Chapter 3 Supplemental Reading

Traditional jewelry of the Ancient Chamorro

Ancient Chamorros donned various styles of necklaces called ålas and salape that were made of seashells and tortoiseshell. As is common throughout much of Oceania, these forms of body adornment also served as currency and were often indicative of wealth and prestige.

On the island of Tinian, skilled jewelry makers were noted in a village known as Fanutugan-Ålas or “Place where ålas are threaded.” Most often, the type of shell used for these necklaces was the red Spondylus (spiny oyster shell ). In its entirety, the shell includes spike-like projections. These spikes were cut from the main body of the shell and then into segments that formed O-shaped disks. These disks were commonly strung on coconut fiber sennit (coir).


The two main necklace styles were identified according to the sizes of the disks used to produce the jewelry. The first consisted of seashells and/or tortoise shell approximately a half-inch in diameter (guini) while the second was slightly larger with disks approximately three-quarters of an inch in diameter (lukao hugua). Both styles were fairly long and wound around the neck at least once with the excess hanging to the waist and hip levels. The latter, lukao hugua, may be translated to mean “a necklace worn in a (religious) procession.”

In a unique form of adornment referred to as child’s wealth (guinahan famagu’on), the size of the shell disks begins with one-inch in diameter and gradually increases to approximately six inches in diameter. The two ends were left unattached and it was worn around the neck.

The other major form of adornment consisted of tortoise shell ornaments worn primarily by women. The value of the necklaces and pelvic aprons was commensurate with the difficulty associated with acquiring the turtle shell. The variations of form include a small plaque worn on the forehead (pinipu) and a pelvic apron (maku dudu) that consisted of a plaque strung with a double cord around the hips. Indicative of high rank, women sometimes wore tortoiseshell disks that were strung with a band of red seashells.

Spanish Influence
The arrival of Catholic missionaries from Spain in 1668 and the conversion of Chamorros to Christianity shortly thereafter saw an introduction of more Western forms of clothing and jewelry to the Marianas. The traditional forms of body adornment, made from seashells and tortoise shell, were soon replaced by rosaries worn as necklaces and a new design of jewelry.

The Spanish colonization of the islands introduced new forms of jewelry that eventually became popular amongst the local population. Gold and silver jewelry was most likely introduced by Mexican and Filipino craftsmen called platerus. In addition to the adoption of the rosary bead necklace, women also donned the introduced gold bracelets, earrings, and pendants. This jewelry, which has several locally fashioned styles have become known as Chamorro gold jewelry, and played an important role in wedding gift rituals during Guam’s Spanish and early American periods.

Gold and silversmiths established a specialized niche within the local population and the skills were passed down through the generations. One such example is the Aflague (Katson) family that produced stylized jewelry that included the easily recognizable bamboo and rosette designs on bracelets, pendants and earrings. Up to the present day, these pieces of jewelry are viewed as status symbols, objects of prestige and are often passed from one generation to another as treasured family heirlooms.

Contemporary jewelry
There has been a resurgence in traditional Chamorro jewelry making in the last decade. It is increasingly common to see men and women wearing carved shells in the shapes worn by their ancestors or symbolic of ancient Chamorro times. Men don clamshell pendants in the shapes of crescents, or sinahi; fishhooks, and latte , which were stone pillars used as house supports for ancient Chamorros homes; while women more often prefer the usually orange-colored Spondylus disc-shaped pendants.

Several local artists specialize in the creation of these unique forms of jewelry. Some of the more well known of these artists are Jill Benavente, John B. Castro, James M. Cruz, George Francisco, Joe Guerrero, Frank Perez, Greg Pangelinan, Johnny “Cake” Siguenza, and Ben Del Rosario (known as Sinahi).

The materials most commonly used by these artists include clamshell, Spondylus shells, bone, and ifit (ifil) wood. All of the artists create their pieces by hand.

Jill Benavente began carving in the mid-1990s. She owns and operates the Guinahan Chamoru shop in Mangilao that serves as a cooperative for a number of local artists. She takes pride in her work and has taken several female apprentices to teach them how to create her unique style of necklaces.

George Francisco started to create his necklaces just over a year ago. He uses a variety of materials for his pendants including clam and abalone shells and whalebone. In addition to the commonly seen fishhooks and sinahi, he creates a variety of forms such as intertwined and twisted fishhooks and at times will carve the outline different shapes, such as that of a dolphin, onto the surface of the latte pendant.

Joe Guerrero, who began carving in 1994, prefers to use ifil wood, clamshell, fish bone, and Spondylus shells for his pieces. Guerrero takes pride in personalizing each work for his clients so that their personal history plays a role in determining the final form of the piece.

