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COMMONWEALTH OF 



THE NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS 



Statement of Jesus C. Borja 



June 1, 1995 



SEAFARING AND FISHING TRADITIONS IN THE NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS 



For three thousand years our people have lived in the middle 

 of the ocean, far out in the western Pacific. Every day we see, 

 hear and smell the ocean. At night we are refreshed by the winds 

 that sweep the wide Pacific. We are surrounded by the sea and it 

 is close at hand. Our ancestors shared the Pacific tradition of 

 high seas navigation, an art that has been so proudly revived 

 here in Hawaii through the voyages of the Hokule ' a and other sea- 

 going canoes . 



Chamorro tradition 



The very first Europeans to visit our islands marveled at 

 the Chamorro skill at sailing and fishing. On March 6, 1521, 

 Ferdinand Magellan in the Victoria made landfall in the Mari- 

 anas. Antonio Pigafetta, an Italian scholar aboard the Victoria , 

 recorded that: 



The pastime of the men and women of this place, 

 and their diversion, is to go with their little boats 

 to catch those fish which fly, with hooks made of fish- 

 bones . The pattern of their canoe . . . are like the 

 fusileres, but narrower. Some of them are black and 

 white, and others are red. On the opposite side to the 

 sail, they have a piece of wood, pointed above, with 

 poles across, which are in the water, in order to go 

 more securely under sail. . . . [T]hey are like dol- 



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