


Unique collections of endangered languages are kept in the National Anthropological Archives, which is housed in the National Museum of Natural History.


Within that museum is the Department of Anthropology's senior linguist, Ives Goddard, who said the department's staff has made the study of Native American languages a priority for over 150 years.


The one-of-a-kind arrangement with the U. will have students traveling to Washington to work with Smithsonian collections and staff.


"We realized that we were both thinking along the same lines after the appointment of Lyle Campbell to head CAIL last year," Goddard said.


After two meetings in Washington, the two sides drew up a declaration of shared interests and goals. The Smithsonian partnership will be housed in the same building at Fort Douglas on the U. campus where U. professor of linguistics Mauricio J. Mixco has been working on a language preservation project, funded by the National Science Foundation.


Mixco is part of four teams sifting through 120 audio tapes filled with interviews, stories and anecdotes from members of the Shoshone tribe. The recordings date back to the 1960s and 1970s, when anthropological linguist Wick R. Miller ventured onto reservations with a curiosity and a tape recorder. Miller left the tapes behind as part of his estate.

 

Mixco's project has been in the exploratory phase since its beginning last September. The teams will act as audio archaeologists, uncovering legends and histories that have not been heard since they were recorded, according to Mixco.


"All Shoshone in the Great Basin area will uncover a huge library of their history," Mixco said.


The recordings will be digitally preserved and rendered archive-ready, which means greater access to those who want to learn more about Shoshone Indians and their language. With only about 20 percent of the tribe still speaking the language, Mixco estimates that the Shoshone dialect could be nonexistent within 20 or 25 years.


"Here's the question around the world: 'Are children learning the language?' " Mixco said. "If it's 'No,' then that's the death warrant."


In places like Hawaii and New Zealand, where there are larger communities of indigenous speakers, "language nests" have helped revive dying languages, Mixco said. The "grandparent generation" in these areas was organized into groups that included children, who were taught the language once spoken regularly by their elders.


It's estimated that more than 2,000 languages were once spoken throughout the Americas, with fewer than 200 remaining in North America and 450 in Latin America.


Worldwide, it's expected that 90 percent of all languages will not survive this century or that, best case, as many as 50 percent will die off, according the U. center.


"Linguists are racing against time to study and understand the languages spoken by small groups around the world before they are replaced by regional and national languages in the onslaught of globalization," Goddard said. "This effort is critical to our ability to understand the possibilities of human language in general and will be crucial to all future attempts to understand the basic principles that underlie all languages, including our own."

 

 



 

 

New method revises dating of ancient Maui heiaus

 

By Helen Altonn
haltonn@starbulletin.com

 

January 17, 2005

Kahikinui, HI - Using a new dating technique, a former Hawaii archaeologist has discovered that a prehistoric heiau system on Maui was built far more rapidly than believed, coinciding with rapid sociopolitical change in the chiefdom.

"It looks like they (temples) were all constructed in a fairly tight time period in Kahikinui, from the late 1500s to the early 1600s," said Patrick Kirch, of the University of California-Berkeley anthropology department.

The Hawaii-born scientist, associated with the Bishop Museum from 1975 to 1984, has done extensive archaeological and ethnoecological research in Hawaii and throughout the Pacific.

He has spent 10 years studying archaeological remains and settlement patterns in the ancient Kahikinui district on Haleakala's southeastern slopes, where 30 Hawaiian temple foundations and many other sites are preserved.

Kirch and Warren Sharp, dating expert at the Berkeley Geochronology Center, reported their latest findings in the January issue of Science magazine.

In a telephone interview, Kirch said archaeologists working in Hawaii have long been frustrated by "multiple possible calendar ages" from the usual method of radiocarbon dating of wood charcoal.

Radiocarbon dating established prehistoric Hawaiian occupation of Kahikinui in a range from 1400 to 1800 A.D.

But new dates obtained by Kirch and Sharp with uranium decay thorium indicated the heiau system was built within 60 years, from the late 1500s to the early 1600s.

