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Whaling Influence in the Marianas
Eleven CHamoru men, kidnapped in Guam by Alonso de Salazar’s crew of the Victoria on 10 September 1526, to work the ship’s water pumps, became the first known Pacific crew members of a European based vessel. The Victoria was the only surviving ship of a seven ship fleet dispatched by Spanish Emperor Charles V.
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.
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.
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.
Media Galleries
←Return to Guampedia Resources Category “A picture is worth a thousand words,” the old adage says. Photographs, maps, drawings and other images have the power to make history come alive. In many ways they are a source of primary evidence for historical research. Guampedia has over 3000 historic and contemporary images to make your visit […]
Guam’s Artists
Vibrant and dynamic island art scene.
Maria Yatar McDonald
Maria Yatar McDonald (1955 – ) is a multi-talented musician, traditional tattoo and visual artist influenced by a wide range of artists beginning with her parents. McDonald was born in 1955 in the village of Pali, Sumai before spending nearly two decades living in the village of Sånta Rita-Sumai, and then in Hågat. She graduated from George Washington High School in 1973 and received a bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Guam in 1997.
Flora Baza Quan
Flora Baza Quan is a renowned CHamoru/Chamorro singer and songwriter from Guam, who has been performing and recording for more than thirty years. Known affectionately as the “Queen of Chamorro Music,” Baza Quan is a pioneer of contemporary Chamorro music, lending her signature sound and vocal talents to perpetuating Chamorro culture. Some of her recognized favorites include “Hagu,” “Puti Tai Nobiu” and “Hinasso.”
Johnny Sablan
Johnny Sablan, (1948 – ) a pioneer Chamorro recording artist, received the “Island Icon Award for 2011” in a vote among fellow musicians and islandwide audiences at the Island Music Awards. This is the latest of a litany of accolades for Sablan who has promoted the island’s indigenous language and culture through a music career spanning more than five decades. The award is not surprising, considering Sablan’s 1968 release of “Dalai Nene,” the first commercially recorded album in Chamorro, marked the beginning of the Chamorro music industry.
Segundo Blas
Segundo Blas (1917 – 2004) was one of the most respected and well-known traditional woodcarvers to emerge from the Mariana Islands in the 20th century. His skill in crafting canoe models, storyboards and other three-dimensional pieces, especially from ifil hardwood (Intsia bijuga), won him awards and recognition as a master artisan and woodcarver.