Reviving culture at Chamorro and Carolinian Identity Conference

The CNMI continuous its work on cultural revival through this year’s Chamorro and Carolinian Identity Conference set tomorrow, Sept. 26, at the Napu Room of the Pacific Islands Club Saipan.

This is the third of the annual identity conferences the Indigenous Affairs Office and the Carolinian Affairs Office have jointly organized, with the Governor’s Office, the CNMI Department of Community and Cultural Affairs, the Chamorro Carolinian Language Policy Commission, and the Commonwealth Council for Arts and Culture.

The event builds on last year’s conference, themed “Developing the Strategy for the Revival of our Identity,” where stakeholders identified elements on what needs to be done for the indigenous people, as well as what needs to be done to preserve local culture, language and identity.

IAO resident director Roman Tudela, Jr. stresses the significance of holding the conference in preserving cultural identity.

“This annual identity conference is important because we are all witnessing the absence of our culture, really,” Tudela said. “We see our language dying out. I know we’re doing a lot of cultural showcasing, but I think that we still need to do more.”

The annual conference started in 2017 where cultural stakeholders touched on issues on how actions of culture could be promoted. NGOs and government departments with a mission to promote and preserve the local culture were invited to the conference.

“We did a working conference, a working group to really zero in our culture, on what we need to do in every aspect of revival,” Tudela said. “In the first conference, we focused in and established elements in our culture that we need to focus and touch on. We identified eighteen elements and structured them.”

These elements include language; cultural ceremonies; architecture and monuments; beliefs and respectfulness; transportation; health and healing; practices when of age; traditional materials; decorations; food processing; visual and performing arts; games and play things; fishing, land hunting, and farming practices and materials; fighting and weapons; cultural tours; teaching/learning, appreciating; hands-on experiences; and seasonal activities.

For this year’s conference, IAO will be focusing on six of these elements—language, cultural ceremonies, respect and beliefs, health and healing, transportation, and food processing.

On the other hand, through the Administration for Native American Grants, the CAO was able to accomplish the essential elements they highlighted in last year’s conference that are essential to the preservation, promotion, and perpetuation of the local culture. For the conference, CAO will be speaking about the challenges that they faced, and that the office needs to work on.

These include the teaching of the local language to the youth; the making of mwáár by the locals; the investment of canoe building classes to promote awareness amongst the youth and tourists; bead making and utt (canoe)-building classes; the promotion of music in schools; the harvesting and preparation of food, fish, and plants; the conduct of arts and crafts classes; classes on coconut oil making and other products made from the coconut tree and fruits; and classes on weaving basic products like baskets.

For more information about the Chamorro and Carolinian Identity Conference, contact the Indigenous Affairs Office at 664-2664 or the Carolinian Affairs Office at 234-6385.