The Long Journeys Home. Nick Bellantoni

It took time, but through dialogue and development of personal relationships, I like to think that confidence was built. I was the outsider, the government official relegated with legal responsibilities and decision-making authority. Yet I assumed my duties seeking to understand a Native perspective toward my actions as a state archaeologist. Eventually, like Debbie and Marlis, I, too, would hear Henry and Albert, though not through dreams and inner feelings, but through a calling to use my training as an archaeologist in returning these young men home. From a Native perspective, I have been told, and I do believe, it was not an accident two such repatriations occurred during my tenure—they were meant to happen.

      In many ways, though, this is not my story to tell, and I do not claim to speak for the families or for any Native Peoples. However, my involvement in these repatriations serves as the hinge between the two narratives, the bridge that connects Henry to Albert. My contention is that the science of archaeology does have a meaningful role assisting Indigenous communities in the return and respectful treatment of their ancestors. Our archaeological and forensic teams had to meet legal obligations defined by the State of Connecticut for the removal, identification, and return of Henry and Albert. These are secular requirements using Western state-of-the-art scientific techniques and methodologies, but we never lose sight of the fact that we are human beings handling the remains of other human beings. Hence, there are also solemn concerns demanding the ethical and sensitive approach in accordance, in these particular cases, with traditional Native Hawaiian and Lakota belief systems. Our role was to partner in the respectful excavation, sensitive analyses, and preparations for the subsequent reburial directly with the families of ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia and Afraid of Hawk, who have contributed in innumerable ways to this book.

      The long journeys home of Henry ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia and Albert Afraid of Hawk are genuine American stories, embarrassingly recounting the disgraceful dealings of the government toward Native peoples in Hawai‘i and the High Plains of the North American continent. The United States, soon after its forming, was not content to simply trade with Indigenous Nations. With westward expansion the government wanted their land, seeking to conquer and undermine their cultures through dominance and colonial tactics. My involvement and telling of these stories are inescapably part of this long history of oppression and subjugation, but I hope that my respect for the men whose remains were returned to their families comes through on all of these pages. The author makes no claim of being Native Hawaiian or Lakota and does not speak or read their languages, so I take on the responsibility of telling these stories with a degree of apprehension and humility, knowing that I cannot convey the complexity of their cultures or the colonial quandary they have been exposed to from a firsthand, insider’s view, but only hoping that my outsider’s perspective does some justice to these historical accounts and their interpretations for the general public to appreciate.

      Told through the personal account of the participating archaeologist, The Long Journeys Home transcends historical narrative in its relationship to contemporary Native Hawaiian and Native American families dealing with culture change in the modern world, seeking respect and honor through their collective pasts. It chronicles the Polynesian discovery of Hawai‘i, Kamehameha’s wars of unification, the establishment of the Protestant Christian missions in the Pacific, the political coup appropriating Hawai‘i from Native control, Hawaiian efforts to obtain sovereignty, Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery, Red Cloud’s War, the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the establishment of the Sioux reservations, the horrific carnage at Wounded Knee, and the resurgence of Lakota culture.

      Furthermore, the book is about modern archaeological and forensic science and the partnership created with Native families in order to find common ground in the appropriate treatment of their ancestors by bringing them “home.” The assertion of this book is that archaeology and Native concerns are not mutually exclusive, not even in opposition, but strongly interrelated. Archaeologists are not “enemies” and neither are Indigenous Hawaiians and Americans. Working in partnership, scientists and Native Peoples can bring closure for families and honor to the ancestors by completing their journeys home. My goal in writing this narrative is not to enter into debates about repatriation, for others have represented both sides of the argument more effectively than I can; my hopes, though, are that the reader comes away with a better appreciation of repatriation, as well as a greater understanding of the process of “working together” through a personal account. The Lakota say, “Mitakuye Oyasin”—“We are all related.” In many respects, it has been a journey for all of us: archaeologists have listened to Native Peoples and in return they have listened to us. This book also aspires to introduce the reader to the lives of these two remarkable Indigenous men, their individual and family struggles, and the resurgences of Hawaiian and Lakota culture that Henry and Albert have in part contributed toward.

      With these factors in mind, we embrace the spirit of Maria Pearson and Native oral tradition by employing a narrative approach, story-telling, weaving the past and the present throughout the book, a hybrid of history and memoir, not necessarily in a linear, chronological order but in an informal manner that emphasizes the circular notion of time without losing sight that these are as much contemporary stories as they are also American history.

      PART I

      THE REPATRIATION OF HENRY ‘ŌPŪKAHA‘IA

      State of Connecticut highlighting places associated with Henry ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia and Albert Afraid of Hawk.

      1 | “Oh, How I Want To See Owhyhee”

      His dry, hacking cough could be heard throughout the large, two-story colonial saltbox that served as the parsonage of the Rev. Timothy Stone, pastor of the South Parish in Cornwall, Connecticut, a picturesque town tucked in the state’s Litchfield Hills. The entire Stone family, along with four of his Native Hawaiian (Kanaka Maoli) companions, stood witnesses to the violent attack on his body, but could not feel the intense pain of his muscles or the severity of his headaches. The young Hawaiian Christian man, Henry “Obookiah,” lay in bed during a cold, bitter New England February in 1818, surrendering to the ravages of typhus fever, far from his warm island birthplace. Henry had been studying at the newly formed Foreign Mission School with hopes of returning to Hawai‘i with the Gospel of Jesus Christ in his hands. His early death would steal the opportunity.

      Throughout his month long illness, Henry’s attitude remained steadfast, patient, even cheerful at times, and above all resigned to the Will of God. Mrs. Mary Stone, who took it upon herself to care for Henry on his deathbed, read the Bible and pray with him daily, was impressed with his Christian conviction. Near the end she inquired if he thought he was dying, and Obookiah responded in the affirmative, weakly uttering, “Mrs. Stone, I thank you for your kindness.”

      Fighting back tears, she responded, “I wish we might meet hereafter.”

      Feebly, he assented, “I hope we shall.”¹

      When asked if he was afraid to die, Henry cried, “No, I am not. Let God do as He pleases.” Then again, he so desperately wanted to live. Live to be a powerful witness to the one, true God. Live to bring salvation to his people. Live to see Hawai‘i. “Oh, mortality!” he cried out one night.²

      Insisting that his Native companions remain close to him during his ordeal, he beseeched William Kanui, fellow-student at the Foreign Mission School, who also nursed ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia during his sickness, “William, if you live to go home, remember me to my uncle.”³ Bursting into tears and raising his hands heavenward, Henry lamented, “Oh, how I want to see Owhyhee!”⁴

      His approaching death was peaceful. He seemed to be free of pain for the first time in weeks. With his compatriots beside his bed, he spoke in his native language, “Aloha o‘e”—My love be with you.⁵

      Damp with perspiration, the cotton shirt clung to my back as I hunched on hands and knees over a narrow dirt base leveled at almost five feet into the earth alongside the burial. But it wasn’t until the moisture gravitated