Carolinian Affairs Executive Assistant Angie Iginoef Mangarero said she will submit the names of the Carolinian chiefs to the planning committee.
“These are the people that represent different clans here in the CNMI,” she said, referring to the traditional Carolinian chiefs.
Although the Carolinian, or Refaluwasch, community no longer practices the traditional chief system, they still acknowledge their chiefs, she said.
She said Carolinian leaders, who are known by their clans, are still active whenever the Carolinians have a gathering.
“There’s a chief by clan but those we acknowledge nowadays are the chief by utt,” she said.
Initially, the planning committee wanted to include elected officials only in the memorial.
Mangarero said they have no more chiefs, but these chiefs still have siblings in the Carolinian community.
They have had five chiefs, including Aghurubw, who was buried on Managaha considered by Carolinians as sacred ground.
Mangarero said it was through the guidance of their traditional chiefs that brought the Carolinians from the island of Satawal in northern Yap to Saipan in 1815.
