KAILUA KAU A HOʻOILO
​Almost Midnight, Sunday, January 5, 2019

Nicholas Tomasello

Ke pi‘i ho‘ola‘i nei mākou
I ka i‘a ho‘opā ‘ili kānaka
A pau a ‘anakoe kīkīko’ele.
​
We are going quietly inland
To the fish that touch the skins of kānaka
​When all is done well and to completion.

Kīhei de Silva

​All may not have been done as expeditiously as we had hoped – it took almost ten years to get here – but we find great comfort in knowing that ahonui does prevail and that we were able to provide our iwi kūpuna with a dignified end to their waiting in bags and boxes on the shelves of what turned out to be a not-so-temporary curation room. 

Iwi kūpuna are, as Kawena Pukui reminds us, our most precious possession. They are the foundation of all we are and love. As many as twenty of these kūpuna (we can’t be sure of the exact number for reasons that have to do with the circumstances of their displacement) have now been returned to the sleep that is their due. May it truly be a moe kau a hoʻoilo, a sleep for all seasons and through all time.

The iwi kupuna reinterred at the Waiʻauia burial preserve are from the following locations and, as "inadvertent discoveries," were first taken into SHPD custody in the year(s) indicated in each entry below: 

Checkers Auto Parts, 1999
Private residence, Moʻokua St., 1999
St. Anthony’s  Church / School, 2002-3
Private residence, Maluniu Ave., 2004
Utility project, Omaʻo & Kalaheo, 2005
Private residence, Kaimi St., 2006
Utility projects, N. Kalaheo, 2006-7, 2011
Utility project, Lanipo St., 2010
Beach erosion near Kawainui canal, 2010
Mailed to SHPD from CA., 2010
Utility project, Kailuana Lp., 2011.

Construction of the burial preserve was funded by the Board of Water Supply. The curation of these iwi and their reinterment was an entirely volunteer/gratis effort that included the following organizations and individuals: Kailua Kau a Hoʻoilo, Hikaʻalani, Hālau Mōhala ʻIlima, Kailua Hawaiian Civic Club, Cultural Surveys Hawaiʻi, Ron Sato, Kaleo Paik, Alani Apio, Kekaulike Mar, Kealoha Hoe, and Roman Corpuz.  The burial preserve at Waiʻauia, a site of  profound cultural significance in ancient Kailua (please view the At Waiʻauia page of our website for a discussion of this significance), is now the final resting place for our most precious ancestors. May it serve as a reminder to contemporary Kailua of the people who came before and who are with us still.