NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

I've spent the last year thinking a lot about Magellan. Well as a Guam historian, I think about Magellan a lot and quite regularly, whether I want to or not. But the particular ways I've been thinking about Magellan lately have centered around the fact that the 500th anniversary of the circumnavigation he led will take place in 2021. There will be several voyages that will be following his route around the world and they will naturally stop in Guam in March 2021. I was invited to a conference on behalf of Guam and the University of Guam last March, which was seen as being a launching event for the Spanish Navy for their anniversary commemoration. I wrote about it on this blog as part of my Circumnavigations series. Since then I've been working with a few other people, most notably Robert Underwood, David Atienza and Carlos Madrid on pushing for the development of a commission that can organize Guam's own events around this commemoration and also work wit

One of the presenters at the "Primus Circumdedisti Me: Claves de la Primera Globalizacion" conference focused primarily on the life of those who traveled with Magellan on his voyage. What were the things that they ate? How much did they get paid? What were the rules on these ships? What was the hierarchy like? Were captains the lords over these ships and the men like slaves? Or was there some democracy as we see on pirate ships? Much of this presentation I was already familiar with from my own study and even from the numerous pirate based video games that I enjoy playing. But there was one part that I found particularly interesting, about how men passed the time on the voyages, or what they did for fun. Trade voyages to the other side of the world, followed known routes, but still took months and years to complete, the level of ennui on these journeys must have been severe on small ships without may diversions, and a crew too poor and too cramped in to bring much with t

I am presenting next week on the Chamorro creation story, where Puntan and Fu'una create Guam and Chamorros. There are so many different versions of it, most of which follow the same trajectory but focus and leave out certain elements. San Vitores recorded a version of the story. So did other priests. Freciynet did as well. Today there are different theories as to what it means and what the Chamorro relationship to these great spirits was. In some versions Puntan and Fu'una are depicted as equal, while in others they are not and Puntan is firmly in charge with Fu'una his loyal sidekick. For my presentation I will be discussing the way this story was used in the creation of a mural in the village of Humatak and how it can be essential in the project of decolonization. I need to get back to work on it, but I thought I would share real quick one version of the story, written in Chamorro and published by the Department of Education. It is titled "Ha

If you were to do a poll of Chamorros either today or even 100 years ago, and ask them to choose who in the entirety of Guam's history is the person who they think is the most important, I can guarantee you that most people would choose or would have chosen the same stupid person. Ferdinand Magellan. For most people this choice seems natural. After all Magellan was the first European to visit Guam, and was credited for a long time with "discovering" it. Snot nosed kids around the world have to learn about him whenever the "Age of Discovery" is discussed in school. So in every corner of the globe students learning history may or may not learn about Guam simply because Magellan stumbled upon it. It is easy to forget that Chamorros have been in Guam and the Marianas in one form or another for close to 4,000 years. Magellan only arrived close to 500 years ago. The period of colonization that we still live in today is only around 350 years old. In all this tim

After spending one day in Seoul I was surprised at how many statues there were. In no way did I see the whole breadth of the city, just some streets within a mile or two of my hotel and whatever I saw on my trip from the airport. But I saw an incredible array of statues. Most of these monuments I couldn’t glean the significance of because I couldn’t read Korean, but still, I was very surprised to find so many. Last week in my World History class at UOG, I had a discussion with my students about monuments and memorializing, but in the context of Guam and Ferdinand Magellan. I find it both amusing and tragic that the first modern monument which Chamorros ever raised was in 1926, down in the village of Umatac, meant to commemorate the visit of Magellan to the island in March of 1521. This stop literally put Guam on the map of the world and world history. It ensured that no matter how small and tiny Guam is, it would be something small children around the world, learning about world histo