Weaving continues to be an important practice on Guam. For thousands of years CHamorus have used Guam’s abundant foliage to produce useful and unique items.
Ancient CHamorus 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.
Carving is a ancient tradition on Guam and in the Mariana Islands. The craft was used for thousands of years to create utilitarian items as well as body adornments.
A systematic migration to and settlement of the Mariana Islands, about 3,500 years ago, would not have been possible without some degree of sophistication regarding the ancient CHamoru settlers’ construction of seaworthy craft and their ability to navigate such vessels to and from these islands and their place of origin.
Performing theaters on Guam became a home to many plays and playwrights, both international and local. As an island that continues to emphasize and perpetuate the custom of story-telling about local history, performing theaters on Guam are havens and are great venues through which stories and cultural thoughts are expressed.
Sinangån-ta Poetry Slam traces its beginnings to the collaborative effort of three Chamorros imbued with a burning desire to cultivate spoken word among the island community.
Poetry/Spoken Word Read Post »
References to chanting practices of the CHamoru people can be found in early missionary documents. Fray Juan Pobre, writing about his stay in Rota in 1602, described the type of chants he observed during funerary rites. Women performed this ritual during an extended period of mourning around the deceased, prior to burial.
Native dance of the CHamoru people was only vaguely described by early visitors to the Mariana Islands. The Jesuit annual report for 1669 to 1670 provides a rare description of a women’s dance.
Many private print collections on Guam center around authentic Japanese woodblocks including a sizable patronage of French artist Paul Jacoulet. Jacoulet worked out of Japan with master woodblock carver, Kazuo Yamagishi, in the early 1930s and created a body of work based on Pacific cultures, Korea and Japan. Some of his subject matters were Pacific island natives of Micronesia, which provided an affinity with many local collectors on Guam.
Photography as an art form is relatively new on Guam. There have been visiting photographers on Guam since the early 1900s. However, the evolution of photography as a form of artistic expression of the island residents has only happened within the last half a century.
