The Origins Back in 1971, during the first church planning council ever held in Micronesia, we were just beginning to retool church programs to respond to the challenges of Vatican II. How were we going to assist church personnel in the renewal they need if they were ever to realize the mission of …
Post Type Archives: Articles
A Little Bit of Everything
“How often does the Micronesian Seminar meet?” my visitor asked me. I then proceeded to explain, as I had so many times before, that MicSem–as we casually refer to it–is an institute rather than a discussion group. Think of it as a research-educational institute, I told her, or a social-pastoral institute…or any almost any …
Let’s Hear It for Shame
The Shame Game I was giving the keynote presentation at a Pacific education conference when something I said drew a gasp from the audience. I had just said that a second grade teacher of mine had scolded me for habitually writing the number 7 backwards. She called me up to the board and …
The Revolution That Wouldn’t End
Tension seems inescapable these days. The strident voices of the news channel on TV are echoed in the argument around the dinner table that often ends with someone saying “There’s just no point talking about this any longer.” Guests sometimes receive the warning, delivered with eyes narrowed, that any talk about politics in this …
The Inflation of the Individual
Leave Me Free to Be Me “Who am I? What can I do?” are the perennial questions asked. Once upon a time the parents and the community answered: “You belong to us. Let us care for you and those questions will be answered in good time.” True to this response, the family and …
Be Careful Who You Call Heroes
“Heroes” is what the New York press has taken to calling them. They also go by the name of “New York’s finest.” They are the men and women in uniform who serve our city, our state, our nation. These uniformed heroes include police officers and firemen on the local level along with members of …
A Middle Term Needed
Deaths of Despair? What have I learned from living in a Pacific Island society all these years? Many things, I can proudly report: for instance, the need to watch as well as listen if you want to pick up the real message, the critical role of personal support in everyone’s life, the great …
Trimming the Sails – The Church’s Response to Today’s Crisis
The Crisis Today The Catholic Church today, from the Vatican to the church-goer in the last pew, has a sense that something important has been lost. But why shouldn’t it? Every week another article appears documenting the loss of members–not just the young adults who have other interests, but many of the long-time …
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The Secrets of the Aged
“Life gets simpler as you get older,” I boldly declared to a friend who had celebrated almost as many birthdays as myself. That assertion drew a chuckle as he launched into a long recital of his ailments: arthritic joints, inability to climb two flights of stairs without getting winded, embarrassing memory loss, putdowns from …
Theological Principles
Theological Principles Incarnation Jesus is thought to have saved us by his death on the cross. Is his death really atonement to the Father for the sins of the world, as Anselm taught? If that’s the case, doesn’t that diminish the loving mercy of the Father? Why shouldn’t his taking on human form …
The Great Beyond
The Great Beyond The Conventional Path “Why can’t I find the God that you seem to have found?” the medical professor in Fiji asked me at the end of our three-hour conversation over dinner. He had been raised a Baptist until, at the age of 16, he gave up on his church, although …
Whatever Happened to the Church?
Whatever Happened to Our Church? The Clash of Sounds Music is our pathway to the past, they say. So let’s begin there. In 1960, even as Rock-n-Roll was rapidly gaining popularity, much of the music of the era recalled a mythical past: the days of black gospel music, cowboys longing to get back to see …
Chamoru Cultural Assimilation – Collapse or Continuity?
Chamoru Cultural Assimilation: Collapse or Continuity? Introduction The arrival of a half dozen Spanish Jesuit missionaries and a small band of lay volunteers in 1668 marked the beginning of the first intense contact between the Chamoru people of the Mariana Islands and Spain. Spanish ships had been visiting the islands for a century …
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Where Have They All Gone? Population Loss in Micronesia
Where have all the workers gone? That was the question that seemed to rank as one of the paramount concerns at the recent Micronesian Islands Forum meeting, held here on Guam in early June 2024. Where have they all gone? is the refrain commonly sung in the region these days. Everyone is complaining about …
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Christianity in Oceania
Christianity in Oceania Today about two out of three inhabitants of Oceania–which includes the more secularized and diverse Australia and New Zealand, as well as Fiji with its large Hindu population–call themselves Christians. This 65 percent is high when compared with other parts of the world in which Christianity has been an heirloom for a …
Human Dignity in the Pacific
What is Human Dignity? Dignity, and the respect that accompanies it, has always been easily bestowed on certain fortunate individuals. After all, it is normal to show respect for persons who have title, position, or recognized ability. We know story after story of such people being treated with honor, feted, crowned, and even apotheosized. …
Survey of FSM Migrants to the US Including Guam and CNMI
Survey of FSM Migrants
Good Intentions, Good Enough?