Frank Perez and Greg Pangelinan formed Chamorro Crafters. Pangelinan began carving at the age of sixteen, more than forty years ago. Perez joined Pangelinan after retirement six years ago and, together, they carve a variety of pendants out of wood, bone, shells, stone, and basalt. They are also practicing blacksmiths. Like Benavente, they have apprentices under their tutelage to ensure that the skills of carving and blacksmithing continue.

Like the Chamorro artists, artists from the neighboring Micronesian islands also create forms of jewelry that consist of the shells and other materials found in the natural environment.

Although previously these pendants and necklaces were viewed as indicators of high rank, local residents now create and wear these pendants as an expression of respect and pride associated with the ancient Chamorros and their traditional ways of life.

By Velma Yamashita, M.A.

Chapter Two Supplemental Reading

"Guam Cave painting could be star calendar"
Astronomers are intrigued by a set of cave paintings discovered on the island of Guam in the Pacific. One of the paintings shows 16 dots arranged both vertically and horizontally.
It is thought these may represent an ancient calendar which divided the year into 16 months of unequal length. The months would have been based on the movement of different constellations across the night sky.


Although the authenticity of the drawings has been established by archaeologists, their exact age is not known. However, Guam is believed to have had settlers for at least 3,500 years - perhaps even 4,000 years.

Scientists are interested to know how the ancient Chamorro people of the region gained their astronomical skills. The knowledge developed quite separately from that in ancient China or Europe.

The use of the stars to mark out the months rather than the moon is especially interesting in this respect.

Stick-shaped humans

Two other paintings show a stick-shaped human figure looking towards a constellation. In one, the figure points to the Southern Cross, in the other, to Cassiopeia. Being bright and easily identifiable, these constellations in the northern and southern sky would have been important markers.

Professor Rosina Iping from the University of Guam has been studying the cave paintings. She says their interpretation has been helped by the special knowledge of an old navigator who lived on a nearby island.

"The 16 dots, I am pretty sure, are a calendar," she told BBC News Online.

"It's supposed to be the 16 months they are still using on the nearby island of Puluwat. An old navigator who lives on Puluwat told me how they use the months, and how they navigate by the stars."

Year start

The beginning of a month is marked by the appearance of a star belonging to a particular group at about 45 degrees above the horizon just before dawn in the east. The year starts with the rising of Antares and ends with the Corona Borealis.

Because different constellations occupy a greater or lesser part of the sky, the months are not of uniform length.

Ancient Chamorro petroglyphs can be found in several places on the island of Guam. The paintings studied by Professor Iping were found at Ritidian point on the north coast.

Some have been carved out of the cave walls and are now on display at the Bishop Museum in Hawaii.

The sketches show human figures, animals and weapons. A few of the figures seem to resemble Chinese characters, which originated from pictorial images.

The colours are white, brown and black. Rosina Iping presented her interpretation of the paintings to the 193rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, Texas, on Saturday.

Chapter One Supplemental Readings

The island of Guam is approximately 30 miles in length with a variable width, ranging from 12 miles to 4 miles at its narrowest point. The largest island in Micronesia, Guam has a total land mass of 212 square miles, excluding reef formations. Shaped like a footprint, Guam was formed by the union of two volcanoes. The island has two basic geological compositions. Two-thirds of Guam, the central and northern features, are primarily raised limestones with several volcanic formations at Mount Santa Rosa and Mount Mataguak. The northern clifflines drop precipitately into the sea with an elevation ranging from 300 to 600 feet. The southern features are basically volcanic with an elongated mountain ridge dividing the inland valleys and coastline. The highest point is Mount Lamlam with an elevation of 1,334 feet.