Uranium thorium had been used to date coral reefs, but no one had attempted to use it on archaeological sites, Kirch said.

He said he and Sharp decided to try it out on the prehistoric temples because pieces of branch coral were incorporated into the walls or had been placed live as offerings on the foundations when constructed.

"The cool thing here is coral is perfect material for uranium thorium dating because it takes up sea water," he said. "We can use the ratio as a dating technique, similar to radiocarbon."

Kirch said they are getting high-precision dates with a plus or minus factor of six or seven years compared with plus or minus 80 to 100 years with radiocarbon dates.

"The temples provide tangible archaeological evidence of the speed with which a fundamental sociopolitical transition occurred in proto-historic (before European contact) Hawaii," Kirch reported.

The dates dovetail with oral traditions and genealogies that indicate two independent chiefdoms were brought under Piilani's control during his reign, from about 1570 to 1600 A.D., Kirch said. Piilani's grandson took over Lanai and probably Kahoolawe in conquests in 1630 A.D.

Hawaiian temples were built on huge platforms and terraces, and "corresponded to a hierarchy of major gods associated with agriculture or war," Kirch said. They served as centers for control over production and surplus food, he reported.

Kirch said the thorium dating method has potential elsewhere in the Pacific where coral was used to build temples and by some fishermen to make fishhooks.

He is continuing work in Kahikinui, a fairly dry leeward area that he said has never been disturbed by modern development. "It is becoming pretty unique in the islands to have an entire area where we can see settlement.

"You can see the entire patterns of how people used the land from the seashore to the mountains," he said. "It's interesting to see how ancient Hawaiians were able to adapt their economy to an area fairly marginal in agriculture production."

 

 

 

 

Monday, January 17, 2005

Navajo families get power

By Rosalie Rayburn
Journal Staff Writer

 

Albuquerque Journal

 


ALBUQUERQUE, NM -  A partnership between a Native American-owned solar equipment manufacturer and two Navajo Nation chapter houses is bringing electricity for the first time to 50 remote homes on the reservation between Cuba and Crownpoint.


Albuquerque-based Sacred Power Inc. is working with the Torreón and Ojo Encino Chapter Houses selecting homes to receive hybrid generating units that use solar and wind power, through an $825,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.


Odes Armijo-Caster, co-principal of Sacred Power, estimates that 10,000 homes on the Navajo reservation still have no electricity because of the high cost of supplying power to remote areas


Sacred Power is planning to apply for additional federal funding to enable it to provide solar power to more Navajo homes in New Mexico and Arizona, said Sacred Power co-principal Dave Melton, who is from Laguna Pueblo.


He said the company installed the first three units in mid-December and hopes to have all 50 in place by the end of April.


Each unit consists of an 8-by-10-foot photovoltaic panel that generates electricity from the sun's rays and a 10-foot-tall wind turbine that provides additional electricity when there is no sunshine.


The units will generate enough electricity to run lights, an energy-efficient refrigerator and a small electric appliance.


"You're talking about improving people's lives," said Michael Peacock, CEO of Southwest Business Development Consultants, who helped Sacred Power get the grant.


For Tina Hicks, who lives with her two children, her mother and two aunts near Ojo Encino, electricity will make life easier in many ways.


Her mother and aunts will have enough light to weave rugs in the evenings to supplement their income. The family's kerosene lamps were just not bright enough.


"For me, the kids can do their homework," Hicks said.


The new refrigerator will mean not having to drive 30 miles to buy ice in Cuba this summer to keep food fresh.


Sacred Power, as part of the project, is providing each customer with a superinsulated SunDanzer refrigerator, lighting and instructions on how to use and maintain the system.


Sacred Power assembles the power units from products made by New Mexico-based companies that specialize in renewable energy, including Matrix Solar Technologies, Zomeworks and Array Technologies, Armijo-Caster said.


Sacred Power provides renewable energy systems to government, business and residential customers.


Other projects include hybrid solar and wind power energy systems for Laguna Pueblo and a solar system in Albuquerque's Indian Pueblo Cultural Center parking lot.