Observations on the Sociocultural Aspects of Health Care Delivery in Micronesia Joseph A. Flear, MD, Medical Graduate Support Program, Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia April 1997 Introduction This paper considers some of the problems that arise when a western country tries to develop a health care system for a developing county for which it is responsible. The author …
The FSM Education Sector and the Compact
Recent History of the Education Sector in the FSM Beginnings The earliest formal education in what is now known as the FSM began in the mid-19th century when Protestant missionaries opened mission schools on Pohnpei and Kosrae. Soon the Christian school became a regular fixture in the Mortlocks and Chuuk as well, as Protestant …
Mission in the Marianas, In I Estoria-ta: Guam, the Marianas and Chamorro Culture
The Mission in the Marianas The islands that later came to be known as the Marianas were the first that Magellan encountered during his historic voyage across the Pacific in 1521. During a brief layover at Guam in March of that year, Magellan and his half-starved crew welcomed dozens of islanders on their three …
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The Chamorro Village After Resettlement: The New and the Old
The-Chamorro-Village-after-Resettlement-The-New-and-the-Old
Deep in the Bloodstream: Historical Ties of the Marianas with the Philippines
This article is a review of the close sociocultural relationship between the Philippines and the Marianas Islands from earliest settlement to the present day. Whether this relationship is openly acknowledged or not, it has had significant genetic and other impacts on the much smaller population of the Marianas, as the material summarized here suggests. …
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Review of Drug and Alcohol Use Over Time: Federated States of Micronesia 1997-2012
Review of Drug and Alcohol Use Over Time–Federated States of Micronesia 1997-2012
Survey of Suicide Over the Last Half-Century: Update on Suicide in FSM
A-Survey-of-Suicide-Over-the-Last-Half-Century-Update-on-Suicide-in-FSM
Severe Mental Illness in the Federated States of Micronesia: 25 Year Follow-Up of Mental Illness Survey
Contents Introduction p. 2 – Aims p. 2 – Methods p. 3 – Original Data Findings in Survey p. 5 – Survival p. 7 – Drugs p. 8 – Making Sense of the Drug Use Data p. 9 – Medical Treatment References p. 11 References Aims The general purpose …
National College with a Global Mission
A National College with a Global Mission The main campus of FSM’s national college is nestled in the foothills of Pohnpei, not far from the more elevated heights in the interior of the island. Even as community colleges go, it’s a small campus of less than eighty acres. But then, too, so is the …
The Open Ocean: The Future of Foreign Aid in the Pacific
The Caribbean is not the Pacific, as economists and foreign policy analysts might do well to remind themselves. Pacific Island nations, even in the best of circumstances, are barely economically viable. In 2012, for instance, while all Pacific Island nations were able to support their government services, none with the exception of Fiji could …
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The Early Spanish Period in the Marianas, 1668-1698: Eight Theses
The Early Spanish Period in the Marianas, 1668-1698: Eight Theses [“The Early Spanish Period in the Marianas, 1668-1698: Eight Theses.” San Vitores Theological Review, Vol 1, No 1 (Dec 2014), 1-16. (http://sanvitoresinstitute.com/journal.html)] Introduction The Spanish entry into the Marianas in the late 1600s marked the beginning of one era–that of intense Western contact in the …
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Resources on Micronesia
Resources on Micronesia
Pathway across the Pacific–and More
A Path Across the Pacific–and More Everyone by this time surely agrees that the Pacific, however much it may have been eclipsed by events in the Middle East over the past decade or two, is of major strategic value for the US. It will only become more important in the future, we can be …
The Case of Micronesia
The Case of Micronesia Francis X. Hezel, S.J. [“The Case of Micronesia.” In Just Sustainability: Ecology, Technology, and Resource Extraction, ed by Peppard, Christiana Z. and Andrea Vicini, S.J. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2015), pp 20-22] Micronesia (Republic of Palau, Republic of the Marshall Islands, and Federated States of Micronesia [FSM]) has a cumulative land …
Continuing the Conversation
The Case for More Than “Deconstruction” in Micronesia Introduction Some months ago I picked up a book that purported to offer a new and challenging view of education in Micronesia. The book, Disassembling and Decolonizing School in the Pacific by David Kupferman [2013], was much less a view of what education in …
Suicide in FSM: A New Direction
Suicide, which has been the main cause of death among young males for some years, has been a real although sometimes unacknowledged threat to the Micronesian population for the past four decades. This problem area, one that the author and others have been researching and reporting on for forty years, appears to have taken …
Micronesians on the Move: Eastward and Upward Bound
Micronesians on the Move – Eastward and Upward Bound
Christianity in Micronesia: The Interplay between Church and Culture
Christianity in Micronesia (for Edinburgh Companions Encyclopedia of Christianity) The Advent of Christianity In June 1668, six Spanish Jesuits along with a group of some 30 lay helpers landed on Guam to begin evangelizing the people of the Mariana Islands. Guam is the largest of the numerous islands scattered throughout the western Pacific north of …
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Pacific Island Nations: How Viable Are Their Economies?
