Two claim Hawaiian right to cockfighting


The Maui News has an article on cockfighting as a Hawaiian cultural right:

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.

Read the rest...

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

Posted: Thu - June 10, 2004 at 12:11 AM    
   
 
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Published On: Dec 27, 2005 10:15 PM
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