HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0641.024 2004-2006 IWI & Moepu Testimony Offered by Dr. Tau ouri Tangaro of Pana`ewa
In County of Hawaii Resolution Number a~, Januazy 2Q 2006
`Ano`ai ke aloha is kakou a pau loa i `akoakoa mai (greetings to all assembled),
My name is Dr. Taupouri Tangaro, Instructor of Hawaiian Life Styles, Hawaii
Community College. My wife Kekuhi and our five children aze lineal descendants of the
Iwi and Moepd of this Kohala cave. I stand here this morning in defense of the
traditional burial practices of the native Hawaiian. I stand here this morning defending
the human rieht to die secure in the knowledge that our bones and burial relics that
belong to you, to me, and to our families will never be disturbed.
I was born in 1963 and reared in the ahupua`a land division of Ka`alaea, Kaneohe,
Oahu. We lived in an extended family system, inclusive of Visaya Filipino, Navajo,
Puerto Rican, Portuguese, and Hawaiian ethnicities, all intermarried but maintaining their
unique cultural realities. It was a science and an art to navigate through the mores of
each ethnicity in the family, a very difficult but necessary thing to do. And although
diversity in the family was evident and often times chaotic, there continues to be one
reality that we all share in profound common: the dead was never to be disturbed.
When my grandpazents moved to rural Ka`alaea, there they found the remains of humans
who died there in the open and whose bones were left exposed to the weather. My
grandfather gathered up these bones and placed them in a nearby cave mauka of the
house. Our family became steward to these bones for our entire existence on that
mountain. These bones were often times vindictive because of familial neglect. The role
that these bones had on how we lived penetrated our daily existence on the mountain.
My grandfather and I fed these bones, placating them with food and drink on every ld`au
occasion held on the mountain. In addition to this, when there were occasions where
family members got hurt for no obvious reason, or when the babies in the house couldn't
sleep, just screaming inconsolably, my grandfather Tangaro would take food to the mouth
of the cave and pray until they, the bones, were satiated. We once moved the whole pig-
pen from behind the house makai and down the hill a distance, for the stench was
disturbing to these dead ones. And even as mischievous children, it never dawned on us
to inquire into the contents of the cave, or taking family friends to view it as a novelty.
Every one in the house knew of the bones, and every one in the house, young and old,
upheld the care not to disturb the bones.
At an early age the reality that the dead continued to live and communicate with the
physical living was absolute. This living reality of mine fuels my urgent support of and
for the re-internment of the iwi and the moepu of my children's Kohala ancestors,
returning their ancestors and their ancestral moepu to the burial cave of origin. The
disturbance of any iwi and related moepu threatens the life cycles of their descendants, 5
of whom are my own children.
comri,. No. ~y ~
R.f. Utite
IWI & Moepu Testimony Offered by Dr. Taupouri Tangaro of Pana`ewa
In County of Hawaii Resolution Number ,January 20, 2006
The exploitation of the dead cannot be tolerated at any time and age. If we allow this
exploitation to continue today, or if we remain passive or neutral to this issue, [hen we
give the future EVERY REASON to exploit our own burials. Thieves have no ethics, and
those housing and or purchasing stolen goods from tombs have even less. I call upon you,
Council Members of the County of Hawaii, to affix your signature -your family names
of ancient origin- to this resolution. Do this for Hawaii, do this for the Hawaiian, and do
this for our own bones, yours, mine, so we can each go to our own destinations at death
knowing that our bones and relics are secure.
I offer the above testimony as truth to my living reality related to the treatment of the
dead asp diced y my family,
1 14 Auwae R . Hilo, H ai`i 96720-6914