Tu'los Mo'na Lahi-hu


My 19 month old Makåhna, admiring the såkman model that is part of the Hinanao-ta Exhibit at the Guam Museum.

I love bringing people into this part of the exhibit, where we can see the features of Chamoru life at the time of contact with Europeans. Their religion and culture. Their weapons and style of warfare. Their diet and architecture of their homes. And of course their navigation and seafaring abilities. 
 
This section is always tinged with some sadness though because of what awaits in the next gallery of the exhibit, the consequences of colonization, one of them being Chamorus losing this connection to the sea and the depth of knowledge to navigate the open ocean as their ancestors before them had done for millennia. 
 
But just as when I see my children playing near this model, hope is also on the horizon as well, if you look a little further. Chamorus have been learning from others in Micronesia for decades now about how to carve and how to navigate and the revival is underway in the Marianas and in the diaspora. 
 
When I see i lahi-hu standing before this canoe, I hope one day he or one of my other children will take up navigation and seafaring and help us reconnect to the ocean and to others in the region. 
 
I also hope one of them will take it up because I get seasick pretty easily…

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