2017-04-17 Public Testimony on SMA 16-063 Contested Case

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to the Hawaiians. So please consider that this place should be preserved for the future. Thank you. \[There being no other members of the public who wished to testify, Mr. Crudele called the evidentiary hearing to order at 8:15 a.m.; however, he accepted further testimony at 10:15 a.m., as some public members who arrived late requested the opportunity to speak.\] MITCHELL FUJISAKA: \[Mr. Fujisaka presented an old photograph for those in attendance to view.\] Those gentlemen that you see in the picture, that’s Henry P. Kekahuna, Naluahine Kaopua and Theodore Kelsey. I did work with them in 1950 when I was 13 years old. We measured the heiau-s, historical sites and house sites in Kahalu‘u. There are 23 heiau-s in Kahalu‘u and it’s all named, 23 heiau-s. Before that, let me introduce myself. My name is Mitchell Mikiala Fujisaka. I was brought up, born and raised in Ahupua‘a of Kahalu‘u Makai. I was hānai-ed by my grandmother, Harriet Hattie Kauina Kahulamū. And my ‘ohana-s from that area are the Kahinu’s, the Wahinepio’s, the Kainoa’s, the Naluahine’s, the Alapai’s in numerous dimension. Like I said, I was hānai-ed by my grandmother, and also my grandaunt Mary Kahulamū. As a boy of 13, I was asked by Naluahine Kaopua, with permission from my tūtū Malia Kahulamū, to help the three gentlemen that you see there in the picture, to measure the historical and cultural sites in Kahalu‘u. We didn’t measure all of them. I didn’t know how important it was because of a boy of 13. You only follow the rules, you follow the sound, you follow the voice. Respect of this historical site was emphasized. When you went, when we went to a heiau to measure it, Tūtū Naluahine would give a chant in Hawaiian, Henry P. Kekahuna would offer a prayer in English, a Christian prayer. And then work would proceed. Respect was no yelling, no spitting on the ground, no urinating around the heiau-s; those were sacred grounds. So, I say, gentlemen, or sir, I say, with 23 historical sites in the area, what’s the cultural impact will it have on the area around the cultural site? What was the area around those sites used for? Was it used to support the heiau-s? Moving away from the heiau-s, which is my love, we come to the burials. We have our kuleana that the family still live on; he’s the kahu of the grave site. We have eight generation that’s buried, eight generations from me back, but there’s more, that’s buried in that grave site. But the Kahulamū generation goes back four generations. And they are buried on the site, like all of their, most of the Kahulamū. In that grave site there’s only three outsiders that’s buried there; one was my grandfather, one was my auntie’s husband and one was my cousin’s husband. Three I shall not name. Now, my uncle Thomas Kahulamū, that’s a second son of John Robert Kahulamū, which is my great-grandfather, great great-grandfather, he was a kahu of the caves, burial caves and burial sites in Kahalu‘u. There were three principle burying methods used: Cave burial, which everybody knows, you take the body, you go hide it in a cave, fine, the cave is open, you can go back in there and take the body out; crack burial, that’s burial, we’d find a crack in a lava rock, you take the body and bury in; third is earth burial. All these burials to hide the body of the deceased were done at night. And there were kapu-s that had to be followed before the burial took place. Kahulamū had lots of it, earth burials. The family grave site was a burial site before it was used for burial, because graves that were, new graves that were done to standard, to Christian standard, or County standard, or whatever standards you call it, six feet below ground. They encountered, whatever soil there was before they hit hard rock, they encountered gravings. The 2 2017-04-17 Public Testimony on SMA 16-063 Contested Case