{"id":311647,"date":"2019-11-08T06:00:10","date_gmt":"2019-11-07T20:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=311647"},"modified":"2019-11-08T06:00:10","modified_gmt":"2019-11-07T20:00:10","slug":"1st-guma-higai-of-the-chamorro-village-is-unveiled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/1st-guma-higai-of-the-chamorro-village-is-unveiled\/","title":{"rendered":"1st Guma\u2019 Higai of the Chamorro Village is unveiled"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_311649\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-311649\" style=\"width: 786px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/chamorro-village-pix.jpg\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-311649\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">CNMI Master of Arts and Culture Eusebio Borja, with his family, pose in front of the Guma\u2019 Higai, a thatched traditional Chamorro hut that they built at the Civic Center in Susupe. (Iva Maurin)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The vision of recreating a Chamorro village is off to a good start with a ribbon-cutting ceremony yesterday for a thatched traditional Chamorro hut called a \u201cGuma\u2019 Higai\u201d at the Civic Center in Susupe.<\/p>\n<p>CNMI master of arts and culture Eusebio Borja built the Guma\u2019 Higai with his family. They started building last Aug. 15, and had to go through two storms before the hut was finished.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am very happy to do this for the community to show the community that this is what we were using traditionally,\u201d Borja said. <\/p>\n<p>Borja, along with his family, built the hut by hand, using organic materials.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe all did this by hand. It\u2019s hard, particularly during the rainy season, when it is hard to climb trees, and carry materials from the jungle, where it is slippery,\u201d Borja said. \u201cIt is not easy, but you don\u2019t feel tired because you see your progress, and now, people can see this kind of house.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Borja also said that he is trying to get inmates who are on probation or are doing community work to be involved with building more Guma\u2019 Higai.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThrough this, the community will realize that we are doing something that will promote our culture, and our family values,\u201d Borja said.<\/p>\n<p>Roman M. Tudela Jr., executive director of the Indigenous Affairs Office, and Isidoro T. Cabrera, president of the Inetnun \u00c5mut Yan Kutturan Natibu, presented a certificate of recognition to Borja and his family yesterday to memorialize the first Guma\u2019 Higai they built.<\/p>\n<p> \u201cThis is the traditional house, and it\u2019s important to showcase to our younger generation so that they know their history,\u201d Cabrera said. \u201cThis is going to be the first of many thatched houses that will be built one at a time. The next one will be coming up pretty soon.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The vision of recreating a Chamorro village is off to a good start with a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":309809,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[13187],"class_list":["post-311647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-chamorro-village"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}