By Walter Ulloa
For Variety
HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — A Guam-based cultural performing arts group and a Northern Mariana Islands practitioner traveled to Berlin in August to view ancestral artifacts and remains held in German museums, marking what organizers describe as an important step in addressing colonial legacies.
The Waves of Return workshop brought together members of Inetnon Gefpå’go and Frances Sablan, a cultural practitioner from the Northern Marianas, for a two-day visit to collections from their islands housed in European institutions.
Andrew Gumataotao and Samantha Barnett, both CHamoru researchers based in Berlin, organized the workshop in partnership with the European Research Council project Sound Knowledge at Georg-August University in Göttingen, Germany.
Gumataotao provided The Guam Daily Post with written reflections and statements from workshop participants and organizers.
“Out of more than 20 years of traveling abroad to promote our culture, we have never had an experience like this, being able to stand before our ancestral artifacts and remains so far from home, in Berlin, Germany, of all places,” Vince Reyes, director of Inetnon Gefpå’go, wrote in a statement. Reyes also works at the Guam Museum.
The group visited the Humboldt Forum, which houses one of Europe’s largest collections of Pacific artifacts acquired during the German colonial era. They also accessed storage facilities in Dahlem and the Museum für Naturkunde, where they viewed bird specimens from Guam and the Northern Marianas.
Among the specimens was the Chuguanguang, a flycatcher now extinct but preserved in cultural memory through song.
Sablan worked with museum staff to identify and name artifacts lacking proper documentation, including items taken from the islands by German Governor Fritz in 1903.
“Cha’ta manfugu yu annai lumålai yu gi hålom i primet na ‘vault,’ lao mås fugu yu gi halum I segundu na ‘vault,'” Sablan said in CHamoru in a written statement, which translates to: “I was overwhelmed with emotion when I chanted in the first vault, but even more so when I entered the second vault.”
She continued, “Manmañenti ham annai manhålom ham gi segundo na ‘vault.’ Ayu na en li’e I kalaberan I gue’la yan gue’lon-måmi yan I telang åding ni ma fa’tinas lånsa ni I lansaderu osino lånsadot.” In English: “We felt the spirits when we entered the second vault. There, we saw the skulls of our ancestors, the femurs that were fashioned into ancestral spears.”
Sablan told museum curators she plans to continue helping identify pieces in the collection. She said in her statement that she shared information about the items with Northern Marianas dictionary editors Dr. Elizabeth Rechebei and Manny Borja, as well as Herman Guerrero, a longtime board member for the Northern Marianas Museum and Humanities Council.
The delegation included youth from the Guam Museum’s Uritao Youth Leadership Academy and members of Inetnon Gefpå’go’s performing group.
“I never thought that I would be able to be here in Europe, especially for my culture,” said Jerome Camacho, a Uritao youth leader.
“I feel more connected with CHamoru culture. It feels like their soul never left,” said Dylan Materne, a dancer with the group.
Angelina Pangelinan, a dancer and archaeologist who participated in the workshop, raised questions about preservation and access in her written reflection.
“Due to colonization, access to these collections have become a limited privilege rather than an inheritance from generations before us,” Pangelinan wrote. She noted that natural fiber materials like wood and hibiscus fiber typically don’t survive in the archaeological record, but chemical treatment by European museums preserved them. This raises concerns about contamination and whether facilities back home could properly store such items if returned, she added.
Gumataotao said in an interview with The Guam Daily Post that the workshop explored broader meanings of restitution beyond returning physical objects.
“While the material restitution of belongings and ancestors is a very important conversation, it was our goal to explore other ways that we can continue to work and conceive of the meaning of return amid such injustices, both past and present,” Gumataotao stated in an article he provided to the Post.
He explained that participants were exposed to career paths in cultural preservation, museum studies and musicology.
“They have a right to return to such collections and histories, which is something that was the focus of this workshop,” Gumataotao wrote. “We, the descendants of our ancestors, who made such belongings that make up these precious collections, have a serious stake in crafting relationships with them.”
The workshop received support from the Micronesia Climate Change Alliance, Fanachu! Podcast and Tåhdong Marianas, along with contributions from community members in Guam and the Northern Marianas.
Dorothea Deterts, the Oceania curator at the Humboldt Forum, said in a written statement that the museum values such exchanges.
“It was a great honor and pleasure for us to welcome our guests from the Mariana Islands,” Deterts said. “We are very grateful to Auntie Frances for sharing her knowledge with us. We were also very impressed by the enthusiasm of the young people when encountering the cultural belongings from Oceania, especially from the Mariana Islands.”
Reyes said the Berlin visit came at the end of an extensive European tour promoting Marianas culture and heritage.
“What we experienced has left a profound impact on all who had the honor of paying respect to our ancestors so far from home,” Reyes said in the written statement.
