The Bishop Museum lent 83 burial objects to a Hawaiian group for one year, the group sealed them in a cave, and a federal judge jailed its leader until they came out

In 1905 David Forbes, a district judge, took 83 objects from a lava burial cave in Honokoa Gulch, Kawaihae, on Hawaiʻi Island. The Bishop Museum acquired them in 1907. On Saturday 26 February 2000 a museum vice president signed papers lending all 83 to Hui Mālama I Nā Kūpuna O Hawaiʻi Nei, represented by Edward Halealoha Ayau, for one year while repatriation claims were settled. Ayau's group put the objects back in the cave and sealed the entrance with masonry and rebar. Other claimants objected that the museum had handed the objects to one group of several. In May 2003 a NAGPRA review committee called it a flawed repatriation and said the objects should be retrieved. The Royal Hawaiian Academy of Traditional Arts and Abigail Kawānanakoa sued the museum and Hui Mālama. In 2005 U.S. District Judge David Ezra ordered the objects returned to the museum. On 27 December 2005 Ezra held Ayau and three other leaders in contempt for refusing to say where the objects were, and Ayau was jailed with no set term. He spent three weeks in federal detention, then was released to home confinement. By September 2006 the objects were back at the museum, and a 7 December 2006 settlement split the $330,000 recovery cost: $183,333.82 for the museum and $146,667.16 for Hui Mālama. In January 2007 all 83 were reported accounted for, with 14 claimants. I found no published final decision^†.