Tumaiguini
2025
Volume VII Issue I
Upcoming Events
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(2)
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Ha’ånen Kasamiento Exhibition Guam Museum January 25 - April, 2025 9:00pm - 4:00pm
Weddings in Paradise Guam Museum January 25, 2025 9:00pm - 4:00pm Click here for more info!
7th Marianas History Conference
University of Guam August 29-31, 2025 Save the date and click here to explore submissions from the 6th Marianas History Conference!
Guampedia is a non-profit affiliate of the University of Guam with operations funded by the Government of Guam’s Tourism Attraction Fund. Instagram: @guampedia Facebook: Guampedia Phone: 671.734.0217 Email: guampedia@gmail.com Mailing Address: 303 University Drive UOG Station, House #3 Mangilao GU 96923
(1) Star chart found in Litekyan (RItidian) cave.Courtesy of Mike Carson. (2) Depiction of CHamoru/ Chamorros using nets to catch reef fish. Courtesy of J.A. Pellion/Guam Public Library System. (3) Mending of a fishing net. Courtesy of Micronesian Area Research Center (MARC)(4) Sinåhi found in Saipan. The sinåhi is shaped to mimic the crescent moon phase. Courtesy of Berlin Museum fur Volkerkunde in Germany/Judy Flores
The Cycle of i Pilan Living by the Lunar Calendar
The night sky plays a deeply important role throughout Oceania. Settlers within the Pacific would rely on the stars to navigate the oceans and the phases and cycles of the moon to keep track of countless details from weather patterns to fish spawning seasons. In the Marianas, the year was divided into 13 complete cycles of the moon to create a lunar calendar. This lunar calendar consists of the 13 pulans (moons): Tumaiguini, Maimo’, Umatålaf, Lumuhu, Makmamao, Mananaf, Semu, Tenhos, Lumåmlam, Fanguallo’, Sumongsong, Umayanggan,and Umagahaf. The development of this lunar calendar shows both the cyclic and predictable movement of nature as well as the acute awareness the CHamoru/Chamorro
people possessed in using the moon to identify these seasons year after year. Over the course of this calendar, the moons would signal a number of things such as the time to catch certain fish, when to begin planting certain crops, and even when to begin preparations for incoming typhoons. As we embark on this seventh volume of the Guampedia Newsletter, we are called to remember our past and center ourselves around the lunar calendar once again. Throughout this year, we will be publishing our newsletters in tandem with cycles of the moon, not only providing content relevant to the seasons we are living in now, but what these seasons would have meant to our ancestors that first called these islands home.