ETAK : an [un]traditional Micronesian Navigation
a teaser for the latest creative outcome of the MALI'E' performance research project by Dakota Camacho.
lålai ——————————-lålai
\ <————-> lålai
\ / \
——————-lålai \
| \
/ \
/ I hear a lålai brought me here ——- where?
when? ? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - …
| /
| /
Ti åpmam
Gualåfon Umayanggan
The Full Moon of February 2021
“In theory and practice, it works like this: first you steer towards the stars that mark the island of your destination. While doing so, you back sight your island of departure until you can no longer see it. At the same time, you calculate the rate at which a third island, off to the side, moves from beneath the stars where it sat when you left your island of departure, toward the stars under which it should sit if you were standing in the island of your destination.
Let me simplify: you get on your canoe and you follow the stars in the direction where lies your destination island. As your island of departure recedes from view, you pay attention to a third island, as it is said to move along another prescribed star course. David Lewis’ description makes it the easiest to understand: for the navigator, the canoe remains stationary and the islands zip by. “
Vince Diaz, 2011
“Voyaging for Anti-Colonial Recovery: Austronesian Seafaring, Archipelagic Rethinking, and the Re-mapping of Indigeneity “
My family taught me to plot our course to home through building beautiful relationships to spaces, places, and kin. Ináfa’maolek is the energy that flows from our cultural practices.
I endeavor to understand my relationship to being a good human by triangulating my relationship to the peoples, languages, cultural practices, and lands where I have experienced inágofli’e & ináguaiya.
this is an [un]traditional Micronesian navigation chant.
Etak
Cinematography - Futsum Tsegai
Editing - Futsum Tsegai
Sound Design - Dakota Camacho
Finiho' | words | - Dakota Camacho
“I Hinanao” - Tinige’ as si Dakota Camacho & si Jeremy N.C. Cepeda
MALI’E’
MALI’E’ is a cultural resurgence project engaging performance research as a methodology to explore indigenous worldviews and empower Matao communities to embody liberation with ancestral knowing.
The project draws from the traditional Matao practice of embodied, improvisatory, collective, singing where oral history and prophecy converge to reclaim the spiritual and political power of the oral historian.
As a vessel for ongoing knowledge development, MALI'E’ makes life through
| film |
| dance |
| sound design |
| outdoor ceremonial activation |
| performance |
| online events |
| and yet to be known forms.
Etåki si John?
I am looking for John (Anderson)… My great-great-great grandfather was a man named John Anderson.
He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He came to Guåhan, got drunk and overthrew the Spanish colonial government. He was charged with treason and punished by being left at sea on a raft at the mercy of the ancestors.
He survived, was pardoned and forgiven
(he was a white guy after all).
Then he settled here in Låguas and married my great-great-great grandmother Josepha and they had a son everyone called Che’ and that became my family name.
And you know I’m Indigenous so I’m all about the ancestors.
So I’m looking for John.
Praying on my ancestral land.
Praying on every land.
We can overthrow this colonial government and not be charged with treason.