There’s a very challenging column by Peter Apo at Civil Beat today (“Peter Apo: Let There Be Light On The TMT“).

Apo takes the politically risky step of exploring “the separation of cultural fact from fiction” in the claims made about the sacredness of Mauna Kea and the site of the planned Thirty Meter Telescope project.

How should we evaluate claims regarding traditional practices engaged in on Mauna Kea, as well as the broader claim that the entire mountain was considered sacred by Hawaiians? Well, you do some research in the best available sources.

These sources include archaeological findings, oral traditions, such as ancient chants like the Kumulipo, and the works of present-day scholars based on newly discovered Hawaiian language sources. These include unpublished oral histories, and more than a million pages of Hawaiian language newspapers published between 1843 and 1948.

After making the case for the need to evaluate cultural claims, he presents his own findings.

I found no documentation indicating that Mauna Kea, as a whole, is sacred. I could not find any reference to any blanket of sacredness over the entire mountain and the air column in any of the usual sources of validation — not even in the Kumulipo Hawaiian creation-origin chant, or in the writings of Native Hawaiian historians of the 19th century like Samuel Kamakau, David Malo, John Papa ‘I‘I and Kepelino.

Beyond the blanket-of-sacredness claim, there is nothing else on record to suggest any validated sacred places would be disturbed by the construction or operation of the TMT.

There’s a lot more in the column, definitely worth reading, even if you have to borrow someone else’s access to Civil Beat. Apo invites others to point to documentation that he might have missed, which I expect could lead to further light being shed on this issue.

Apo, of course, is no stranger to protest in defense of Hawaiian rights. Here are a couple of photos taken at the old federal courthouse in Honolulu, in the building shared with the downtown post office. It was 1977, and the occasion was a rally at the court during one of the appearances of Richard Sawyer, who was facing federal charges for taking part in one of the series of protest landings on Kahoolawe in 1976-1977.

In the photo above, Apo is at the center, facing the camera. In the lower photo, Apo is on the right. And that’s the late Frenchy DeSoto, on the left.

Click on either photo to see a larger and more detailed version.