THE Northern Mariana Islands Museum of History and Culture will collect ancestral Chamorro remains currently housed in Palm Springs, California in November.
According to a media release, NMI Museum of History and Culture Director Leonard Leon was originally traveling to California to attend the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums Conference.
However, in September, he received a letter from the UC Riverside Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act program regarding ancestral remains stored in California. Leon began negotiations to return the remains to the CNMI.
The remains were originally unearthed from two sites on Saipan and one on Tinian. They were submitted to UC Riverside for radiocarbon analysis by the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s Archaeology Department in 1981.
Leon and the NMI museum have worked out an agreement with UC Riverside to allow for the repatriation of the human remains.
In a social media post on Saturday, Oct. 26, Leon said the NMI museum will conduct a repatriation ceremony on Nov. 16 in Riverside to honor and celebrate the return of the remains.
Chamorros and Carolinians currently living in the area are invited to participate in the ceremony.
For more information, send a message through the NMI Museum’s Facebook page.
Leon will escort the ancestral remains from California on Nov. 17. Once he arrives on Saipan on Nov. 19, Donald Mendiola, a local yo’amte, and cultural dance groups will conduct a brief ceremony to welcome the ancestral remains back to their homeland.
The remains will then be transferred to the NMI museum for storage.
Leon said the museum will explore options for reinterring the remains in their original islands. UC Riverside has contributed funds to support the planning of the reinterment.
