Listening for Hinemlo, Sounds of Rice, and Healing in the Marianas By Andrew Gumataotao and Donald Mendiola Researcher, Georg-August Universität Göttingen; and Yo’åmti/Classroom Teacher PSS–CCLHS, Åmut Natibu Abstract: Medicinal practices of the Marianas have long persisted throughout generations however, due to overwhelming environmental transformations such as deforestation due to military activities and tensions between federal conservation efforts that are at odds with indigenous perspectives, both knowledge practices and the land itself are increasingly at risk more than ever before. Up until recently, little attention has been placed in terms of how sonic traces in chant and ceremony converge at the nexus between efforts to perpetuate traditional healing practices and protecting land as ancestor. Today, community members are increasingly placing more value on resurgences in ceremonial protocol grounded in Chamorro/CHamoru understandings and relationships to place in response to concurrent projects that are forcing the disappearance of limestone forests which are primary areas with which to make such medicines. Following the conference theme "Healing from the Wounds of History", this panel seeks to situate how modalities such as sound, chant and indigenous spiritualities are important for healing. Andrew Gumataotao will present his fieldwork experiences that began amid the dire dilemma during the Covid Pandemic while working towards how music and sound-based practices are crucial for healing in the Marianas. To listen to how healing contours can potentially sound like, this panel will listen attentively to the sonic traces of Lålai Få’i linking it to storied pasts and current initiatives to reconnect intimately to and further create stewardship land. In conversation with Saina Frances Manibusan Sablan, and Hohomlu’ Tun Donald Mendiola, we will endeavor to connect more broadly to the wider realm of medicine and healing, aiming to give critical commentary on healing practices in the Marianas both in the sonic and medicining materialities.
Presentation Recording