by Sarah Miley

STAFF WRITER

An archeological project set for this summer aims to discover what life was really like at Iosepa — the abandoned Polynesian settlement just west of the Stansbury Mountains. Officials with the project hope to eventually map the original layout of the town and gain a better understanding of the lives of the people who lived there.

For 28 years, from 1889 to 1917, a Polynesian community survived at Iosepa in Skull Valley. It was made up of Hawaiian members of the LDS Church who responded to the church’s call for the faithful to gather in Zion (Utah) just before the turn of the century. Most of these settlers returned to Hawaii or other Polynesian island homes in 1917 when the church announced the building of a temple in Hawaii.

All that’s really left of Iosepa — the Hawaiian word for “Joseph” after Joseph F. Smith, who was a missionary in the Hawaiian Islands and later president of the church — is an old cemetery and a few visible foundations. While many people don’t know much about the community that once bloomed in the desert, one anthropology professor is hoping to change that.

Benjamin Pykles, assistant professor of anthropology at the State University of New York at Potsdam, said there are multiple reasons for the project, which he is spearheading.

“We want to understand the past and expand knowledge about life in Iosepa; help train and educate future generations of archeologists; and educate the public about archeology,” he said.

Pykles’ interest was first peaked about Iosepa while he was in a course as an undergrad at BYU and the abandoned settlement was mentioned in passing. He jotted it down in his notes and since then has been informally researching it, “always keeping it in the back of my mind,” he said.

When Pykles was hired in 2006 at Potsdam, he was asked to start an archeological project that students could participate. So he began talking with the landowner at Iosepa — the Ensign Group — and exploring the possibility of digging there.

Last summer, fieldwork on the project began.

“The big work last summer, which is crucial to the project, was we were able to re-establish the location of the town on the ground once again using old surveyors maps and original surveyors monuments placed in 1908,” Pykles said.

Ground-penetrating radar was used, which produced three-dimensional crude images of subsurface features that will aid the team in their work next summer. With the help of the Tooele County Surveyor’s Office, wooden stakes were also placed at the corners of about a dozen lots.

“The goal this summer is to resurvey the entire town so that every lot will be marked,” he said. “Ever since the town was abandoned and the last survivors passed away, nobody has really known where the town was on the landscape.”

The long-range plan for the project could include some sort of interpretive site, Pykles said, but whether that means installing street signs to mark the intersections or something else remains to be seen, and would depend on the landowners.

But the project is not without concerns, especially from the Polynesian community whose ancestors were a part of Iosepa.

Cory Hoopiiaina, current treasurer of the Iosepa Historical Association and former president of the association, said while some in the association have given this project their blessing, others are concerned about how human remains would be treated if encountered.

Hawaiians believe power remains in a person’s “iwi” — the Hawaiian word for bones — after they die.

“They may have buried family members right by their house because their spirit was still attached to their family, so they may very well dig up a bunch of bones from little babies or who knows,” Hoopiiaina said. “Do we have a right to stop it? No, not as long as he’s got permission of the landowners.”

Pykles said concerns over human remains have been brought to his attention, which he appreciates.

“There’s some evidence to suggest that native Hawaiians buried some deceased beneath floors of homes or at least close by their homes, and not in the cemetery,” he said, adding he doesn’t have any direct evidence of that happening at Iosepa.

Jace McQuivey, a Hawaiian and BYU law school graduate living in Hawaii, serves as the chair of the Oahu Island Burial Council. He said it is common in Hawaii for remains to be buried on family property, and even underneath family living quarters. This was done sometimes as a matter of convenience — to have the loved one near — and sometimes to avoid enemies getting ahold of bones. McQuivey said in Hawaiian tradition a powerful life force remains in bones, and if an enemy was able to get to those bones, they could wreak havoc against a family.

However, because of the presence of a cemetery in Iosepa, McQuivey said it’s unlikely human remains will be found underneath living quarters.

“Applying that to the Utah experience, I can’t imagine the individuals there held traditions strongly enough to bury dead under the home, but it’s possible,” McQuivey said.

He added if the archeological team does happen to come across burials, he hopes they will take the proper legal action and refer to how burial councils in Hawaii would approach a similar situation.

Pykles said if remains are found, they will abide by all of the laws and procedures associated with such a find.

He said another concern some have with the project is that the Hawaiian and Polynesian past and people wouldn’t be represented appropriately throughout the project.

“I am an outsider to that culture and community, and some have been concerned I didn’t have the cultural knowledge or awareness to understand what we would find and interpret,” Pykles said.

That concern, he said, is another reason why he is actively reaching out to Utah’s Polynesian community to be a part of the process.

“Public support is so important so that the people whose ancestors are buried there and who lived there, or even people who feel a connection to that land, are involved and feel like they’re benefiting from the work,” Pykles said.

Hoopiiaina — whose grandfather belonged to one of two families who remained at Iosepa after the majority of the town was vacated — said he personally would like to see the land developed by Polynesians.

Pykles added Iosepa is special and sacred and needs to be treated that way.

“We’re not out there to desecrate the land, or to harm the land or its people in any way,” he said. “It’s sacred and the project is an attempt to help us understand better those people.”

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