<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=28O11Q_1GyCESaU00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=28O11Q_1GyCESaU00" width="717" height="500" ></figure>More than 3,000 CHamoru artifacts held in Hawaii for decades have arrived on Guam, and the public gets a first look Friday.The Guam Museum will hold a welcoming ceremony and blessing from noon to 2 p.m. Friday, Nov. 13, at the Guam Cultural Repository. Anyone can attend, but the viewing will take place in the repository’s research room, which holds about 30 people at a time. Curator Michael Bevacqua said staff expect a good crowd and will rotate visitors in and out.The shipment is the second wave of what the museum calls the rematriation of the Hornbostel Collection, its term for returning the pieces to the Marianas. Amateur archaeologist Hans Hornbostel gathered more than 10,000 pieces in the early 1920s, according to earlier reporting in The Guam Daily Post, and the Bishop Museum in Hawaii began sending them back in 2025. The first wave brought latte stones, burial adornments, sinahi, and rare decorated pottery. This one includes slingstones, fish hooks, and pottery.Staff cannot lay out everything. Bevacqua told the Post they will prepare a selection of slingstones, fish hooks, and pottery for people to view and photograph. A blessing is the only formal part of the program.Bevacqua and colleague Nicole Duenas got an early look while helping the Bishop Museum ethnology team with its final reporting. Each stone carries a number and has to be identified and sorted into trays. At one point, 500 of them sat on a table.“It kind of makes you feel weird, because one person primarily collected all of these,” Bevacqua said.Hornbostel left few details. Bevacqua said he did not identify many of the materials, and his field notes often say little more than where a piece came from. Still, the stones show variety. They differ in style and material, including clay, limestone, and basalt, and some are as large as a football. For most, the museum knows the village or the area within it, so staff can sort them into groups, such as stones from Hagåtña, Inalåhan, or Assan-Ma’ina. Researchers could then compare how slingstones were made in different places.Slingstones were weapons of war, Bevacqua said, and Spanish accounts describe the accuracy of CHamoru slingers and say a direct hit to the head could kill. They may have also been used in accuracy contests at large gatherings and, most likely, for hunting. Bevacqua said CHamoru slingstones are unique in the world of slinging because makers set carved stones in fire to harden them.A lone stone found on a jungle hike, he said, is interesting but does not give much sense of life, culture, or the people behind it. Hundreds of stones with different marks and carving styles change that.“These people meant business,” he said of what such a collection can convey. “They were like ready for war. They were deadly with their accuracy. It really can fill us with pride and, like, strength in that connection to the past.”Bevacqua hopes a third wave, mostly pottery, arrives next year. That would complete the return of the collection to the Marianas.Most of the pieces will go on display at the Guam Museum next month in an exhibit on the history of their taking and return. Bevacqua said the museum hopes to show a case of hundreds of slingstones with inventory numbers visible so visitors can match a stone to the place it came from. Friday’s event, he said, is not a formal presentation. The historical and cultural aspects will come in the exhibit.Duenas, the repository’s archaeological collections manager, and Melvin Won Pat-Borja, president of the Department of CHamoru Affairs, will attend. Organizers also invited politicians, but Bevacqua said he is most excited to see everyday community members there. People at past events, he said, have told him they never imagined something like this could happen in their lifetimes.For more information, email michael.bevacqua@dca.guam.gov or call 671-989-4455.</div></body>

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More than 3,000 CHamoru artifacts held in Hawaii for decades have arrived on Guam, and the public gets a first look Friday. The Guam Museum will hold a welcoming ceremony and blessing from noon to 2 p.m. Friday, Nov. 13, at the Guam Cultural Repository. Anyone can attend, but the viewing will take place in the repository’s research room, which holds about 30 people at a time. Curator Michael Bevacqua said staff expect a good crowd and will rotate visitors in and out.

Over 3,000 CHamoru artifacts return, public can view Friday

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More than 3,000 CHamoru artifacts held in Hawaii for decades have arrived on Guam, and the public gets a first look Friday. The Guam Museum will hold a wel

Over 3,000 CHamoru artifacts return, public can view Friday

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