Papalii Tusi meets Daling Caroline and Chamorro Joe

Dr. Failautusi Avegalio of the University of Hawaii College of Business Administration had been on island the past week to assist the NMC Business Center establish a collaborative bachelor’s degree program at the local college. Dr. Tusi, as he is endearingly called, was also guest at an islandwide Women’s Forum and other island functions.

Felicidad “Daling” Ogumorro is a former legislator for the CNMI, a business leader, and presently DYS’ Parent Program coordinator. Of Carolinian descent, she is vice-chair in the board of directors of the NMI Council for the Humanities. One of her colleagues on the board is Jose “Joe” Mesa of Luta, a former schoolteacher, and an ardent promoter of the Chamorro heritage from the island of Rota.

Dr. Tusi’s extensive consultancy work in the Pacific region reconciles the seemingly opposing perspectives of “Traditional Wisdom vs Western Knowledge” by creating a third perspective that incorporates and synthesizes the gifts of both. As such, he is a favored consultant “for paramount chiefs of Micronesia, Melanesian and Polynesia, traditional village councils, community organizations, governments, regional and national colleges and universities in the Pacific, financial institutions, multinational corporations and various local businesses.”

The NMICH board of directors opened its weekend annual Retreat this Friday with a visit from Dr. Tusi and hear the business management guru “think out loud” on boardmanship. What was billed as a two-hour reflection and dialogue on board productivity and effectiveness emerged as an occasion for royal Samoan gratitude connecting to vaunted Carolinian and Chamorro hospitality. Papalii Tusi met Daling Caroline and Chamorro Joe!

It appears that Dr. Tusi traces his heritage to two characters who figured prominently in the Samoan presence in the Northern Marianas during the German administration at the onset of the 20th century.

History buffs will recall that German marines tried to pacify its new Pacific territory of Samoa at the turn of the century. Some 300 dress soldiers tried to impose discipline on an unruly local population, only to be massacred by fierce local warriors who took exception to being told how to live their lives, and by foreign carpetbaggers, no less! In an effort to quell the Samoan unrest and stop the consequent indiscriminate and cruel German naval bombardment of Samoan villages in 1905, a truce was signed resulting in a group of Samoan warriors and leaders being expelled from their own island and exiled to Saipan. The group lived among the local Carolinian residents in Tanapag.

When World War I broke out, Imperial Japan assumed responsibility for German territories in the Pacific. The Samoan exiles, prior to their repatriation to their land of origin in 1915, were held back to be trained by the Japanese to become possible liaison and intelligence conduit to Japanese designs in the region. In a clandestine operation, the exiles on Saipan undertook an escape to Guam by crafting their own canoe. The fateful attempt in a conveyance that would have easily carried almost a dozen sailors ended up with a sole navigator to maximize the likelihood of success.

The leader of the group who settled in Tanapag was the great royal orator Lauaki Namulauulu, of the village of Safotulafai, Savaii, presently, in independent Samoa. He is Dr. Tusi’s ancestor. The young man chosen to undertake the escape venture from Tanapag to Guam was Iiga Pisa. He, too, is royal (Alii) Papalii Tusi’s relation!

Iiga Pisa encountered difficulties in navigating to Guam under the watchful eye of the Japanese administration. He hid in the “goat island” of Aguiguan off Tinian on his way south after noticing the active search for his whereabouts being done by the authorities. After literally crashing into Rota where local young people “found a giant on their shores,” Iiga Pisa was nursed back to health and hidden from the Japanese forces looking for him. When he finally made it to Guam, the feat was well recognized that a German cartographer named the Straits between Rota and Guam, the Iiga Pisa Straits!

In his travels to the CNMI, Dr. Tusi sought the families who knew of his ancestors both in Tanapag and Rota. Part of the Samoan weltanschauung (world view) is that spirits of ancestors will not rest easy if a debt of gratitude remains unsatisfied, and the rite of acknowledgement remains unconsummated.

Royal chiefs of Savaii, Samoa, and their families are contemplating on traveling to Saipan to recognize and acknowledge the acts of hospitality extended by the Carolinians of Tanapag, and the Chamorros of Rota to the exiled Samoans. Normal travel between Samoa and the NMI is infrequent, so a visit by a royal entourage to reestablish a previous connection would make a remarkable occurrence, not only as a media event, but as an affirmation of the Pacific cultural practices of gratitude and hospitality. Carolinian Daling and Chamorro Joe, and a host of others, are just too happy to oblige the Polynesian royalty in extending their kin’s’ hospitality!

MVA should take note. The Council for the Humanities is supportive of attempts to document oral narratives pertaining to the life and history of the Commonwealth, ancient and recent. Dr. Tusi had formally sought the Council’s assistance on aligning the gratitude and hospitality of the past with the spirit emaciated realities of the present. Though a reunion of the directly involved parties is no longer possible as the major characters have since passed away, the heirs and Papaalii Tusi yearn for the expression of the Pacific soul. In the non-literate dramaturgy of fireside dances, root crop ceremonies, storytelling into the night, and long melodious chants, the intangible yet real world of gratitude and hospitality seeks embodiment.

Saipan, the Carolinians’ “uninhabited land” of long ago, might just find itself a site of a ‘spirit’ happening where the long ago bonds between the ancestors of Papaalii Tusi, Daling Caroline and Chamorro Joe are once again recognized, and celebrated in the embodiment of their posterity. A few spirits may even actually and finally rest in peace!

(Strictly a personal view. Vergara writes a weekly column for the Saipan Tribune.)