Pacific Island Economies EWC PIP 7
Religion in the Marshall Islands
The Marshall Islands, composed of two chains of coral atolls running generally north-south, are located in the western Pacific just above the equator. Formerly governed by Germany, Japan and the United States, the Marshalls are an independent nation as of 1986 and have a population of about 55,000. Historical Developments The seafarers who settled the …
Christianity and Violence in the Pacific
The First Missionary Encounter In 1668 the first missionary attempt in the Pacific Islands occurred when six Spanish Jesuit missionaries under the leadership of Fr. Diego Luis de San Vitores reached Guam. That island had become an occasional stopover for the galleons on their westward course across the Pacific en route to the Philippines. San …
Health in Micronesia through the Years
Micronesia is an elastic term as it is used for the islands in the Western Pacific just north of the equator. In this presentation we will be using the term to refer principally to the Caroline Islands (comprising what is now the Republic of Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia), the Marshall Islands, and …
Micronesia’s Hanging Spree
Thomas, a 19 year old high school dropout, bounded down the path away from his house, his face flushed with anger and shame. He had just scuffled with his older brother in a quarrel that arose over some silly little matter. In the heat of his anger at his brother, he had hurled a metal …
Cultural Patterns in Trukese Sucide
Truk, an island group with a population of 40,000 and situated in the geographical center of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, has been experiencing what may be called an epidemic of suicide in recent years. Suicide in Micronesia first began to attract attention in 1976 following a sharp increase in the number of …
Truk Suicide Epidemic and Social Change
Introduction One evening a nine-year old boy who had been watching television in a neighbor's house returned home only long enough to fetch a rope with which to hang himself. The boy, whose body was found two days later, was reportedly afraid that his father would spank him for remaining out so late. A week …
Suicide in the Micronesian Family
Introduction For more than a decade a few of us have been keeping a constant but helpless watch as the suicide rates in Micronesia have risen to what appear to be unprecedented heights. We have tried to identify all suicides in the area since 1960, gathered from a variety of sources case data on the …
What Can We Do to Prevent Suicide?
Someone once asked me why, if I have spent the last twelve years studying and writing about suicide in Micronesia, I don't make some recommendations on how to prevent suicide. I replied that I didn't believe in dealing with problems that way — writing out prescriptions like a doctor and then running off to see …
Suicide on Guam: Putting It in Historical Perspective
The death of an adolescent is always tragic, but a self-inflicted one is especially so. We lament that a young life was extinguished before it could realize its potential. The tragedy is intensified by the realization that the young suicide victim chose death over life. His death was most often preventable. If only we had …
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The Anthropologist and Social Problems in Micronesia
Introduction We have witnessed the end of an era in Micronesian anthropological research, as I am sure you are aware. The day of the study of traditional kinship and land tenure systems to obtain baseline cultural data has well nigh passed, and anthropologists are now turning their attention to other facets of the culture. And …
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The Effects of Modernization on Three Areas of Island Life
A WORD ON DEVELOPMENT When we use the word development we imply a process or movement, presumably forward, upward or generally toward something better than what was. But this immediately raises all sorts of questions. Take the case of the man in the village who has spent the day fishing. Today, in many parts of …
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Spirit Possession in Chuuk: A Socio-Cultural Interpretation
Introduction Spirit possession seems to be an unusually common phenomenon throughout the lower latitudes of the globe. Many of the cultural areas in southern and southeast Asia–parts of India, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines, for example–report frequent occurrences of possession [Bourguignon 1968; Bulatao 1982, 1986; Suwanlert 1972; Teoh and Tan 1976]. A similar …
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Possession and Trance in Chuuk
This article describes and analyzes some 40 case reports of contemporary spirit possession in Chuuk. The possession-trance complex of today shows continuity with distinct features of the now defunct status of the medium (waanaanu): trance, calling the spirits of deceased kin, and spirits descending and addressing the assembled kinfolk through the changed voice of the …
Distribution of Spirit Possession and Trance in Micronesia
This article is a regional descriptive survey, including both the extant literature and contemporary interviews. Analysis of the data is left to a later study. Possession belief combined with trance behavior is the overwhelming pattern from the earliest recordings by the Spanish to contemporary interviews by the authors. The Marianas are the noteworthy exception with …
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American Anthropology’s Contribution to Social Problems Research in Micronesia
The Study of Social Problems By the early 1970s, after a decade of accelerated development initiated during the Kennedy Administration, Micronesia found itself partitioned into "two worlds," as Mason pointed out in his seminal article (Mason 1971). There was the world of the outer islands, easily recognizable to anthropologists of an earlier era but increasingly …
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Catholic Missions in the Carolines and Marshall Islands
Just about 20 years ago the Jesuits of the New York Province were entrusted with the care of a mission field that could claim as rich and varied a history as that of any other in the Pacific. That history has never been written, and this paper is not an attempt to do so. Rather, …
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Self-support of Programs and Institutions of the Catholic Church
Mission schools, while they are not the only Church institutions in the vicariate, are certainly the most prominent. Practically all the Sisters on the mission and over one-fourth of the Jesuits are engaged full-time in the staffing of the mission's 12 elementary schools and three high schools. Approximately half of the funds disbursed by the …
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Spanish Capuchins in the Carolines
