Our Mission
Rongorongo is dedicated to teaching Indigenous wisdom, language, and cultural heritage through collaborative efforts with communities, particularly the Rapa Nui of Easter Island and the Northern Arapaho of Wyoming. We work to restore ancestral connections by supporting the repatriation of ancestors, cultural artifacts, and traditional ecological and cultural knowledge that have been displaced.
Our People
We are a dedicated team of professionals committed to transformational educational experiences that restore indigenous language, cultural values and lifeways empowering learners from all backgrounds to create a new future for our planet.
Phineas Arthur Kelly
I am a cultural anthropologist who bears close ties of kinship to Rapa Nui and its Polynesian people, culture and language. As a child on Rapa Nui, I participated in the restoration of the now world-famous ahu moai and the cultural rebirth that engendered. My research interests include environmental anthropology, repatriation, and the revitalization of Indigenous languages and cultures. In addition to my work on Rapa Nui, I collaborate extensively with the Northern Arapaho Tribe of Wyoming, to support their cultural and linguistic revitalization efforts.
My teaching journey began at a charter school for at-risk youth on Moloka'i where at Mo'omomi in the early days of the E Alu Pū movement I learned how culturally grounded, project-based ecological learning could positively impact the lives of students from all backgrounds. Later, as an instructor for the Hawaii Youth Conservation Corps program I saw first-hand how the operationalization of pacific island cultural values through hands on environmental stewardship transforms individual lives and places.
At Rongorongo our ongoing projects, such as the Mana Tupuna initiative, focus on reclaiming ancestral heritage, knowledge and restoring relationships between communities and their landscapes, artifacts, and remains. Through community-based participatory research, I have helped repatriate ancestral remains to Rapa Nui, while also using cutting-edge technology like virtual reality to preserve and teach Indigenous knowledge. My work with the Northern Arapaho has pioneered new methods for linguistic elicitation and STEM education, bridging traditional knowledge and modern tools.
Education
- PhD Cultural Anthropology and Indigenous Studies, University of Wyoming
- MA Cultural Anthropology, University of Wyoming
- MS Instructional Design, University of Wyoming
Francisco Nahoe
As far as we know, I'm the first Rapa Nui born in the United States. In 1984, I became a Franciscan friar and was ordained to the priesthood in 1993. Over the years, I've served the Church in California, Costa Rica, Italy, Massachusetts and Nevada where the Order has placed me in a variety of apostolates including formation and campus ministry, parishes and radio evangelization, catechesis and Catholic education.
In January of 2024, Te Mau Hatu, the Rapa Nui council of elders, asked me to serve as their North American delegate for the recovery and repatriation of those ancestral remains of ours that have found their way into American, Mexican or Canadian museums, university departments of anthropology, and private collections. This work has required me to reengage the cultural patrimony and history of the island, especially the period immediately preceding annexation by Chile and continuing into the middle of the last century.
At the University of Nevada, I earned a PhD in Renaissance Literature. Before that, I received a ThM in Biblical Studies from Harvard Divinity School, and an MA in Comparative Literature from Dartmouth College. As a younger man, I took bachelor's degrees in theology at the Pontifical Seraphicum in Rome and in philosophy at Pomona College in California. My research has focused on Milton's Italian verse, the rhetoric of science, and Easter Island Studies. At present, I teach rhetoric and philosophy at Zaytuna College, Muslim institution in Berkeley.
Education
- PhD Renaissance Literature, University of Nevada
- ThM Biblical Studies, Harvard Divinity School
- MA Comparative Literature, Dartmouth College
Josefina Nahoe Mulloy
Though I live on Rapa Nui now I belong to the first generation of our ethnicity to have been reared in the United States.
In 1989, I received an undergraduate degree in Business Administration from the University of Arizona, after which I spent ten years working in banking and finance in California. Having made the decision to return definitively to Rapa Nui in 1998, I have since dedicated myself to the development of indigenous and sustainable models for tourism. During that period, I started my own company, Haumaka Tours, in which I focus on teaching our archaeological heritage, as well as our living Polynesian culture, to island visitors. We frequently work with NGOs, educational institutions, news media, research expeditions, and a wide variety of professional organizations.
My professional commitment to provide island visitors with a comprehensive and multi-faceted view of Rapa Nui culture and prehistory has compelled me to think more deeply about what it means to teach our history. I have dedicated myself not only to the specific task of reflecting upon our culture past and present, but also to understanding the scope and methods of indigenous education in general. It is this sense of responsibility to my culture, my *tupuna* (ancestors), and my descendants that has brought me to the ASU Indigenous Education program. I am currently finishing up a MA in Indigenous Education – Native Hawaiian cohort and will be presenting my final project in Spring of 2025.
Education
- MA Indigenous Education (in progress), Arizona State University
- BS Business Administration, University of Arizona
Pat Gilbert
Pat Gilbert is an attorney practicing in Mesa, Arizona. Like his shirt - a gift from a grandson attending UNC - he's gifted by fortune to be William Mulloy's grandnephew.
Education
- BA Arizona State University
- JD Arizona State University
- Truman Scholar
Cy Lee
Cy Lee has spent his career advancing the goals of the Northern Arapaho people on the Wind River Indian Reservation. In his many capacities over the years – Chief Financial Officer for the tribe, Executive Director of the Wind River Development Fund, and Tribal Liaison for Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon – Lee has played a vital role in strengthening economic development and tribal relationships.
In August 2022, he launched a nonprofit, Blue Mountain Associates, LLC, to offer evidence-based prevention programs in the schools and collect data about early childhood trauma to identify where services and prevention efforts are most needed.
Lee, 48, was raised on the Wind River Indian Reservation and earned a Bachelor's degree in Business Management and Administration from the University of Illinois. Most recently, in April 2023, he graduated from Harvard Business School. The father of five biological and three stepchildren and grandfather of nine, Lee lives with his family on the Wind River Indian Reservation.
Education
- Harvard Business School Graduate, 2023
- BS Business Management and Administration, University of Illinois