European museums often contain collections filled with ancestral remains and cultural belongings stolen from peoples across the globe. These historical acts of dispossession are constantly being contested by local and indigenous communities. This work is often difficult however due to great distances between communities seeking the return of the items and the institutions that hold them.

For the past three years, Chamoru researchers Samantha Barnett and Andrew Gumataotao have worked on locating and learning the histories of Chamoru ancestral remains in European museums, while organizing efforts alongside the CNMI and Guam historic preservation offices to formally request their return home.

The remains of over forty indigenous CHamorus, along with numerous cultural belongings, are currently held in Berlin’s Ethnological Museum. In Spain, the National Museum of Anthropology holds 9 CHamoru and Carolinian ancestral remains, taken from Guam, Saipan, and Rota. How do we learn the stories of these ancestors, and fight for their return home?

On December 21, 2024 Sam and Andrew presented on the work that they've been doing in European collections from the Marianas as a HITA Talk at the Guam Museum titled, “Waves of Return: Chamoru Approaches to Repatriation in Museum Collections." Here is a modest video recording of the talk, which was attended by more than 60 community members.

The HITA in HITA Talks stands for Heritage-Ideas-Traditions-Arts and is free public educational lecture and workshop series offered by the Guam Museum and Guam Museum Foundation Program.

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Familan Cabesa, Bali Tres, Gualafon, Carisu, Samantha Marley Barnett is a PhD candidate in the Indigenous Politics program at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. She is a published author and editor, and was a 2024 literary arts delegate at the Festival of Pacific Arts. Samantha has served as a lead author in a project with the University of Guam Press to write elementary school social studies textbooks from a culturally rooted, Chamoru perspective, and is an editor for Guampedia. Samantha was recently awarded a research residency in the Oceania Collection at Berlin’s Ethnological Museum, and is currently working on repatriation efforts for Chamoru ancestral remains in Germany and Spain that were taken from the Marianas.

Familan Chobic and Mahetok, Andrew Gumataotao is a former East-West Fellow (2018-2020). He received his MA in Ethnomusicology at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa (2021). He has taught CHamoru language, culture and music in the Guam Public School System and at Guam’s CHamoru Immersion School, Chief Hurao Academy. Andrew has been conducting provenance research in Museum collections as well as initiating requests for restitution of ancestral remains in Berlin, Germany. He is currently employed at Georg-August Universität, Germany under the ERC (European Research Council) funded project entitled Sound Knowledge, Alternative Epistemologies of Music in the Western Pacific Island World.

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