Inafa'maolek

Guam Intro by Asiatravel.com

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• published: 06 Oct 2009
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Asiatravel.com offers over 500,000 Hotels, Flights, Travel Packages, Tours & Attractions up to 75% discount. All with last minute availability & instant confirmation plus up to 5% cash rebate exclusively for our customers. For more information visit http://www.asiatravel.com Guam ( /ˈɡwɑːm/ (help·info); Chamorro: Guåhån), is an island in the western Pacific Ocean and is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government.[3][4] The island's capital is Hagåtña (formerly Agana). Guam is the largest and southernmost of the Mariana Islands. The Chamorros, Guam's indigenous people, first populated the island approximately 4,000 years ago. [5] The island has a long history of European colonialism beginning on March 6, 1521 with the arrival of Ferdinand Magellan and again in 1668, when the first Spanish colony was established following the arrival of settlers including Padre San Vitores, a Catholic missionary. The island was controlled by Spain until 1898, when it was surrendered to the United States as part of the Treaty of Paris following Spanish American War. As the largest island in Micronesia and the only American-held island in the region before World War II, Guam was captured by the Japanese on December 8, 1941, hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and was occupied for two and a half years. During the occupation, the people of Guam suffered terrible atrocities, including torture, beheadings, and rape, and were forced to adopt the Japanese culture, including the change of the islands name to Omiya Jima or Great Shrine Island. Guam was subject to fierce fighting when American troops recaptured the island on July 21, 1944, a date commemorated every year as Liberation Day, in a celebration that lasts all month. Today Guam's economy is supported by its number one industry, tourism, which is primarily comprised of visitors from Japan. Guams second largest source of income is the United States military.[6] Traditional Chamorro culture is visually manifested in dance, sea navigation, unique cuisine, fishing, games (such as batu, chonka, estuleks, and bayogu), songs and fashion influenced by the immigration of peoples from other lands. Spanish policy during colonial rule (1668-1898) was one of conquest and conversion to Roman Catholicism. This led to the gradual elimination of Guam's male warriors and displacement of the Chamorro people from their lands. Today, many Chamorros have Spanish surnames because of their conversion to Roman Catholic Christianity through Catálogo alfabético de apellidos. Due to cultural influence from outside forces, important aspects of the original Chamorro culture have been lost over the years. There has been a resurgence in protecting and preserving the culture the last few decades, and many scholars have traveled throughout the Pacific Islands conducting research to determine what Chamorro cultural practices such as dance, language, and canoe building may have been like. Two aspects of Chamorro culture that withstood time are chenchule' and inafa'maolek. Chenchule' is the intricate system of reciprocity at the heart of Chamorro society. It is rooted in the core value of inafamaolek. Historian Lawrence Cunningham in 1992 wrote, "In a Chamorro sense, the land and its produce belong to everyone. Inafa'maolek, or interdependence, is the key, or central value, in Chamorro culture Inafa'maolek depends on a spirit of cooperation and sharing. This is the armature, or core, that everything in Chamorro culture revolves around. It is a powerful concern for mutuality rather than individualism and private property rights." The core culture or Pengngan Chamorro is based on complex social protocol centered upon respect: From sniffing over the hands of the elders (called mangnginge in Chamorro), the passing down of legends, chants, and courtship rituals, to a person asking for permission from spiritual ancestors before entering a jungle or ancient battle grounds. Other practices predating Spanish conquest include galaide' canoe-making, making of the belembaotuyan (a string musical instrument made from a gourd), fashioning of åcho' atupat slings and slingstones, tool manufacture, Måtan Guma' burial rituals, and preparation of herbal medicines by Suruhanu. Info Taken from Wikipedia.com Credits to Wikipedia.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guam Main