Sacred Power was founded in 2001 and had revenue of $1.3 million in 2004.

 

 

 

 

Posted on: Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Saying goodbye to Mother Marianne

By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer

KALAUPAPA, HI - The last earthly remains of Mother Marianne Cope have rested peacefully on the windswept Kalaupapa Peninsula of Moloka'i for decades, far from her home, yet as close as a whispered prayer to the community of souls she loved so much.

But this 19th-century Catholic nun, a woman who may soon become a saint, is about to be the focus of a gentle marriage of science and religion: Her remains will be exhumed next week, identified by an anthropologist and sent to the Mother House of her religious order, the Sisters of St. Francis, in upstate New York.

The move is a necessary step on the path to sainthood, although it is sure to be a bittersweet event for the dwindling community of Hansen's disease patients living their final years at Kalaupapa. Twenty-five patients still live there. For them, her grave is a physical connection to Cope's legacy.

Cope spent 30 years caring for the needs of the patients who had been banished to the Moloka'i outpost because they suffered from the disease once known as leprosy.

Her faith in them kept her there until she died in 1918. A tall white monument marks her shaded grave.

Last month, the Vatican accepted a miracle attributed to Cope's intercession, clearing the way for beatification. The church must accept a second miracle before Cope could be named as a saint.

The exhumation will be done by a volunteer team of forensic experts from the Pentagon's premier identification lab on O'ahu and witnessed by three Franciscan nuns from Syracuse, N.Y., and several church officials from Honolulu.

Cope's great-great-great nephew, Honolulu radiation oncologist Dr. Paul DeMare, also plans to witness the exhumation.

"Mother Marianne is going back to her roots," said DeMare, 63. "I'm pleased to be a direct viewer of history."

The task is expected to last three to four days, followed by a farewell service for the residents, said Sister Marion Kikukawa, the Big Island nun who has helped oversee the order's Hawai'i efforts to get Cope canonized. A second ceremony will be held on O'ahu.

"I think it is very important," Kikukawa said. "Mother Marianne has been in their midst since 1888. We are trying to be very attentive in this process to the feelings that the patients have and especially for the great love they have for Mother Marianne."

Hope for the exiled

Cope arrived in Hawai'i from Syracuse in 1883. She had agreed to help the Hawaiian government run the Kaka'ako Branch Hospital, which served as a receiving station for Hansen's disease patients.

Five years later, she moved to Kalaupapa and helped establish Bishop Home for more than a hundred homeless girls who had been sent there without their families.

If Hawai'i was a pinpoint in the Pacific, then Kalaupapa — isolated and barren — was the head of a pin. Hansen's disease was considered incurable at the time and it was reaching epidemic proportions in Honolulu. The kingdom exiled its unfortunate victims to Kalaupapa to die.

Cope brought meaning to their lives, taught them to sew and play in a band. She worked to erase the stain of being discarded.

She was far from home, though, and always longed to return to Syracuse. Instead she died of natural causes on Moloka'i. She was 80. The patients there carried her wooden coffin to the grave.

"Mother Marianne's desire was always to do the will of God," Kikukawa said. "And as it worked out in her life, she was called to stay with the people of Kalaupapa until she died."

To Be enshrined

Church law states that a person who is beatified or canonized cannot be reburied in a cemetery but must be enshrined in a place that followers can visit. The Franciscan sisters plan to place Cope's remains in their chapel until they decide on a permanent setting. An official beatification ceremony is expected this year.

The sisters visited the tiny community to explain the move to the residents, said 84-year-old Nellie McCarthy, a Catholic and patient who was sent to live at Kalaupapa in 1941. Everyone agreed that the move made sense, she said.

"We don't have any feelings about it," McCarthy said. "We're all for it. We're looking forward to it."

But what will actually be moved remains unknown. There is a lot of uncertainty about what will be found in Cope's grave.

The sisters hope to find Cope's bones and what they call "second-class relics" — items that the nun would have worn or touched in life. They would like to leave one behind for worshippers at Kalaupapa.

