90 



COMMONWEALTH OF 

 THE NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS 



Statement of Jesus C. Borja 

 June 1, 1995 



trol the fish at each location. Our ancestors shared the Pa- 

 cific tradition of high seas navigation and sailed far from land 

 to harvest the bounty of distance fishing grounds. 



Micronesians feel toward their sea the way inhabitants 

 of continental nations feel toward their land. Micronesians 

 own the sea. They own it because they live in it. They own 

 it because until this century they have been the only people 

 to use it for purposes other than transit. They own it be- 

 cause they have sailed it for thousands of years. They own 

 it because they learned how to tame it and cope with its 

 awesome power before anyone else did. They own it because 

 they are totally dependent upon it for survival - both the 

 subsistence form of survival of days past and the more mate- 

 rialistic form of the uncertain future. They own it because 

 over the past centuries they have devised a system for de- 

 fining and allocating rights in the sea and for passing 

 those rights on from one generation to the next. 



The most distant submerged reefs traditionally owned by Microne- 

 sians are found in the Northern Mariana Islands. Among these 

 submerged peaks and reefs are many traditionally considered to be 

 the property of the people of the Marianas . 



M. Nakayama & F. Ramp, Micronesian Navigation, Island Em- 

 pires and Traditional Concepts of Ownership of the Sea (1974). 

 For example, about 175 miles west of Pagan are two reefs together 

 called "Fanupweiletal" traditionally owned by the inhabitants of 

 Anatahan. About 150 miles west of Anatahan is Pathfinder Reef 

 which, together with the reef to the north and the one to the 

 east, is called "Ochensoufanachik" and owned by the Soufanchik 

 clan. There are many reefs closer to land in the Marianas such 

 as "Ochopengek" east of Saipan and "Maenmetin" north of Saipan. 

 Id. at 90. 



Id. 

 Id. 



