Hawaiian customary land practice can override private paper title in court

Evidence

“Nansay’s argument,” declared the court, “places undue reliance upon Western understandings of property law that are not universally applicable in Hawai’i. Hawaiian custom and usage have always been a part of the laws of this state.” The court effectively threw a wrench into the development question at Kona. The Nansay project fizzled out. — Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations, 829

Categorization

• XREF: Direct counterpoint to the doctrine of discovery’s absolute private property logic in Johnson v. M’Intosh — Hawaiian courts recognized a coexisting customary title regime, which the Chapter 8 reading goals explicitly ask to bridge. — connects to: Native incommensurability claims and settler quantification cannot reconcile — Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations: Native Struggles for…, 593; US courts have stripped Indigenous land rights through adverse rulings — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations: How Building a…, 1199; Codifying unwritten customary law for a colonial state transformed it into rigid written law — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 255
• SEED: The contrast between the Nansay court honoring Hawaiian custom and the Pai family’s later eviction by the National Park Service frames an article on when courts honor Indigenous customary tenure and when federal agencies override it.

Broader Connections

• US courts have stripped Indigenous land rights through adverse rulings #complicates (0.75) — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 1199
• Codifying unwritten customary law for a colonial state transformed it into rigid written law #qualifies (0.75) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 255