Some fifty years earlier, a French Picpus. Fr. Desire Maigret — later to become the Bishop of Honolulu — sailed to Ponape with a companion who died upon arrival. Maigret remained on the island barely six months before returning to the more fertile fields of Polynesia and was never replaced with a successor. Some years …
Indigenization as a Missionary Goal in the Caroline-Marshall Islands
Christian missions have long been a controversial force in the colonial history of Oceania. To some observers, the missionary is the very personification of that spirit of cultural imperialism which has succeeded in wreaking its mindless changes on unsuspecting naive peoples and in making of their islands cultural wastelands. The very word "missionary" often conjures …
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Jesuit Martyrs in Micronesia
The Jesuit mission in the Mariana Islands was the first in Oceania; it soon also proved to be one of the bloodiest. On 15 June 1668, Diego Luis Sanvitores and a band of five other Jesuits arrived on Guam, the southernmost and largest island in a cordillera of fifteen volcanic islands. With the missionaries came …
Historical Sketch of the Caroline-Marshall Mission of the New York Province
The small band of Jesuits under Fr. Diego Sanvitores who arrived at Guam in 1668 to begin the evangelization of the Mariana Island were the earliest missionaries to Oceania. In the thirty turbulent years that followed, eleven Jesuits were killed before peace was re-established in this first Pacific colony and mission. In the early part …
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Serving the Poor in Micronesia: One Approach
"An unexamined life is not worth living," Socrates is reputed to have said. But an unexamined life is precisely what too many of our island people are content to endure. Years ago at a major planning meeting for the diocese, we determined that one of our top priorities would be to assist our Micronesian people …
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When the Wind Blows, the Islands will Rock
The New Religious Groups "The Winds of Change" to which the title of Manfred Ernst's book refers have not been gentle zephyrs. With hurricane force they have lashed through the Island Pacific since the 1960s causing an enormous political and economic upheaval that has transformed the social landscape. These same winds have also carried to …
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The Church in Micronesia
Francis X. Hezel, S.J., has been working for 27 years in the Caroline and Marshall Islands, two of the archipelagos that make up Micronesia in the Western Pacific, just north of the equator. He is currently the superior of the Region of Micronesia, a mission dependent upon the New York Province of the Society of …
Congeries of Spirits
The Meaning of Religion What is meant by religion? The first systematic studies of the subject, written in the last century, sought to answer this question by identifying its origin. To do so they turned to "primitive" religions such as those found in the Pacific because they believed that these represented early stages in what …
Micronesian Seminar: 25 Years
"How often does the Micronesian Seminar meet?" my visitor asked me. I then proceeded to explain, as I had so many times before, that MicSem-as we casually refer to it-is an institute rather than a discussion group. Think of it as a research-educational institute, I told her, or a social-pastoral institute. "Well, if the Micronesian …
German Catholic Missions in Micronesia
Background As so often happened throughout the world, German missionaries followed a step behind their nation's gunboats and first colonial administrators into the islands. The German missionary effort in Micronesia was the direct consequence of German annexation of its colonial possessions in that area. Establishment of the German protectorate in the Marshall Islands in 1885 …
Stepping Stones to Somewhere Else
Throughout its five-hundred year history of dealings with the West, the tiny islands of Micronesia have been mostly way stations to other, more lucrative places. The Spanish ships that first happened on the islands in the sixteenth century were en route to the Spice Islands to bargain for the riches of the Orient. Following a …
Integration of Catholicism into Guam and its People
Guam has a distinctive culture that is the product of the long interplay between traditional Chamorro society and the historical influence of colonial Spain, with the multiple strands that made up this influence. Spanish mores, language, and law were important elements of this influence, while the religious faith of Spain was another. Yet, all this …
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Micronesian Emigration: The Brain Drain in Palau, Marshalls and the Federated States
The Problem? Over the past two decades, periodic warnings have been issued about the inevitability of a brain drain in Micronesia. (We will use the term Micronesia here to designate the three new island nations that until recently had been part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific: the Republic of Palau, the Republic of …
The Great Flight Northward: FSM Migration to Guam
Over the past two decades regular warning have been issued about the inevitability of a brain drain in Micronesia. As the imminence of such an event was being argued in scholarly and not so scholarly circles, one of us could confidently report in a paper written four years ago and only now being published that …
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A Second Look at FSM Migration to Guam
The Government of Guam maintains that there are now 8000 people from the Freely Associated States (FAS) on Guam. I estimate that there are 7000 from FSM and a hundred or two from Marshalls. When Palauans are added in, the GovGuam figures seem reasonable. Reaction against FSM migrants on Guam is running very high at …
New Trends in Micronesian Migration
Introduction The air routes that crisscross the Pacific have carried thousands of islanders away to more developed Pacific rim countries for some years now. Extensive out-migration has become a fact of life for many Pacific Island nations–Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, Cook Islands and Kiribati, to mention just a few. In recent years, the Federated States of …
The Cruel Dilemma: Money Economies in the Pacific
It has become commonplace for Pacific islanders to bemoan the seemingly out-of-control influence of 'outside forces' on their lives. In this penetrating analysis of those forces, Fr. Fran Hezel focuses our attention on how the introduction of capitalist money economies has affected Pacific life. He includes in this analysis everything from the chiefly system to …
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The Struggle for Justice…But Under Whose Terms?
