BC Cook
WHILE I drove through As Matuis and passed the basketball court, as I have a hundred times before, I noticed the spray painted “NORTH’ on the backboard. This might not be big deal except that “Norf Syd” is spray-painted on the bus stops and just about every other public surface above the Tanapag Mobil. More than mindless graffiti, this is a statement, a marking of territory much like a dog that urinates on objects it claims. And although we may not be fond of random spray paint, most can agree that it is a better means of expression than widespread urination. But what is the statement? What are the painters trying to tell us? “This is our territory, it is better than your territory, and we want you to stay out of it.” It is a combination of community pride and claim-staking as old as hunters and gatherers. So who is it directed to, the intended reader? The Souf Syd, of course. As islands go Saipan may be small but it is big enough to allow for different villages, or regions, to assume superiority over others on the same rock.
Inhabitants don’t only think of themselves in terms of northerners and southerners. Since the island was shoved up out of the ocean back in the mists of time and was stacked with a mountain ridge down the middle of it, people have thought in terms of territory (and people) on the west side and territory (and people) on the east side. When I first moved to Saipan I thought islanders were a little unreasonable in the way they referred to Kagman as “way over there” but now I find myself saying it. If I am headed to Garapan from Kagman I will say things like, “We should stop at Mobil for drinks before we head over the mountain,” as if we were about to cross the Himalayas. We might need to hire a Sherpa to carry our gear. I am sure that part of the success of Tun Goru rests in the fact that it is halfway between the villages, a handy stopping point to rest up before continuing the journey.
What does all of this mean? Are we naturally inclined to divide ourselves into factions, finding convenient borderlines separating “us” from “them” in a vast array of categories? The current leading theory of the fall of the Easter Island civilization is that the islanders began building those massive statues in an attempt to out-build other family factions on the island. In a suicidal match of one-upsmanship, they exhausted the islands resources to the point that they died off or relocated. Many statues were left along the roadsides or partially completed in the quarries. If we could ask them why they did it, they might respond, “North Easter Island rules!” They might talk about how, since there are more statues on this side of the mountains, it is clearly the better side. But we can’t ask them. Their pride and competition drove them to extinction a long time ago. Now the statues are monuments to their shortsighted arrogance. Hundreds of years from now, what will explorers find on Saipan? Broken-down bus stops proclaiming “Kagman rules!” or “Norf Syd!”?
BC Cook, PhD, taught history for thirty years and is a director and Pacific historian at Sealark Exploration (sealarkexploration.org). He currently lives in Hawaii.
