An alumna of the heritage management graduate program at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo says in a recent interview that her thesis work on the potential impact of ancestral knowledge on modern climate adaptation is making an impression on the island of Yap.

Shania Gootineg Tamagyongfal, of Yapese descent, was born and raised in Hilo, but along with her family has retained close ties to Yap. Her family is from the village of Toruw in the municipality of Maap, located on the northeast side of the island.

Tamagyongfal received her bachelor of arts in anthropology and certificate in Pacific Island studies in 2020 from UH Hilo, where she continued her studies and received her master of arts in heritage management in May of this year. Her master’s thesis focused on using oral histories of Marshallese and Yapese voyaging to support the development of community engagement for sustainable sea transport.

“I focused on the oral histories of Yapese voyaging for climate resilience as a form of sustainable sea transport through remathau practices of community engagement,”

she says in a recent interview with the Pacific Islands Climate Adaptation Science Center (PI-CASC) where she was a graduate scholar.

“The term ‘remathau’ refers to the people of the outer islands of Yap as ‘people of the sea,’ emphasizing the significance of voyaging in their daily lifestyle and how it has become a big part of their cultural identity and representation.”

The project was done by a multi-faceted research group that included fellow graduate student Jerolynn Myazoe, UH Hilo faculty from several different departments, seafaring experts, and other scholars. Her advisor was Joseph Genz, a UH Hilo associate professor of anthropology.

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