Just about everyone, whatever one's creed and ethnic background, claims to support justice. How many would ever count themselves as opponents of justice, after all? Then why the strife? We may think that much of the controversy today, especially in what is commonly called the Third World, is over how to get there, what means …
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In Search of a Talking Point on Human Rights
Nothing can raise the emotional level of a conversation as quickly as a sudden shift to the subject of human rights. This is especially but not exclusively the case in Asia, where national leaders, tired of the carping criticism of the Western press, peevishly argue that human rights are a creation of the West. Cultures …
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Keeping The Information Flow Open: A Key Condition for Good Government in Micronesia
The Crusade for Good Governance Good governance has become a catchword today. It is commonly seen as the standard by which nations are measured in the balance, the axle on which any nation's wheel turns. It is as if the whole planet has used its collective force to mount a global campaign for good governance. …
Westernization of Truk: A Backward Glance
The story of Truk's emergence into contact with the western world is a strange one. Unlike the people of many another island group, the Trukese did not have to wait until the first passing ships that happened to stumble upon their islands introduced the wonders of the West to them. Instead, they themselves traveled hundreds …
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Early European Contact with the Western Carolines: 1525-1750
Although intesive contact between Europeans and islanders BEGAN only at the end of the 18th century with Capt. Henry Wilson's shipwreck off Palau, the Western Carolines boasts of a period of initial contact that is much earlier than that of most island groups in the Pacific. Sporadic and brief as it was, however, this early …
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The First European Visit to Truk
Translated from Coleccion de documentos ineditos (Madrid: 1887) III, 11-25, by Francis X, Hezel, Micronesian Seminar, Truk. Late in 1564 an expedition of four ships, under the command of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi left Mexico with the aim of establishing a Spanish settlement in the Philippines. Just 10 days out of port, the smallest of …
The Beginnings of Foreign Contact in Truk
Truk, lying in the centre of the Caroline Archipelago 500 miles south-east of Guam, is a cluster of small volcanic islands enclosed by a single barrier reef of about 130 miles circumference. The peaks of a number of its 13 major islands are easily visible from beyond the reef, and there are several navigable passes …
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Dumont d’Urville on Truk
Abstracted from J. Dumont d'Urville, Voyage au Pole sud et l'Oceanie sur les Corvettes l'Astrolabe et la Zelee… 1837-1840 (Paris: 1841-1846), Vol. V, 120-167, by Francis X. Hezel, Micronesian Seminar, Truk. Dumont D'Urville is generally considered the principal explorer of the Truk lagoon. Until his visit in 1838, on his second voyage around the world, …
A Yankee Trader in Yap: Crayton Philo Holcomb
In May 1867 Crayton Philo Holcomb, A middle-aged whaling captain with many a sea voyage behind him, took leave of his relatives in Granby, Connecticut, for the last time to follow his star. `There is a fortune or utter disappointment ahead and I do not often give up before I make a trial', he wrote …
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The Role of the Beachcombers in the Caroline Islands
Beachcombers are a much reviled class of men. Contemptuously dismissed as 'reprobates' or 'abandoned and degenerate characters', they have time and again been charged with infecting the islanders with whom they lived with a moral pestilence ultimately more destructive than the epidemics of smallpox and influenza that ravaged these populations. Yet as H. E. Maude …
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In the Wake of Foam and Blood
EDITOR 'S NOTE: The author introduces us to Lope Martin, the wily navigator, who altered the course of the San Lucas, a ship in Legaspi's expedition to the Philippines, and discovered the Marshalls. After being the first to return to New Spain via the northern route, he embarked again across the Pacific, but had his …
From Conversion to Conquest: The Early Spanish Mission in the Marianas
The Mariana Islands were the scene of the earliest and, according to almost all modern histories, the most infamous colonization effort of any European nation in Oceania. On 15 June 1668 a band of six Jesuits, led by Fr Diego Luis de Sanvitores, arrived at Guam, the largest and most populous of the Marianas, to …
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Journey of Faith: Blessed Diego of the Marianas
Diego Luis de San Vitores was born into a noble family in Burgos, a city in the northern part of Spain, in 1627. His father had been appointed the city treasurer and had received honors and titles from the king for his service; later he became one of the ministers of the Royal Treasury. Diego …
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From Conquest to Colonization: Spain in the Marianas 1690-1740
The Marianas, a chain of volcanic islands running north-south with Guam at the southern tip, were the first Pacific group colonized by a European nation. Magellan had touched there in 1521 on his celebrated voyage across the Pacific, and other expeditions flying the Spanish flag visited the group later in the 16th century. Although Legazpi …
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New Directions in Pacific History: A Practitioner’s Critical View
The field of Pacific history has come a long way since J.W. Davidson, its founder and for years its doyen, laid down its charter in 1955 and gave it academic respectability. Davidson made the then revolutionary proposal that the traditional perspective on European imperial history be reversed — that the interaction between the West and …
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Recolonizing Islands and Decolonizing History
Here we are, gathered together from all quarters of the Pacific and beyond, to take time to reflect on where Pacific history – and we who have some stake in it – are headed. Here we meet, in Guam: "where America's day begins", as the masthead of the local daily paper once proclaimed. Guam – …
