The discovery of a Native Hawaiian burial site in Hawaiian Paradise Park has some residents concerned.
In July, work was being carried out by the Hawaiian Paradise Park Owners Association to clear part of a 20-acre parcel on Makuu Drive between 16th and 17th avenues to develop a small mailbox project for the subdivision.
But that work halted after workers discovered a lava tube that had evidently been used as a burial site.
During an August meeting of the Hawaii Island Burial Council, resident Keoni Alvarez said the part of the lava tube that was discovered in July evidently was another entrance into a tube with a previously known burial site elsewhere inside. A January meeting of that Burial Council recognized Alvarez as a cultural descendant of the remains within the cave.
Karin Hoffman, president of the HPPOA, said the mailbox project only covers 0.9 acres, which isn’t large enough for it to have required an archaeological survey of the area.
While workers and association members conducted multiple walk-throughs of the site before the project began, Hoffman said they did not discover the cave.
Alvarez told the Burial Council in August that crews had inadvertently “opened up” the tube.
“We notified all the proper authorities,” Hoffman said, listing entities including the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ State Historic Preservation Division and Hawaii County. “They asked us to block the cave entrance to keep people from entering. So we did.”
Although the cave entrance is visible from the roadway, it currently resembles nothing more than a pile of rocks against a hill, Hoffman said. Before it was closed off, Hoffman estimated the tube measured about 10 feet wide and about 5 feet high at the entrance.
“We’re not sure if this entrance is linked to other burial sites,” Hoffman said. “We don’t want folks going in if the cave is connected to the other one.”
HPPOA has met and cooperated with cultural practitioners with ancestral ties to the cave, who have said they want to build a wall around the entrance to both prevent access and recognize the cultural site, Hoffman said. She added that HPPOA is amenable to this, so long as it doesn’t use association funding.
Because HPPOA has cooperated with SHPD and other agencies, Hoffman said she considers the association’s involvement in the matter largely concluded. But, she said, other HPP residents have used the discovery as ammunition in an effort to halt the mailbox project.
HPP resident Crystal Schiszler said she believes the association has violated its bylaws by spending resources on the mailboxes, and suggested that it should have been required to perform an archaeological survey in order to begin work on the project.
A representative of DLNR stated that SHPD could not respond to questions about ongoing investigations.
The matter will once again be discussed at 9:30 a.m. today at a meeting of the Burial Council.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
