11-29-2016, 06:34 AM
For Pisciotta it was the removal of her family stone and ashes
The metamorphosis between ancient Hawaiian culture and modern Hawaiian culture is one aspect of the TMT argument that I don't understand. Admittedly, I'm not an expert in Hawaiian history, but one would surmise before highways and pickup trucks, very few common folk on Hawaii Island ever made their way to the summit of Mauna Kea. At one period in history, only the ali'i were allowed, or workers in the service of the ali'i.
I've heard and read from various sources that Mauna Kea is a "sacred burial ground." When did this begin? One would think that before Saddle Road and the internal combustion engine, it would have been extremely difficult to carry the remains of a loved one up the 13,000 mountainside for internment. Some quarry workers may have died as they performed their duties below the summit, or trespassers who were caught by representatives of the ali'i, but otherwise, how many people were buried near the top of Mauna Kea?
If this is then a recent development by Pisciotta and a few other ahu builders, couldn't their incursion of the peak be considered just as much a desecration on the slopes of Mauna Kea as the observatories? Or is one too large and the other just the right size, one too metallic and white while the other is constructed of native materials?
Is there a basis to their claim that Mauna Kea should be a resting place for the bones of native Hawaiian people anywhere in historical documents or ancient cultural practices? Or is it considered simply a natural evolution of the old ways, updated when modern conveniences now make such a memorial possible? And if that is the case, aren't the new practitioners drawing a fine line, their own personal, subjective distinction between what should and should not be allowed near the peak of the mountain?
“Rational people know what to expect. Irrational people know what to demand.” Last Aphorisms
The metamorphosis between ancient Hawaiian culture and modern Hawaiian culture is one aspect of the TMT argument that I don't understand. Admittedly, I'm not an expert in Hawaiian history, but one would surmise before highways and pickup trucks, very few common folk on Hawaii Island ever made their way to the summit of Mauna Kea. At one period in history, only the ali'i were allowed, or workers in the service of the ali'i.
I've heard and read from various sources that Mauna Kea is a "sacred burial ground." When did this begin? One would think that before Saddle Road and the internal combustion engine, it would have been extremely difficult to carry the remains of a loved one up the 13,000 mountainside for internment. Some quarry workers may have died as they performed their duties below the summit, or trespassers who were caught by representatives of the ali'i, but otherwise, how many people were buried near the top of Mauna Kea?
If this is then a recent development by Pisciotta and a few other ahu builders, couldn't their incursion of the peak be considered just as much a desecration on the slopes of Mauna Kea as the observatories? Or is one too large and the other just the right size, one too metallic and white while the other is constructed of native materials?
Is there a basis to their claim that Mauna Kea should be a resting place for the bones of native Hawaiian people anywhere in historical documents or ancient cultural practices? Or is it considered simply a natural evolution of the old ways, updated when modern conveniences now make such a memorial possible? And if that is the case, aren't the new practitioners drawing a fine line, their own personal, subjective distinction between what should and should not be allowed near the peak of the mountain?
“Rational people know what to expect. Irrational people know what to demand.” Last Aphorisms
“We do this thing not because it is easy, but because we thought it would be easy.”