The Peak of a submerged mountain rises 37,820 feet above the floor of the Marianas Trench, the greatest ocean depth in the world. When visiting Guam, hiking up one of its mountains is like scaling a peak higher than Everest. A metal object would take 64 minutes to fall through the Marianas Trench, just east of Guam, with a depth of 6.79 miles, where pressure is over 18,000 pounds per square inch. The Marianas Trench was pinpointed in 1951 by the British Survey Ship Challenger, and on January 23, 1960, the manned U.S.N. bathyscaphe Trieste descended to the bottom. On March 24, 1995, the unmanned Japanese probe Kaiko also reached the bottom and recorded a depth of 35,797 feet.
Guam PDN news reported on jun 15, 2009 that the H-ROV remote operated vehicle Nereus descended to a depth of 6.8 miles down into the Marianas Trench [on may 31 2009] to survey the Challenger Deep. At the very bottom of the Pacific, the Nereus found polychaete worms, which are multi-legged predators about one inch long. The Nereus also sent back images of amphipods, crustaceans that are related to shrimp, but which have bodies that are flattened from side to side. Temperatures at the bottom were near the freezing point, at 1.8 degrees Celsius, or 35.24 degrees . The pressure at the bottom was 16,000 pounds per square inch, compared to 14.7 pounds per square inch at the sea level. The seafloor was mostly flat, with sediment in the form of a fine mud. The pressure in the deep sea crushed standard styrofoam cups sent with the Nereus, which came back to the surface an inch and a half in height.
Guam straddles the edge of the Philippine Plate with the Pacific Plate thrusting below it -- an area called the subduction zone. The Mariana islands are volcanic products of the magma released at this subduction zone. The melting of rock produces magma containing alot of water at the subduction zone. When this magma reaches the surface, the water expands very rapidly, which is why island-arc volcanoes are so explosive. According to National Geographic, it is the water and sulfur that give these volcanoes their bang.
Among the most volcanically active--and the only submarine volcanic arc in waters under United States jurisdiction--is the Mariana Islands. The Mariana Archipelago region features some 50 submarine volcanic edifices in addition to 11 major subaerial volcanoes dotted along more than 1000 km of arc length. Active hydrothermal sites have been sampled on a few volcanoes in the Mariana Arc: Esmeralda Bank lying west of the island of Tinian and two seamounts in the northern part of the arc called Kasuga 2, Kasuga 3, and one volcano, called East Diamante. The latter volcano, lying 20 nautical miles south of the island volcano Anatahan has arc vent fields which may be the best modern analogues of gold-rich ore deposits currently mined on land. The amazing organisms living around deep geothermal vents are well adapted to extreme pressures.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,518991,00.html reports on 2009may05 of a volcano expedition in April aboard an ocean explorer ship, the R/V Thompson, where the expedition team used a remotely operated vehicle called Jason to dive close to the undersea volcano north of Guam, known as NW Rota-1. The volcano near Guam is so active that it has recently built a new cone that reaches 131 feet high and extends to 984 feet wide, said scientists who started making observations there in 2004 and 2006. "Animals specially adapted to their environment are thriving in harsh chemical conditions that would be toxic to normal marine life," Chadwick noted. "Life here is actually nourished by the erupting volcano." The hydrothermal venting from the volcano allows bacterial filaments to coat the rocks and provides a growing food source for many of the nearby creatures, said Verena Tunnicliffe, a biologist from the University of Victoria in Canada. One shrimp has even adapted special pruning claws to harvest food from its volcanic environment, while another becomes a hunter later in life. NW Rota-1 is the only deep sea volcano where scientists have observed eruptions in real-time.
Two seafloor mining companies, Canada-based Nautilus Minerals and Australian-based Neptune minerals have applied for mining exploration licensess/titles in the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas [isles north of guam]. According to their respective websites, they plan to mine the world's seafloor copper-gold sites also called seafloor massive sulphide (SMS) deposits. SMS are high-grade hydrothermal deposits rich in copper, zinc and lead with a high gold and silver content, found on the ocean floor. In January 2006, Neptune minerals applied for exploration licences covering approximately 147,000 km2 along the Marianas Arc and the associated back-arc basin offshore from the Northern Mariana Islands. The Marianas Arc is the southern extension of the Japanese Izu-Bonin Arc.
According to http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2009Apr01/0,4670,SCIDeepOceanMining,00.html scientists have long known about remarkably pure concentrations of metals found near some of the hydrothermal vents, nicknamed "black smokers" because they resemble underwater chimneys. The vents sprout in areas with heavy seismic activity, including the Pacific's volcanic "Ring of Fire," which stretches along the west coast of the Americas, to Asia and down near New Zealand. There, the earth's fractures allow sea water to seep into the earth's crust, where it becomes heated, leaching precious minerals from the surrounding rock. Eventually, the water is hot enough to become buoyant and bursts toward the surface, similar to when cold milk is poured into a cup of coffee, gets heated and rises to the top. The minerals cool in the frigid sea water and solidify into the deposits. About 200 active vents have been found, though only 10 nearby deposits are considered prolific enough to mine, according to a report by the International Seabed Authority. Dormant vents are much tougher to locate, but the deposits around them may also be fruitful. The ISA report indicates a single deposit could weigh 100 million tons.Most of the earth's known hydrothermal vents are outside the 200-mile zones, in open ocean that is under the jurisdiction of the ISA, which was established in 1982 by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The United States still has not signed onto the Law of the Sea treaty, which has been stalled for decades by Senate opponents who say it requires the country to surrender important sovereignty rights. In the Northern Marianas, the Declaration of the Mariana Trench Monument as a U.S. National Park in 2009 prohibiting mining could effectively neutralize some of these mining initiatives in the Marianas. The United States has been consulted as the rules have been drafted, but proponents say the country could be shut out from future claims to deep ocean mines, since the seabed authority would award the rights.
Guam's Western shoreline faces the Philippine Sea while just a few miles away the Eastern beaches faces the Pacific Ocean. Ancient perpendicular faultlines which collect water, now determine paths of existing tributaries. Guam is the "isle of orthogonal rivers", and Westernmost U.S. territory. It is west of the International Dateline and is 1 day ahead of the U.S.: Hence the slogan "Where America's Day Begins".