This article is part of a series focusing on underrepresented craft histories, researched and written by the 2024 Craft Archive Fellows, and organized in collaboration with the Center for Craft.
From seashell and tortoiseshell body adornments to carving, seafaring, and tool-making, the unique beauty and history of Chamorro craft are rooted in concepts of reciprocity and deep respect for our ancestors, the land, water, and the ocean. These practices also serve as a vehicle to carry forth the culture and creativity of Indigenous peoples living across the Mariana Islands archipelago.
Early Chamorros began to engage Indigenous technologies to create items such as baskets, hats, bags, and decorative pieces woven from palm-like pandanus leaves and coconut palm fronds. They wove fish nets called talaya and made tools from seashells, bone, stone, and wood to support their lifestyles of farming and fishing as well as to construct housing. Long after someone passed away, Chamorros would use their bones to craft tools such as knives (called se’se) and spear tips. Stone was used to carve grinding stones (lusong) in the preparation of herbal medicines and food, wood was crafted into a variety of tools such as handles, and shells would be transformed into weaving tools (si’i).
In an interview, Michael Lujan Bevacqua, a Chamorro educator, scholar, activist, author, and curator of the Guam Museum from the Kabesa and Bittot clans of Guam and grandson of master blacksmith Joaquin Flores Lujan, shared his experience growing up in a family known for the culture’s craft and tools. The Chamorros’ relationship to the ocean, he says, is both fascinating and tragic. Centuries ago, they developed sophisticated seafaring vessels and an impressive navigational system that relied on the celestial world. In pre-colonial society, canoes were the main mode of transportation between islands across the archipelago and for fishing in deeper waters.
“Back in the day, you had to have a strong connection and deep knowledge of the elements,” he said, noting that knowledge is not always passed down in the same ways it used to be before colonization. “And so that’s a part of the tragedy.” But a beautiful part about craft is that it helps people “make a reconnection to the ocean, giving value to ourselves and Chamorro things again.” While crafting and wearing a shell necklace does not necessarily mean one has a deep relationship with the ocean, he suggests, it has the potential to bring you closer.
The islands of the Mariana archipelago, which Chamorros call home, have a complicated political history. They were colonized by Spain, Japan, Germany, and the United States at various points in history, leading to the introduction of different materials across time, as well as restrictions on cultural practices including the Indigenous language.
In 1668, missionaries from Spain began their colonization of the Marianas islands, instigating major social changes. Spaniards set fire to the Chamorro’s traditional canoes as punishment for resisting colonization. Chamorros were not allowed to sail in the deep ocean or pass on this knowledge, and the practice of canoe-building almost disappeared.
During the 1600s, colonial technologies began to be integrated into Chamorro craft. Objects originally made from shell or stone, for instance, started being made with metal, including the kamyu, a tool with carved teeth used to grate coconut. Colonizers also restricted the types of jewelry and body adornments worn by the Indigenous population. Spondylus beads, which were precious to Chamorro women prior to colonization, for instance, became less prevalent. By the late 1700s and early 1800s, the only unprohibited form of expression, religious devotion, and body adornment was the crucifix.
Colonization also led to new types of Chamorro craft. An important moment in this history was the introduction of metal and other “junk” materials by the Spanish. During this era, craft tools were made largely from salvage materials. “You couldn’t harvest iron on the island,” Bevacqua said, “so you basically took pieces of discarded things and then you would reform them to make tools.”
In the 20th century, the United States Navy came to Guam, and circuits of importation and access to markets completely changed for residents. New materials were introduced through the importing of cars and military hardware, and Chamorros began recycling such materials to express themselves. When tourists began to visit, the practice of craft also expanded and evolved into souvenir objects. “All these people who used to farm and trade and barter for their lives and create things themselves suddenly are all about buying things,” Bevacqua says, pointing out that it was a way to survive. “Money is now mediating everything.”
World War II was a tipping point in Chamorro history: Many were displaced from the land due to the construction of American military bases. “A lot of people were shocked from the war,” Bevacqua said, “and looking to a new future.” At that point, Chamorro culture shifted toward becoming more Americanized. The craft suffered, because there was no longer a perceived value to it.
During the 1970s and 1980s, however, there was a renaissance: Craft gained a whole new sense of life and identity, leading to a feeling, Bevacqua says, “that Chamorros do not need to disappear.” It was during this time that Chamorros started to look at symbols differently. Bevacqua suggested the example of a latte, or a stone pillar: That was a symbol that would not be worn as a necklace in the late ‘60s and ‘70s except perhaps by someone with radical taste. By the ‘80s, however, it’s become a form of expression and a powerful symbol.
Such symbols remain powerful forces in Chamorro culture today, connecting contemporary members to a disjointed past, even if some of them have very different significations today. Indeed, Chamorro craft-making, -wearing, and -using visibly assert the belief that our ancestors’ ways have a place in our modern world. It is a movement that re-infuses value into that which colonization deemed unimportant. Today, we continue to push back against those same ideas our ancestors negotiated over centuries.
