At least 17 individuals were reinterred at Waiʻauia by Kailua Kau a Hoʻoilo (KKH) on January 7, 2019. That total is an MNI – minimum number of individuals – and is probably an undercount given the scattered and fragmented condition of several of these remains and the mishandling and poor record-keeping to which they were subjected. Of the “17,” 14 were originally in SHPD’s possession and transferred into KKH’s custody in 2009 and ʻ10. Three more were taken into temporary curation by KKH in consultation with SHPD after they were unearthed in 2008 and 2011, and could not be returned for reburial to the locations in which they were found. Indeed, all 17-plus of these individuals had no place to go. They were all homeless iwi, iwi for whom a return was either inappropriate or impossible. Some could not, in good conscience, be put back into the previously disturbed, asphalt-topped fill from which they were removed. Some could not be returned – without future risk to their safety – to the bottom of the water main trench in which they were found, nor could they be reinterred nearby since the adjacent home owners would have none of it. All were displaced; all were kuewa (exiled, banished, wandering). The burial preserve at Waiʻauia was created to give them the best possible alternative. It was built for them in their ahupua’a at a place of great traditional significance, with room – when all options for burial-place and burial nearby are exhausted – for others like them.