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The Expensive Taste for Modernity: Caroline and Marshall Islands
The Caroline and Marshall Islands extend some 2500 miles across the western Pacific and encompass about a hundred inhabited islands. The inhabitants of these two archipelagoes, the geographical center of the area known since the mid-19th century as "Micronesia," are broken up into perhaps ten cultural-linguistic groups. (Anthropologists and linguists have never agreed completely on …
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Introduction to Francisco Garcia’s Life of Diego Luis de San Vitores
Francisco Garcia's book is of a genre that has no modern equivalent. Although its title would seem to stamp it as a biography, the book might better be described as part history, part hagiography, part travel adventure, and part devotional literature. It is easy to understand why Garcia's biography was translated into English piecemeal. Three …
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Chuuk: Caricature of an Island
Life in the Plastic Bubble At my first arrival in Chuuk, in late September 1963, I was blind to the place and the people. The island held little interest for me except insofar as it was the setting for Xavier High School, the Jesuit secondary school to which I was assigned for the next three …
The Man Who was Reputed to be King: David Dean O’Keefe
David Dean O'Keefe, a tall, burly Irishman with a temper to match his flaming hair, was a successful 19th century copra merchant based in Yap with a trade circle that encompassed western Micronesia. In the eyes of many Westerners, however, he was much more: he was reputed to be a king. Even before his death …
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In Search of the Social Roots of Mental Pathology in Micronesia
I was asked to address the relation of social change to mental health in Micronesia in this paper, but I admit to doing so with some serious misgivings. Let me then begin in true Micronesian fashion by apologizing in advance for the inadequacies of this short presentation. In the first place, I am neither a …
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Schizophrenia and Chronic Mental Illness in Micronesia: An Epidemiological Survey
A community-based epidemiological survey using key informants and facility records in case finding was undertaken to better understand the occurrence of severe mental illness in Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands. The goal of the survey was to identify all cases of schizophrenia and chronic psychosis, including affective …
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WHO Mental Health Research in Micronesia
This review of mental health research covers those parts of the former Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands that have since 1986 become independent nations: namely, the Federated States of Micronesia (including the four states of Yap, Chuuk, Pohnpei and Kosrae), the Republic of Palau, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Mental Health services …
Disease in Micronesia: A Historical Survey
Micronesia is an elastic term as it is used for the islands in the Western Pacific just north of the equator. In this article we will be using the term to refer principally to Palau, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). All these islands have a history of political association with …
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Micronesia’s Education for Self-Government: Frolicking in the Backyard?
Recent political education efforts in Micronesia are floating on a sea of radio tapes, filmstrips, posters and classroom lessons. These are largely the creation of the Education for Self-Government Program mounted by the Trust Territory Administration a year and a half ago. For all its output of materials, the ESG Program labors under serious handicaps. …
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Looking Ahead to the End of the Trusteeship, Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands
Nearly nine years have passed since the Congress of Micronesia (COM) began negotiations with the United States government on the future political status of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands after the termination of the present Trusteeship Agreement. In the meantime, the T.T.P.I. has acquired the distinction of being the only one of the …
The Changing Family in Chuuk: 1950-1990
The Ideal Chuukese Family The basic unit of Chuukese society has always been the eterenges, or lineage. The lineage is traced along female lines and consists of all the descendants of the oldest female–all the women and their children in the line. Ideally, the entire matrilineal group would reside together on a single estate and …
Changes in the Pohnpeian Family: 1950-1990
A Glimpse of the Model Pohnpeian Family It is not easy to provide a satisfying description of the Pohnpeian family. The Pohnpeian word peneinei, translated as "family", can be used of several types of kin groups and is even more slippery than the English word "family", which can be equally applied to parents and children …
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The Unmaking of the Micronesian Family
The Change to a Money Economy The most significant change occurring in these islands is the transition from subsistence to cash economy. In the post-war years and through the 1950s, most of the Micronesian people lived as they had always lived: from the resources of the land and sea. They ate breadfruit, taro, tapioca and …
A Sad Tale of Long Ago: How Magic Signs were Brought to a Far-off Island
Many, many years ago a group of brown-skinned people lived on a small island in the middle of a great sea. Their life, it is said, was a happy one. When they weren't defending themselves from attacks by people from the islands nearby or recovering from a terrible storm, they had plenty of time for …
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The School Industry
The School in Micronesia's largest industry today. It is responsible for the manufacture of trained young people — the most valuable of all commodities. At present it is processing fully one-third of the human resources in Micronesia, although it is unclear whether these products are being turned out for domestic consumption or for export. The …
Who Shall Own the Schools?
