Pohnpei cultural ceremony with Piper methysticum

This term the cultural ceremony was held in Paies, Kitti, up on the side of the mountain just to the southeast of the campus. I started off from the campus at roughly 15:30 with a few students. By 15:42 we were in lower Paies inbound St. Barnabas. The climb was slow and it was 16:02 by the time the students were gathered at Lepen's nahs. More detailed information on some of what follows is in the course text.

Jayleen, Sonya, Nagsia, Regina, and Francina

Soumas in place

Sakau comes in with the stems intact, they are cut in the nahs. Donovan and Frankie volunteer in along with the author to pound the sakau. Shirts are removed to show respect. 



We pound happily, the stone playing a tune. Or we should be pounding happily for our Soumas. 

Brady, Kanoa, Jaynard. Menindei on the far right.

Sonya, Junida.

Suzanne and Jayleen had the camera during the sakau pounding

Keidihd (koaidihd) is called, time to flip the sakau

Menindei

Four is the number of pounders. 

Nagsia

Wengweng using Hibiscus tiliaceus to wrap the sakau (Piper methysticum)







Soumas with his oarir (server)


Kanoa, Donovan

Austin and AJ




Kitti wekisang wehi teikan - sapw ni alem. Soakoahs, Uh, Noat, Moadoaloanhimw - sapw ni oapoang. Kitti kingdom is different in having five cups. Sokehs, U, Nett, Madolenihmw have four cups.


  1. Pwehl to Nahnmwarki or Soumas en kousapw
  2. Arehn sakau to Nahnken or Peliental (spelling not 
  3. Esil to Dauk
  4. Oapoang to Nahnalek (highest titled woman present)
  5. Sapw returns to Nahnmwarki who can then redirect to honor someone.


Jayleen Rensile is honored with oapoang, she will be our Nahnalek for the day. 16:25.


By 16:41 the ceremony is wrapped up and the students were released

The after session continues



Frankie was the last to leave, sometime after I did

Headed down the mountain. Note the new coral just visible in the distance. One student drove a four wheel drive all the way to the volleyball court behind the author.



Bishop Amando visited St. Barnabas for a confirmation ceremony


On campus 18:40 and sunset. I am reminded of fall term and a December ceremony are not a real option. Early dark precludes spending quality time with the family. To "nohpwei and run" is not the tradition, but the students often have no option. Evening rides, activities, mean they have to be back on campus by 17:00. 

16:45

16:46

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Plotting polar coordinates in Desmos and a vector addition demonstrator

Image
In an earlier post I noted that Desmos did not directly plot polar coordinates. Not only was I incorrect, but Desmos responded to my blog to correct me! Although I had at some point seen that one could define a function f(x)=3x+5 and then have Desmos calculate f(6), I had not absorbed how this might be used to plot polar coordinates. The above works beautifully . Realizing that I could effectively program Desmos, I applied this thinking to demonstrating how to add two vectors when given the magnitudes m and the direction angles theta. The graph calculates the i and j components for the two vectors and then adds the vectors, graphically displaying the result while also providing information on the magnitude and direction of the vector sum. m1 and theta1 are the magnitude and direction angle for one of the two vectors, m2 and theta2 are the magnitude and direction for the other vector. All four are dynamically interactive and can be changed. The diagram purports to illustra...
Read more

Traditional food dishes of Micronesia

Image
Clara, Jennette, and Joanie presented ground hard taro cooked in an umw, effectively a hot rock oven. Pohnpeian: rotama. Pingelapese: sero. Mwoakillese: rodma. Mortlockese: Amahd. Kosrae: rodoma. After cooking in an umw the rotama is pounded with the petiole of a palm frond. Rotama is made from hard or swamp taro, known as mwahng on Pohnpei, mweian on Pingalap, pula in Mortlockese, and pahsruhk on Kosrae. In traditional times on the outer islands the women had primary responsibility for tending the taro while the men handled fishing and climbing tasks. Joesen and Noeleen presented fermented breadfruit from the outer islands of Yap such as Woleai and Eauripik. The raw ingredients were actually brought in from Yap, Noeleen prepared the maare.  The leaf wrap is ti leaf - Cordyline fruticosa. Pauleen, Barnson, Trisha, Verginia, Con-ray, and Maylanda from Kitti, Pohnpei brought in mahi umw, koahpnoair koakihr, and uht sukusuk. Above is breadfruit umw, mahi umw, o...
Read more

Setting up a boxplot chart in Google Sheets with multiple boxplots on a single chart

Image
The  Google Statistics  add-on for Google Sheets can display multiple boxplots in a single chart. The key is the layout of the data. One column should be the variable by which the data is to be grouped, the other column should be the data to be box plotted. Set up the Statistics add-on with the data to be plotted as the variable, and the grouping column as the "by" variable. In this image I had deselected all but the boxplot option, the result was the appearance of the Moment, Standard errors, and Confidence intervals options. The default is apparently a 95% confidence interval for the mean. The result is multiple boxplots on a single chart with a common scale. The new tab that is created also quotes 95% confidence intervals for the mean. Note that as of 2018 the Google Statistics add-on cannot be found by search in the add-ons. In addition, as of May 2018 the add-on no longer verifies, possibly due to the add-on not having been updated since August 2017. One may ha...
Read more