Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 32, Number 1, 1 January 2015 — Putting our family's land, heiau in trust [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Putting our family's land, heiau in trust

By Lurline Wailana McGregor / i sign this document, and * * something that we were supposed to protect is gone, forever. Now, we're haole as s — and we go to private schools and clubs and we ean barely speak pidgin, let alone Hawaiian, but we've got Hawaiian blood, and we're tied to this land and our children are tied to this land. Now, it's a miracle that for some bulls — reason 150 years ago, we own this mueh of paradise, but

we do. And for whatever bulls — reason, I'm the trustee now. And I'mnot signing." This was Matt King's seminal speech in Alexander Payne's movie Tlie Descendants, based on the book by Kaui Hart Hemmings. As his relatives listen in disbelief, poised to toast their windfall, Matt (George Clooney) declares that he will not sign the papers to sell his family land to developers, who have already drawn up plans for a luxury resort. This scenario of Hawaiian families selling inherited land is a familiar one, and Matt's decision to not sign was the right thing to do for the right reasons, at least from a Hawaiian perspective. But it was also unsustainable, as the issue would surely eome up again in the future when he was no longer trustee. On Aug. 25, 1906, my grand-

mother Louise Aoe McGregor purchased a 9.08-acre homestead lot in Hau'ula, O'ahu. My grandfather Daniel Pamawaho McGregor was born and raised in Hau'ula, where his grandfather had been a konohiki of that ahupua'a. My grandparents built a house on the lower part of the lot and lived on it for about 10 years, during whieh time they lost two children at birth and buried them on the property in unmarked graves. A fire destroyed the home and they moved off the land. Although they continued to

hold title to the property and the family continued to visit it and piek mangoes throughout the years, no one moved onto it again. My grandmother always counseled the family to hold on to the land, and I do not recall anyone in my parents' generation ever talking about selling it, even after both grandparents had passed. In 2006, exactly 100 years since my grandmother acquired that property, the family decided to sell it. With the exception of my mother, my grandparents' andparents' generation had all passed. Among the 18 heirs, eaeh with an undivided interest in the property, only three were under 60 years old and not everyone was financially well off. Squatters, cockfighters, marijuana growers, all-terrain vehicle (ATV) racers and others used the land illegally over the years and left their

trash. For the most part, though, hau trees had taken over, making it difficult to walk through the property and obstructing the onee sweeping view of the oeean from Kahana to Lā'ie. My generation grew up knowing little about the history of the property, whieh includes a large heiau on the middle section, because our parents and grandparents didn't talk about it. The next generation knows even less. We started trying to leam the history of the land and were fortunate to hear oral histories from Cy Bridges, who remembered picking mangoes there when he was young, and who listened to the stories of his kūpuna.

The heiau, calledMaunawila Heiau, was one of three adjacent heiau and was cared for by Makuakaumana, the prophet who accompanied Pā'ao when he sailed from Kahiki to Hawai'i. Because of Makuakaumana's association with it, Maunawila heiau, whieh is the last remaining relatively intact heiau in Ko'olauloa, is thought to have originally been heiau ho'ōla, or a healing heiau. Many sites remain throughout the property and there is clear evidence of agricultural terraces, mounds and alignments, for whieh radiocarbon dating has indicated Hawaiian activity on the land by 1270 AD. The man who had bulldozed an ATV track through the property

made an offer to buy it. The family did not agree to the sale right away because we were in the process of trying to qualify Maunawila Heiau for the Nahonal Register of Historic Places, whieh fortunately caused the prospective buyer to withdraw his offer. We approached the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the Trust for Puhlie Land to assist us in identifying a buyer who would be willing to conserve the heiau and involve the community in an educational and cultural stewardship of the property. We were referred to the O'ahu Land Trust, now the Hawaiian Islands Land Trust (HILT). It took until July 2014 for HILT to finally receive grants from the Hawai'i State Legacy Lands Conservation Commission and the Honolulu City and County Clean Water and Natural Lands Commission to consummate the transfer of the property to its land trust, where it will be protected in perpetuity. The Ko'olauloa Hawaiian Civic Club and the Hau'ula Community Association are full partners in overseeing the care of the land. To date, hundreds of community members and Brigham Young University anthropology students have participated in ongoing cleanups that are held monthly, and a management plan to build trails and plaee signage is underway. As my cousin Davianna McGregor explained to the Hau'ula community at a recent blessing of the land, our family was no longer able to properly care for the land, and we did what we felt was best to protect it by putting it into a land trust. The next generation, whieh may include even more heirs, will not be saddled with either the tax liability or the ongoing debate about whether to sell. It was a hard decision, but we know that our grandparents and our parents would be happy with the outcome. ■ Lwīine Waiīana McGregor is a writer, television producer and author o/Between the Deep Blue Sea and Me.

MO'OMEHEU CULTURE

The author at a recent eleanup of the property.

A recent blessing at the heiau. - Photos: Courtesy Franz Schmutzer

The author, left, with Tina Aiu, O'ahu island director of the Hawaiian lslands Land Trust.