JANUARY 10, 2010: KALABERA CAVE
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Kalabera Cave has evidence of human activity going back to AT LEAST 1,200 years B.C.
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It is my understanding that the name Kalabera comes from a Spanish word for skull. It was named after the formation you see just in front of (and across the cavern from) Olga. You can see the socket for the left eye (the bottom of which is about the same level as is Olga's forehead). Once you see that, the rest of the skull is pretty easy to make out, albeit a bit deformed.
Olga had arranged for local archeologist Mike Fleming to meet us this morning. Here you see ANOTHER figure resembling a skull (again, a bit deformed). This one is interesting in that it really is not apparent until you look at it on a camera's LCD screen. Mr. Fleming is pointing that out.
Mr. Fleming starts by telling about the Nuestra Senora de la Concepción (locally just called the Concepción), a Spanish galleon loaded with gold, jewels, silk, and spices from the orient which sunk just off Saipan's southern shore in 1638 (for more on this, including the involvement of government misappropriation and mutiny involving this ship, click this link: http://ns.gov.gu/galleon/index.html ).
Then he tells about the Spanish involvement in Saipan history.
Any of you who have spent time here may also be interested in his talk about the origin of some of the more common CNMI names.
If you want to know more about House of Taga, which he refers to at the end, click the following link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinian (Also, there is more on House of Taga in the next video included in this album, and there are photos and video from there in the following Optimimagery.com album: http://www.optimimagery.com/THIS-IS-ME-Vacations-around-Sa/CNMI-ON-LAND/TINIAN/TINIAN-OCTOBER-2009/i-BZcBVXr
The video is a bit longer than most that I post, at 7 minutes, 24 seconds. You may have to wait a bit to let it load (press the pause button for a while), depending on your internet speed. You probably wanted to pour yourself a cup of coffee anyway, right?
Unfortunately, modern graffiti accompanies the ancient hieroglyphics. There are some petroglyph etchings which are very faint and difficult to make out -- some of which are etched over by modern pencil.
it is my understanding from lectures of other archeologists that the reason there is wide agreement about the fact that the boat figure is a man is that the diagonal extension is his penis. Apparently, in making representations of themselves for future generations to look upon, size mattered, even back then!
Mike fleming, Olga Shakalova, Jeong-Ah Derksen, and Brad Derksen.
More about House of Taga, Spanish rule, and gender roles in traditional Chamorro culture.
6 minutes, 34 seconds. Again, you may need to press PAUSE and wait for it to load a bit. Good time to refill that cup......
Just outside Kalabera Cave are little nooks and crannies, some of which were used as worshiping sites for the Japanese.
There are also ancient Chamorro pottery shards here.
Olga is holding a piece of history. This may have been part of a pottery vessel for an important Chamorro person. Or, perhaps a person drank water from this vessel prior to conceiving progeny who gave rise to the modern Hocogs, or Naputis, or Manglonas, or .........
A lot of things have happened in the last 1,000 years. And this shard (or the vessel it broke off of) has probably been here all that time.
