The upcoming lecture on ancient history this Saturday provides an opportunity for the indigenous people to get connected with their past. If this lecture accounts for pre-contact with outside civilization, it would be of great interest to the Chamorro people and how these people evolved as a food gathering, hunting, and herding society.
The sun, the sea, the land, and the heavens above were nature to these people. For instance, the ancient Charmorro viewed the sun as an essential element for growing food and as a clock to tell time. Life practices revolved around the moon’s cycle, and the Chamorro people did not follow the Western civilization’s 12-month calendar system.
This lecture series would be an opportunity to check what other researchers say about how the Chamorro people lived in ancient time, or we should learn new knowledge about the living capsule of history left undisturbed at the excavation site and the subject of the researchers' investigation. It is amazing how modern minds could tell the story of the past just by examining the artifacts left behind by our ancestors. Perhaps it is a thought that would eventually stick in the minds of the indigenous people-that our past has meaning and these researchers should be commended for making the case that the past is important for a people that existed on these islands and preserved these lands for the future generations of the indigenous people. To be an indigenous person of these islands, one must connect to his past, and the only place on this earth that you connect a Chamorro to their land are on these islands. No other place.
Francisco R. Agulto
Kannat Tabla, Saipan