At the Guam Museum’s main hall it was a homecoming. 

Artifacts shipped away 100 years ago by Hans Hornbostel are now returned. The public got their first look during a packed hita talk this past Saturday.

“It was amazing. More than a hundred came here to hear the history about the Hornbostel Collection… and to celebrate getting this collection back home,” said Museum Curator, Dr. Michael Bevacqua. 

Dr. Bevacqua says this is just the beginning.

“This is the first wave of artifacts, to talk about the history of this collection,” said Bevacqua. 

The exhibit, Iyo-ta Gi Tano’-ta Ta’lo, (Ours in Our Land Again) is part of a three-year effort to repatriate more than 10,000 artifacts from the Bishop Museum in Hawaii back to Guam and the CNMI.

“You will see the Hornbostel Collection has hundreds of slingstones, thousands of pottery pieces. There are beads, higam, all sorts of tools from our ancestors,” added Bevacqua. 

Nichole Delisle Duenas, Lab Manager at the cultural repository, helped select some of the most rare pieces.

“She wanted to select pieces in the Hornbostel Collection that are very rare,” said Bevacqua. “When I reached middle age, I got a midlife crisis sinahi… authentic original sinahis. It’s amazing to have these home, because people have questions. But now we can actually study it.”

Bevacqua says this is more than history on display, it’s about restoring connection.

The exhibit stirs a mix of emotions.

“He had collected hundreds of burials. And it returned 25 years ago, and sent it off to Hawaii. So a lot of people were divided by his legacy. Some people were angry for what he did, some people were grateful. These might have been destroyed in the war, these might have been destroyed in construction. One of the things I wanted to point out — even though Hans Hornbostel, this amateur archeologist, collected these things in the 1920s… even though he put everything together, one of the things we should think about is: what is the name of the collection moving forward? We don’t have to keep calling it the Hornbostel Collection,” said Bevacqua. 

The artifacts include pottery, slingstones, sinåhi, and even latte stones, with a larger collection set to be displayed in 2026.

“They always wanted to come home. And for them to be here, and to hear the voices, the songs — I feel Saturday was a special moment. It was a glorious day. Even though there were strong emotions, more than anything, it was about moving ahead and celebrating how this completes some of our knowledge of our past,” he added. 

The current exhibit runs through Sept. 12 at the Guam Museum — a place where families, students, and the entire community can see that these pieces are finally home.