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Art, Art, Architecture, Body Adornment, Music and Food, Body Adornment, Chamorro Culture, Creative Expression, Division of Resources, Natural Environment, Natural Resources, Our Heritage, Resources, Sea (Tasi), Traditional Craft

Hima: Conserving a Cultural Heritage

Basic biology. The giant clam is a member of the Phylum Mollusca and the Class Bivalvia. These clams have two shells (called “valves”) that are hinged on what is called an umbo. Their flesh or mantle is the mechanism that secretes the clam’s shell.

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Chamorro Culture, Division of Resources, Island Life, Our Heritage, People and Places, Resources, Villages, Heritage Sites and Island Life

Passion for Pugua

Betel nut use. Areca (Betel) nut is the seed of the palm known scientifically as Areca catechu. Betel nut is the fourth most widely used psychoactive substance in the world, following only caffeine, alcohol, and tobacco. These substances act upon the central nervous system to alter brain function, resulting in temporary changes in perception, mood, consciousness and behavior. Over 600 million people chew betel nut worldwide, including Indians, Asians, and Pacific Islanders. In the Mariana Islands, betel nut, or pugua, chewing is a social pastime that extends friendship.

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Ancient Guam Era, Ancient Guam: Economics, Chamorro Culture, Civic Society, Division of Resources, Early Historic Accounts, Economic Systems, Economics and Commercial Development, European Exploration, Trade and Scientific Studies, Historic Eras of Guam, Our Heritage, Trade, Transportation, Technology and Communications

The Matao Iron Trade Part 3: Appropriation and Entanglement

The matao fashioned the iron they acquired from trading with visiting ship crews into traditional tools, including punches, drills, fish hooks and adze blades. The most prominently mentioned application was canoe construction, a major preoccupation of high status men. The Marianas outrigger canoe played a vital role as the integrating mechanism for the islanders’ cultural unity, connecting their tano’ tasi (land of the sea) via inter-island transportation, communication and trade.

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Ancient Guam Era, Ancient Guam: Economics, Chamorro Culture, Civic Society, Division of Resources, Early Historic Accounts, Economic Systems, Economics and Commercial Development, European Exploration, Trade and Scientific Studies, Historic Eras of Guam, Our Heritage, Trade, Transportation, Technology and Communications

The Matao Iron Trade Part 2: Galleon Trading and Repatriation

Between 1565 and 1665, Guam’s southwest coast received sporadic visits from Spanish vessels, including the first wreck of a trade galleon (San Pablo, 1568), as well as the first encounters with Dutch and English mariners.  However, a more significant exchange venue was established in the 30-mile wide Rota Channel to trade with the Spanish ships crossing regularly from New Spain (Mexico) to the Philippines.

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Ancient Guam Era, Ancient Guam: Economics, Chamorro Culture, Civic Society, Division of Resources, Early Historic Accounts, Economic Systems, Economics and Commercial Development, European Exploration, Trade and Scientific Studies, Historic Eras of Guam, Our Heritage, Trade, Transportation, Technology and Communications

The Matao Iron Trade Part 1: Contact and Commerce

Members of the matao, the highest-ranking strata of Mariana Islands society in the 16th and 17th centuries, carried on the first sustained cultural interaction and commercial exchange between Pacific Islanders and Europeans. From Ferdinand Magellan’s 1521 visit through the establishment of the 1668 Spanish Jesuit mission, these island traders, primarily from Guam and Rota, regularly bartered food staples and craftwork for iron goods with Spanish exploration and trade vessels, Dutch expeditions and English privateers.

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Ancient Guam Era, Archeological Investigations, Chamorro Culture, Division of Resources, Economic Systems, Historic Eras of Guam, Our Heritage

Ancient CHamoru Fish Weirs (Gigao)

When French explorer Louis Claude de Freycinet visited Guam between March and June of 1819, he observed CHamorus capturing mañåhak or juvenile rabbitfish (Siganus spp.) in gigao or fish traps placed in shallow tidal waters north of Cabras Island and near the mouth of the Masso River.

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Ancient Guam Era, Chamorro Culture, Division of Resources, Historic Eras of Guam, Our Heritage, Resources

Guinahan Famagu’on: Children’s Wealth

Commonly translated as “children’s wealth,” guinahan famagu’on refers to a type of traditional turtle shell valuable, or ålas, used in the highly reciprocal lifestyle of ancient CHamoru. Though it was worn as a necklace, it was not like other turtle shell valuables in that it was also worn by men.

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