"Get an education, but don't change; go out into the larger world, but don't become a part of it." One can well imagine that this must be the sentiment of many a Micronesian parent as he sends his son or daughter off to school. He looks forward to the day when his child will return, …
Recent Theories of the Relationship between Education and Development
Granted that education has a certain value of its own, we must still ask ourselves what role we shall assign it in national development. Educational systems are expensive and must be weighed against other possible development projects in drawing up a list of priorities for developing countries. It is necessary, therefore, to establish clearly the …
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In Search of a Home: Colonial Education in Micronesia
The young Micronesian today is often heard to complain that "The System" is trying to create Micro-Americans: that is, white minds wrapped in brown skins. It is especially the education he has received that is the target of his criticism. Reflecting on his experience, he sees his foreign education as the basic cause of most …
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The Cultural Revolution of the 1960s in Micronesia
Introduction The Western world, especially Europe and the United States, were not the only societies undergoing upheaval during the celebrated youth revolution of the 1960s. The US-administered islands of the Pacific, an area loosely known as Micronesia, was at the brink of a sweeping transformation of its own during those years. The very social foundations …
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A Life at the Edge of the World
Preface What follows is a melange of personal experiences, but selected in such a way as to address the question of what overseas work has meant for me as a Jesuit and how this has played into a personal sense of what the international apostolate might mean in an everyman's theology today. This personal testimony …
Youth Drinking in Micronesia
Alcohol in Micronesia Alcoholic beverages are clearly a Western contribution to Micronesia. Prior to European contact, the peoples of Micronesia possessed no alcoholic beverages at all, not even tuba, although the drug substances of betelnut and kava were used on some islands. The earliest European visitors to the islands carried on shipboard wine and liquor, …
Is That the Best You Can Do? A Tale of Two Micronesian Economies
The Plea to Grow an Economy The lack of self-reliance in Micronesian economies is being decried today, as it has been for years. Leading the chorus is the U.S. Department of the Interior, with considerable support from the Congress and other elements in Washington. It is high time that those island nations, which once were …
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Ghosts of the Past…A Vision of the Future
To the tourists in the shiney Continental bus who have bounced their way over what has barely passed as a road for the last five miles, it is the pause that refreshes. An oasis of trimmed lawns and colorful hedges greets them as they come to a stop at the end of the winding entrance. …
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The Education Explosion in Chuuk
With its population of 36,000, Truk is the largest of the six districts in the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, an area administered since the end of World War II by the United States. Its estimated per capita income of about $300 a year also makes it the poorest. When, in the early 1960s …
In the Aftermath of the Education Expolosion
The survey of all Trukese high school graduates that we carried out in 1978 documented the enormous education explosion that was then taking place in Truk, the most populous of the four states in the Federated States of Micronesia.l The survey was conducted shortly after the onset of self-government just as annual U.S. subsidies were …
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Schools in Micronesia Prior to American Administration
Education is a term that can be construed as broadly as one chooses, and so some might see education in Micronesia as originating with the arrival of the first human settlers in the islands. There can be no such mistake about schools, however, for schools are unambiguously Western cultural imports, despite the enormous importance that …
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The Price of Education in Micronesia
Schools have long been decried as alien institutions imposed by colonial powers upon Pacific societies that had no need of formal education prior to Western contact. This was true in Micronesia, a sprawling array of archipelagoes north of the equator that have shared a common colonial history under four foreign powers within the past century. …
Education for What?