Unearthing history

Vince Sava, a Catholic and civilian anthropologist at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, Central Identification Laboratory, will supervise the exhumation. Sava studied the soil and said it was not overly acidic, which leads him to think he'll find skeletal remains.

"In the relative scheme of things, this should not be that difficult," said Sava, who is using vacation time for the job. "But one of the challenges we face is you never know what you are going to find until you actually get down there and find it."

His team will start slowly, scraping away a few inches of dirt with hand trowels and sifting it through screens. After probing the grave with a pole in November, he determined that any remains are somewhere between 2 feet and 4 feet below the surface. The soil has reclaimed Cope's coffin, however.

Whatever is found will be taken to a nearby convent run by the nuns and examined in a makeshift lab.

"We are striving for circumstantial identification," Sava said.

State Health Department records indicate Cope was buried in the grave, but Sava will want to confirm that. A trained observer can determine race, sex and approximate age of death by looking at bones, Sava said.

This kind of work is so demanding, so focused, that Sava, a member of St. Jude Church in Makakilo, doubts he'll be thinking about whom he holds in his hands until the end of the day. But the mission, like the quiet peninsula, moves him.

"I have very deep feelings about this project," he said. "I think I've probably put a little more time into it than I would any other comparable project. Whether you are religious or not, you have to realize this person was a great humanitarian and a great historical figure."

When Sava's team is finished, Cope's remains will be sealed in a metal container that will then be soldered shut — a church requirement to prevent someone from tampering with or stealing future religious relics.

Hope lives on

The exhumation holds special meaning for Sister Mary Laurence Hanley, the Syracuse-based director of the order's effort to canonize Cope. She will fly to Hawai'i and make the white-knuckle landing at the short Kalaupapa airstrip.

Hanley has researched Cope's life and virtues since 1973 and co-wrote Cope's biography — "A Song of Pilgrimage and Exile" — with O.A. Bushnell.

More importantly, she has witnessed the power of Cope's intercession — the miracle.

In 1992, a 14-year-old girl in Syracuse suffered multiple organ failure while undergoing chemotherapy. Her family asked Hanley and her sisters to pray to Cope for help. Hanley often gets requests like this, but she was struck by the urgency of the case.

"It was so hopeless," Hanley said. "She was on machines. There wasn't one vital organ that was working correctly. I said prayers to Mother Marianne."

Hanley also visited the girl and held against her forehead a piece of a bookmark that once belonged to Cope.

Cope had written "Sweet Jesus Mercy" on the bookmark, Hanley said.

The girl recovered completely.

Hanley remembers wondering if she should be surprised.

"When you see how sick someone is and it is hopeless and she is dying, you could say: What is the sense of doing things?" she said. "But that is what miracles are all about."

And faith, as well.

Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8012.

 

 

 

 

Posted on: Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Language educator Bernice Kanahele

By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer

Bernice Elama Kanahele, one of the founders of the Hawaiian language immersion movement through its first schools on Kaua'i, died Sunday at Wilcox Memorial Hospital. She was 49.

Kanahele, born on Ni'ihau, had been working as an outreach counselor at Kaua'i Community College helping to mentor Ni'ihau students beginning their college careers, said Pua Lee, one of her friends and colleagues in the Punana Leo Hawaiian-immersion preschool network.

"She was irreplaceable," Lee said. "She touched many lives: students from preschool, for them to come to her at the age of 3 ... she welcomed them as preschoolers, and she welcomed them to the college. She followed them through and helped them finish their education."

Kanahele was involved at the start of the immersion movement and worked as a teacher during its sometimes tumultuous early years, helping to establish the first preschool in 1983, Punana Leo O Kekaha.

She also assisted in establishing Punana Leo O Kaua'i and Kula Aupuni Niihau a Kahelelani Aloha, a charter school.

In 2002, she earned her bachelor's of education degree at the University of Hawai'i and was nearing completion of her teacher certification requirements for returning to classroom teaching.

