Saturday, February 6, 2016

Ancient Chamorro Beliefs and Religion

The majority of the Chamorro people today believe in Christian values, particularly Roman Catholic beliefs and doctrines.  However, this was not always the case.
During the Spanish occupation of the Mariana Islands (and other areas of the world taken over by the Spaniards), the Spaniards forced the natives to follow their beliefs or die.  However, let us take a look at what the ancient Chamorro people believed.
The ancient Chamorro people had a powerful respect for their elders and ancestors to the point that they believed the spirit or soul was immortal.  One's death did not end the love and honor of an ancestor.  In other words, the ancient Chamorro people believed in a form of ancestral worship or ancestor veneration.  Through this belief, the ancients preserved their ancestors' skulls before burying their dead under or near their homes.  There are also cases where they also preserved the deceased's hands.
They also respected and feared their ånti (Chamorro term for "soul, spirit, ghost").  They believe that their ånti cared about their descendants, even if they believed that these forces were both good AND evil.  The ånti were thought to punish those who did not behave properly or if the descendants did not meet their kinship obligations.  They also believed that their ånti would protect them from the aniti (Chamorro term for "evil spirit, demon, or Satan").  These aniti were believed to cause violent deaths.  In addition, they were thought to cause a person's soul to dwell in jungles, caves, the sky, or trees instead of near his/her home land.
The ancient Chamorro people believed that the aniti could send a person's soul into sasalaguan, a kind of volcano-like hell.  Opposite of sasalaguan was the Chamorro's interpretation of Heaven.  The Ancient Chamorros believed it to be an underground paradise, where there were good food and good things to do (similar to the Scandinavian Valhalla or Helgafjell).  In sasalaguan, there dwells the god of wind, waves, and fire known as Chaifi.  Chaifi was believed to beat a person's soul forever on a forge (clearly a Spanish influence).  These concepts were most likely influenced by the early Spaniards who settled in the Mariana Islands.  What the ancient Chamorro people believed beforehand, however, was much different.
It was believed that the ancients' equivalent of "hell" was to reside away from their descendants and live in the jungle or a cave.  These spirits who lived away from their descendants would become unhappy and became dangerous.  Today, these spirits would come to be known as tåutåumo'na (ghosts, demons, disembodied souls, or specters).  Literally translated, tåutåumo'na means "people of before".  An ancient Chamorro's equivalent of "heaven" would mean dwelling near their descendants.
The ancient Chamorro people believed that a person's character depended on the strength of one's own spirit or soul.  If someone had a weak spirit, that person was lazy or cowardly.  Great warriors were believed to have held strong souls.  These strong souls could overcome the forces of an aniti.
The ancient Chamorro people believed that women and children were easily susceptible to illness caused by the ånti.  Some researchers believed that this was because their souls weren't considered as strong as a man's soul.  However, there are stories that show that women were just as capable, if not more so, than a man (as seen in the myth of Guam's citizens battling a giant parrot fish).
According to researchers, the ancient Chamorros believed that the type of life one lived had no bearing on what kind of afterlife he/she would have.  Peaceful death would lead to paradise, whereas a violent death would lead to an afterlife of torture.  If people died violently, it was believed that the person had offended the ancestral spirits and lost their support.

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

The Story of Why Guam is Narrow in the Middle

According to old Chamorro mythology, Guam used to be much larger.  This is the myth explaining Guam's current shape.

A long time ago, the island of Guam was much larger and very prosperous.  However, there was a giant parrot fish (or Scaridae) that was determined to devour the island due to the Chamorro people breaking a taboo.  Maybe a maga'lahi (first-born male head of a Chamorro clan) took a manachang (individuals of the lowest class in Ancient Chamorro society) lover or something similarly bad in Ancient Chamorro society.
After whichever taboo was broken, the once prosperous Chamorro people were now suffering through a drought and famine.  The people pleaded with their ante (ancestral souls or spirits) to help them.  They pleaded with their ancestors' skulls, which they called maranan uchan (a miraculous thing for rain).  However, the ancestors did not respond.  The parrot fish then began devouring the island.
All the men called upon their ancestors to help them in catching the fish.  Each day, the men went out to save Guam from the fish.
The women of Agaña always bathed at Agaña Spring.  One day, the women found lemon peels floating in the spring.  The women of Pago were known to use lemon peels to scent their hair.  The maga'haga (highest-ranking woman in a village) was the first to see the connection.  The parrot fish had almost bored a tunnel through the island.  At the rate the fish was devouring Guam,  the island would soon be cut in half.
Since the men were unable to stop the parrot fish, the maga'haga decided to step in.  She directed the women to cut their hair.  With their long strands of hair, the began to weave a strong, fine net to catch the parrot fish.  They laid the net in the water on the bottom of the spring.  The women tied ropes to the circumference of the net.  That evening, the fish climbed into the spring to sleep.  The women were lying in wait.    They surrounded the spring.  Each woman had a rope attached to the net.  When the fish finally settled in, the maga'haga gave the order to heave and pull up the net.
The women caught the fish and saved the island of Guam.  They then held a great feast from most of the parrot fish's carcass.  In order to preserve the rest of the fish, they salted it.  The women of Agaña shared the salted fish with the other villages.  This ended the famine on Guam.  Soon after it began to rain, helping the crops grew.  The island of Guam became happy and prosperous once more.  The people were content.
This is the myth explaining why Guam is narrow.