Note: This discussion, which was held on November 19, 1998, was attended by 27 participants. Damian Sohl, the Director of Education for Pohnpei State, introduced the topic. Introduction Nearly twenty-five years ago, in January 1974, Micronesian Seminar sponsored a week-long conference addressing this same question. But there is nothing surprising about that, for the purpose …
Statistics on Education in Micronesia
Statistics on Education in Micronesia Francis X. Hezel, SJ MicSem Articles | education The following lists of ranked schools are based on test results for as many years past as are available, using as many standardized tests as are given. When consulting these statistics, be cautious about equating test scores with the quality of a …
Thoughts on Community Colleges in Micronesia
Links with teacher training Historically there has always been a strong link in this area between community colleges and the training of teachers. Community colleges grew out of the teacher training institutes formed during the early years of the trusteeship to provide a little extra education for the men and women who were to be …
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The Creation of a Colony: The Paradox of Economic Aid to Micronesia
Two Varieties of Underdevelopment The basic problem of underdeveloped countries is often stated as that of capital formation. Those underdeveloped nations that have especially caught the public eye and have demanded the attention of economists-particularly the countries of Asia and Latin America-must struggle with the difficulty of accumulating enough capital to provide the investments that …
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Reflections on Micronesia’s Economy
Introduction There are two ways of looking at the main goal of economic development. It can mean: a "better life"–i.e., more abundant and efficient goods and services made available to as many people as possible–and this at any price! increased capability of the people to provide for themselves what they see as desirable in their …
Micronesia: Ten Years After
The 100,000 citizens of the Trust Territory of the Pacific are sprinkled throughout several lsland chains that range for 3,000 miles from east to west. They speak nine distinct languages besides the smattering of Spanish, German, and Japanese that some picked up under earlier colonial administrations. The strong regionalism in the Trust Territory that is …
The Micronesian Dilemma: How to Support Expensive Habits and Still Run the Household
The 120,000 citizens of the Trust Territory of the Pacific are sprinkled throughout several island chains that range for 3,000 miles from east to west. They speak nine distinct languages besides the smattering of Spanish, German, and Japanese that some picked up under earlier colonial administrations. The strong regionalism in the Trust Territory that is …
Taking the Long View
Not too long ago a gentleman visited these islands offering new eight million dollar college as a gift to the Micronesian people from the U.S. Congress. His offer met with an enthusiastic response almost everywhere. At last Micronesia would soon have its own four-year college! Not a conventional college, but one that would be specially …
The New Formula for Self-Reliance
I remember back in the 60s when Micronesians used to speak with real fervor of the need for self-reliance. It was generally assumed in those simpler days that a self-supporting island state was the ultimate goal and the touchstone of anything that went under the name of economic development. Not everyone was enthusiastic about full …
Yesterday’s Myths, Today’s Realities
Island Micronesia with its bleached sands, gentle Pacific rollers, and smiling people is everything that Somerset Maugham or Louis Becke might have led us to believe. Or so, at least, it appears to the bedazzled visitor who steps off the plane for the first time. But we long-time foreign residents of Micronesia know better. Each …
A Brief Economic History of Micronesia
PRE-COLONIAL TRADE Pre-contact island societies produced what they needed to feed, clothe and shelter themselves; otherwise they would not have survived. Needless to say, the lifestyle of these societies -or what we might call their "standard of living" — was largely determined by the resources available to them. Hence, tools were made of shell and …
How Much is Enough? US Aid and Free Association
Not long ago a prominent FSM leader requested $2 million from the US Congress to check a widely publicized epidemic of leprosy in the islands. Why not, officials may have thought. The equally well-publicized cholera epidemic that hit Truk two years ago brought in $1.7 million in special US funds for medical assistance and construction …
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Let’s Have the Meal Today Rather Than the Fishing Industry Tomorrow
Is there something that legislators, magistrates and other elected officials in Micronesia see that the rest of us are missing? This may explain why many of those charged with overseeing development funds under the Compact are busily appropriating this money for seawall, community houses, docks and other pork barrel projects as if these were still …
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Sustainable Human Development in the Federated States of Micronesia
This report was initiated by UNDP, since this organization intended to sponsor a situation analysis on the Federated States of Micronesia. The report was, in theory at least, to reflect close collaboration between UNDP and the government of FSM in producing this work. In fact, several FSM citizens were approached about writing this report, but …
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Examining the consequences of the Money Economy in the Pacific
The Federated States of Micronesia, like other Pacific islands today, faces the dilemma of modernization. It is essential that the terms of the dilemma be properly understood if the new Pacific nations are creatively to take advantage of the full range of choices that they are offered in today's world. Talk of globalization and neocolonialist …
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An Overview of the FSM Economy
The First Compact Period The onset of the implementation of the Compact of Free Association was a heady period for Micronesians. For eighteen years they had been negotiating for their new political status and making the transition to self-government. In 1986, when the new Compact took effect, citizens looked forward to a promising future. US …
Alcohol and Drug Use in the Federated States of Micronesia
An Assessment of the Problem with Implications for Prevention and Treatment by MICRONESIAN SEMINAR Pohnpei, FSM March, 1997 Preface A CULTURAL CAUTION In Western societies drug use is usually looked upon as an indication of deviance to a greater or less degree, depending on the type of drug. Pacific societies, however, have a long tradition …
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Alcohol and Drug Use in the Republic of the Marshall Islands
An Assessment of the Problem with Implications for Prevention and Treatment Preface: A CULTURAL CAUTION In Western societies drug use is usually looked upon as an indication of deviance to a greater or less degree, depending on the type of drug. Pacific societies, however, have a long tradition of drug use fully incorporated into the …
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