I Tinigi’ I Man-Aniti (The Writings of the Ancestors): Initial Interpretation of the Discoveries of Rock Art in the NMI By Genevieve S. Cabrera Cultural Historian putut6837@gmail.com
Abstract: For centuries, the Western world categorized the ancient Chamorro inhabitants of the Marianas Archipelago as a “prehistoric” people; one without a written history. This paper emphasizes that the ancient Chamorro, not unlike other ancient cultural groups the world over, did have a recorded history; a history documented in pictorial format. This pictorial approach, perhaps argued by some as not being cumulative in nature, is nonetheless a written account of key aspects of the ancient Chamorro life-way, most especially as it pertains to ancestor worship, which continues to be the fulcrum of the Chamorro identity. This discussion of the rock art also takes into account issues of site placement, media utilized, and stylistic differences by which we can begin to understand the iconography of these conveyances. Introduction In-depth field research of the rock art of the NMI (Northern Mariana Islands) began in 2005 for this author who had long since refused to believe that the inherent documentation of the ancient history of the Marianas Archipelago was nonexistent while other contemporaneous cultures the world over had their ancient history recorded with actual writing or writing symbolized through the depiction of images. Additionally, that the segments of ancient Chamorro history were considered, for the most part, inconsequential to the arrival of the first Europeans and categorized as prehistory centuries later, only added to the zeal with which the research was undertaken. Seven years of field surveys reinforce this author’s position that the images that were inscribed by ancient Chamorro hands on the walls of caves and rock shelters throughout the islands of Saipan, Tinian, and Rota, constitute a written record. Arguably, it is not a cumulative record, but it is a record nonetheless and one that expounds upon the dominant contentions of ancestor worship by which the ancient culture was governed. Moreover, these ancestral espousals once held by the Chamorro of old, still hold true in the cultural practices of the Chamorro today. It
Marianas History Conference 2012 ・ 89