By Nestor Licanto
For Variety
HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — The ethical return of cultural artifacts from Hawaii’s Bishop Museum was one of the main topics of an informational hearing Tuesday by the Committee on Child Welfare, Youth Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women’s Affairs, Disability Services, the Arts, Culture, Historic Preservation, and Hagåtña Restoration, chaired by Sen. Shelly Calvo.
Thousands of cultural artifacts from Guam were transported to the Bishop Museum in the early 1900s, and Department of Chamorro Affairs Acting President Melvin Won Pat Borja testified that “the volume is significant, and so we don’t anticipate a full transfer for quite some time now.”
The Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum is located on Oahu and holds more than 25 million artifacts that embody the rich history and cultures of the Pacific.
Borja said since the removal of the items, there have been consistent efforts to have the artifacts repatriated to Guam.
In the interim, they are working closely with the Bishop Museum to advance some of the items to return to Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, he said.
Coincidentally, Borja advised that a shipment of latte stones had just arrived back in Guam on Tuesday. “Our latte comes from Urunao and Ypao, and there’s a set of latte that came from Luta,” Borja said.
Through research by the Guam and Bishop Museum teams, they learned that the latte was not officially ceded or given up by Guam, and as a result, “It provided us with an opportunity to have the latte returned ahead of the bulk of the collection.”
“They will hopefully clear the port and customs by (Wednesday) morning. We will be installing them in their temporary display right here behind the Guam Museum so that there is access for our community to see them, pay their respects, and make offerings,” Borja added.
He said the final plan is to put them on permanent display, along with the remains of ancestors, at the Nåftan Mañaina-ta when that shrine is completed.
Borja also provided a history of the artifacts commonly referred to as the Hans Hornbostel collection, which is a set of approximately 10,000 cultural artifacts that at one point also included human remains.
Hornbostel was a U.S. Marine who was stationed on Guam back in the early 1900s and was also an amateur archaeologist.
The artifacts he collected were removed from Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands in the 1920s and, with the help of the U.S. Navy, were transported to the Bishop Museum in Oahu, where a significant part of the collection remains.
“We were able to receive the human remains back in 2000, which are currently in our possession,” Borja told the committee.
“They were stored at the temporary repository building … across from the Hagåtña library but are actively being transferred into the Guam cultural repository as we integrate that facility and operation into the Department of Chamorro Affairs,” he said.
Of the remaining items in the collection, there are some that rightfully belong in the CNMI, and the Guam Museum has been working with its counterparts in the CNMI and the Bishop Museum to identify which items will return to the CNMI and which will come to Guam, Borja said.