More recently, she worked with colleagues Kimo Armitage and Keao Nesmith on a book "Niihau Aloha," due to be published this spring by Island Heritage. The book will contain some of Kanahele's own childhood experiences on the island as well as oral histories of other residents, to be printed in the dialect of Ni'ihau as well as in English.

"She was so instrumental in giving back the Hawaiian language to our people," Armitage said.

Nesmith said he was "devastated" by the loss of a personal friend as well as someone who was to help the further development of Kula Aupuni. "She was my hope for our charter school," he said. "I believe that even though she's gone, she's going to help us find those right paths."

Kanahele is survived by her mother, Virginia Nizo; brother, William A.K. Nizo; sister, Virginia Keamoai; hanai sons, Keolamau and Thomas Nizo; and hanai daughters, Liana, Kimberly and Kelly Nizo.

Visitation is from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday at Garden Island Mortuary Chapel; service starts at 7 p.m., followed by cremation. Visitation resumes from 9 to 10 a.m. Saturday at the chapel, with a service at 10 a.m. Interment to follow at Kekaha Hawaiian Cemetery. Casual attire.

Reach Vicki Viotti at vviotti@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8053

 

 

Posted on: Thursday, January 13, 2005

Man to plead guilty in sale of skull

By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer

HONOLULU, HI - A California man has struck a deal with federal prosecutors in which he agreed to plead guilty to trying to sell a 200-year-old Hawaiian skull on eBay, one that he had taken from the Ka'anapali area 35 years ago.

Jerry David Hasson, a 55-year-old Huntington Beach resident, was charged in September in Los Angeles with violating the federal Archaeological Resources Protection Act when he attempted the online sale of the skull last February.

The U.S. attorney's office has agreed that Hasson will perform 600 hours of community service and publish an apology to the citizens of Hawai'i in three of the state's newspapers as part of his penalty.

He also will pay "full restitution in the amount of $10,000 to the victims of the offense," according to the plea agreement document. The victims include Hui Malama I Na Kupuna O Hawai'i Nei, a nonprofit group formed for the care of Native Hawaiian burials, for the cost of returning the remains to Hawai'i and reburying them. The federal Department of Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, also will be reimbursed for the expense of purchasing, shipping and examining the skull.

Hasson is expected to enter his plea in U.S. District Court next week, and at that time the judge also could impose other penalties, according to the plea agreement document.

Edward Halealoha Ayau, a Hui Malama spokesman, was unavailable for comment yesterday. In earlier interviews, Ayau said he spoke with Hasson after eBay officials were alerted to the auction and removed it from the Web site, warning him that the sale is a federal offense and trying to persuade him to return the skull to Hawai'i.

John Fryar, an investigator for Interior working undercover, negotiated through an intermediary to acquire the skull as a "gift" after paying $2,500 for a magazine Hasson was selling online, according to court documents.

In the original eBay listing, Hasson advertised the skull as coming from a "200-year-old warrior."

Fryar consulted with University of Hawai'i anthropologist Michael Pietrusewsky, according to the documents, who confirmed the general age of the skull but concluded that it was the skull of a woman, about 50 years old at the time of her death.

Reach Vicki Viotti at vviotti@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8053.

 

 

 

Posted on: Tuesday, January 18, 2005

 

Virginia halau to march for Hawai'i at inaugural

 

Advertiser Staff

ALEXANDRIA, VA - A hula halau based in Alexandria, Va., will represent Hawai'i Thursday in the 55th presidential inaugural parade.

About 40 members of Halau Ho'omau I Ka Wai Ola O Hawai'i, under the direction of kumu hula Manu Ikaika, will march and ride on a float along a 1.7-mile route from Capitol Hill to the presidential reviewing stand by the White House. They will wear the Hawaiian royal colors of red and yellow and Island flowers, performing with 'uli'uli gourds and live music.

The halau has performed at numerous events in the area, including the premiere of Hawaiian exhibits at the Natural History Museum and at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in support of troops returning from Iraq.

About 11,000 parade participants are expected to showcase the cultures that make up the 50 states. More information on the parade is available at www.inaugural05.com.

 

 

 

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