When a people feel that their culture – their distinctive way of life – is being threatened, how do they respond? They don’t start talking about ways to reverse cultural change: Let’s toss the TV screens, get rid of the cellphones and shut down the fast food joints. That’s probably deemed a mission impossible. Instead, the usual response is, “Let’s preserve our language. After all, it is our language that defines us.”
No doubt about it, language truly is central to any people and a critical part of our culture. The problem is that the conversation usually ends there, and so do our efforts at cultural preservation.
As important as language is, maybe we should be thinking of saving other things than just our way of speaking. What about trying to hang on to some of the cultural features that also once helped define us?
Family apologies – the kind of interaction that takes place between families after someone is hurt – might be a good example. This is the sort of reconciliation that I alluded to in last month’s column, and probably many times before. It was once the normal practice after an incident, but it has now fallen into disuse, as we have resigned ourselves to letting the courts handle such problems. This is too bad because the old practice usually brought peace and healing between families. At the same time, it would tighten the bonds of each family while reinforcing the responsibility of the whole family for the behavior of each of its members. Is there any way such an important cultural practice might be preserved?
Weddings offer another example. Not so long ago, the young man presented himself at the home of his prospective wife’s family to make a formal request for their daughter. Yes, individuals these days make their own choice on who they will marry. We all understand that. But is there any harm in having the choice formally ratified by the family? At the very least, the family would register in as a support for the couple, in bad times as well as in good times. What’s wrong with that? Or have we gone too global for that these days?
Then, too, there are those weekly or monthly family gatherings when everyone would spend the day at the lancho. We’ve all had the experience, or at least seen the photos, of the expedition to clear the land or plant or harvest or do something else that served as the excuse for the gathering. Whatever might have been accomplished, one thing is certain: Everyone enjoyed a barbecue or much more than a light lunch. Even apart from the food, though, cousins had a chance to work and play with one another and so got to know one another better. Another great way of bonding that may have been lost but might be reclaimed.
Rosaries at the death of a relative are a cultural practice that has been changed rather than lost. Once upon a time, not too long ago, the rosaries were held at private homes rather than at the church. Even today, when I watch people greeting one another in church at the end of the Mass and just before the rosary, I see warm embraces, hear tender words and sense a little of the joy of reuniting with relatives people don’t see every day. Sure, the church is roomier and offers more parking than most private homes, but there is not the food afterward and the time to connect that the extended family would have once enjoyed. Nothing wrong with meeting and praying together, but wouldn’t it be nice if these occasions were less perfunctory and more drawn out?
What about techas, with their traditional role in bonding the community and bringing the heritage to the young? Do they still have a role today other than as Sunday school teachers? Is there some way they can help unite the community in our day? An important question because the community, fragile as it has become, needs all the help it can get today.
You can add lots more to this list, I’m sure. Some of these practices, as useful as they were in the past, have been a casualty of modern life – speedy, efficient and with unlimited room for personal inclinations. Yet, some of these practices might be salvageable, possibly by being transformed into a slightly different package.
Language, then, is not the only cultural feature that needs to be preserved. Cultural features like those mentioned above have their own value. If they were retained in some form or fashion, they might help preserve the flavor of our culture in the future.
Father Fran Hezel is a former director of the research-pastoral institute Micronesian Seminar. After serving as Jesuit mission superior in the Micronesian islands for six years, he continued heading the Micronesian Seminar until 2010.
