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Cockfighting, a Native Hawaiian Cultural Right?
IP: 4.35.240.195
Posted on June 20, 2004 at 23:11:29 by Derek Kauanoe
The Maui News reported on 06/10/04, that two Maui Men are claiming, with the help of an attorney, that their Native Hawaiian Culture rights are being violated as a result of laws created by Maui County and the state of Hawai'i making cockfighting unlawful.
An online version of this article can be found at Scott Crawford's weblog www.HawaiianKingdom.info. Or you can just read below
Two claim Hawaiian right to cockfighting
Two men of Hawaiian ancestry are suing Maui County and the State of Hawaii claiming that laws prohibiting them from raising and fighting roosters is a violation of their Native Hawaiian cultural rights.
The suit filed in 2nd Circuit Court on May 28 by Daniel Lealoha Kahaikupuna and Frederick Ponce says the state and the county have established laws that prevent the men from exercising their Native Hawaiian cultural practices and tradition of raising and fighting roosters.
The suit claims the plaintiffs have suffered and will continue to suffer damages including loss of important culture and traditional rights.
The suit asks for declaratory judgment to establish that the two men have a legal right to exercise and practice raising and fighting roosters as part of their culture.
Cockfighting was practiced by Native Hawaiians in the past, both as a sport and as a gambling activity. According to David Malo's "Hawaiian Antiquities," cock-fighting, or haka moa, "was a very fashionable sport with the alii."
State laws prohibit the activity both because of the gambling that is associated with cockfights and as cruelty to animals since the fighting roosters are equipped with steel spurs or gaffs with which they kill their opponent.
Capt. Gerald Matsunaga of the Maui Police Department's Vice Division, who has a unit that handles cockfighting and gambling, said the claim of Hawaiian rights has not been raised in the past when police arrest those involved in cockfighting, but he has heard discussions about it.
"They haven't told us, it's our cultural rights," Matsunaga said.
The suit says Kahaikupuna has Native Hawaiian rights concerning lands in Waikapu and Kohala, Hawaii, and Ponce has Native Hawaiian rights for land in Kula.
According to the documents filed in 2nd Circuit Court, the two men are being represented by West Maui attorney James Richard McCarty.
McCarty declined to comment on the suit and his clients.
Copyright © 2003 — The Maui News
Prior to reading this article, I never thought much of cockfighting. I was very disappointed to read this article because it appears to me as though these cockfight supporters are using the claim of Hawaiian rights to further their cause.
While I won't attempt to invalidate the two men's source of historical information as provided from the book, Hawaiian Antiquities, written by David Malo, 19th century Hawaiian historian; I will say that the men who are claiming their native rights are being violated are not very familiar with Hawaiian Kingdom history.
Immediately after reading the article, I began writing a letter to the editor in response to this article. It reads as follows:
I was surprised to read in the 06/10/04, edition of the Maui News, the article "Two claim Hawaiian right to cockfighting." While David Malo was cited as a source of information suggesting that cockfighting was practiced for sport and gambling, the Hawaiian Kingdom Penal Code which continued to be in force long after Malo's death in 1853 forbade cruelty to animals and gaming.
By viewing the Penal Code online at http://www.hawaiiankingdom.org/penalcode/index.shtml, everyone can see that in Chapter XXIV (24) titled Cruelty to Animals, it reads, "Whoever shall cruelly beat, torment, or inflict suffering upon any horse, ox, mule or other animal belonging to another; shall be punished by imprisonment at hard labor not more than three months, or by fine..." Chapter XXXIX (39) titled Gaming clearly made gambling a crime punishable by fine or imprisonment at hard labor, in certain instances not less than 60 days.
These historical laws of the Hawaiian Kingdom lead me to believe that it would be inaccurate to claim that state and county laws alone prevented anyone from raising fighting roosters in Hawai’i. It is clear the so-called tradition of gambling on fighting roosters was abandoned well over 110 years ago and was considered to be a punishable offense. Save money, do not gamble on this suit.
While it may appear that aboriginal Hawaiians may have participated in cockfighting at some earlier point of time in Hawaiian history, the laws of the 19th century Hawaiian Kingdom, as written into the Penal Code prohibited cruelty to animals and gambling. In cockfighting, roosters are killed and money is exchanged based on winning and losing bets. It's clear that activities, such as cockfighting, had to have been considered and became unlawful during the Hawaiian Kingdom. If it had previously been a Hawaiian tradition, it was long abandoned before the overthrow.
Derek Kauanoe
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