over skirts or fringes of tree root, described in early times as "rather a cage than a dress . . ." Since betel-nut chewing was universally popular then, the aborigines' teeth were stained black (some say this was for ornament), and their bleached hair accented in strange contrast the teeth and smooth beige skin.
ANCIENT SOCIETY
According to Laura Thompson the aborigines were grouped ". . . into matrilineal clans localized in hamlets and villages and organized into districts under local chiefs. The power of the chiefs was based on inherited wealth in the form of land and special prerogatives such as the right to make certain types of 'shell money' and sailing canoes."
Miss Thompson defines three social classes: the nobility, the commoners, and the slaves. Slaves in the society were actually menial servants and were probably better off under this system than they would have been in almost any other aboriginal civilization one can think of. The upper class, oddly enough, consisted not of lazy aristocrats but of artisans and craftsmen: carpenters, mariners, warriors, and fishermen. They acted as foremen in these professions, assisted in their supervisory work by the commoners; but the commoners in turn—no matter how great their knowledge—were barred by taboo from ever attaining the exalted positions of the nobility (Chamorri). Naturally, this in itself preserved the sovereignty of the noblemen.
Agaña, according to most sources, was the acknowledged ancient capital of the island. "The chiefs of Agaña," states Miss Thompson, "were feared and respected by the inhabitants of the whole island and an elaborate code of etiquette regulated social relations and upheld their prestige. Those of low station were not permitted to eat or drink in the houses of the nobles or even to go near them. If they needed anything they asked for it from a distance. They practised many courtesies and an ordinary salutation on meeting and on passing in front of one another was 'Aki Arinmo' (ati adengmo), meaning 'Give me permission to kiss your feet.' . . . To pass the hand over the breast of the host was considered a great courtesy. This custom has been superseded by the manñgiñge or smelling the hand."
Before discussing aboriginal houses, it is interesting to add another social note. In Agaña and in all the larger villages there was always a "great house," or "long house" as they were sometimes called. This public building of considerable size was communal and frequented by the urritaos or young bachelors; in it unmarried men and women lived together in apparent concord and most certainly in youthful pleasure.
Laura Thompson states: "The premarital consorting of the sexes in the Marianas was institutionalized in clubhouses as in other parts of Micronesia. . . ." Marriage, however, was quite another matter and usually an intensely monogamous affair, although at certain periods in the aboriginal culture a man could have more than one wife. The accent on monogamy, strangely, has carried over into modern times, and even today, after the buffetings and subjections of over four hundred years of rape, reduction, intermarriage and invasion, the Chamorro sense of honor and fidelity within the family is remarkably strong and important to the island people.
But in the long houses there was no such rigid family code; the life was open and free and continually gay. Custom allowed the freedom of the communal houses to the young urritaos for purposes of companionship, either with their male friends or with young women whom they had often purchased from the parents or had merely hired on a time-arrangement basis. Oddly enough, this did not seem to affect the girl's later chances for marriage (or the man's), and both were usually married in due time to suitable individuals. As in other Pacific islands where this custom prevailed, it is probable that girls who were obtained from their families for consorts to the urritaos came from isolated villages and not from the town of the communal house in which they lived. There was apparently no undue promiscuity to the long-house arrangements, and the relationships were as scrupulously guarded and respected as in the most proper marriage. (Sexual relations between people of kin were considered heinous; these did not occur in the long-house relationships and would not have been tolerated.)
Marriage amounted almost to purchase. A young suitor would be forced to offer his service to the parents and a fee for his bride. The fee might be collected either from him or from his relatives. In frequent cases the groom himself might have enough property of his own to make a present to the father of the bride. With the advent of children, in marriage the mother became the central figure of the clan. Decisions were always hers, and the husband was always the lesser of the parents when he was at home. A son would usually grow up with little fear or respect for his father, and he could be openly insolent to him if he stood in his mother's favor, for the mother would protect the son from paternal punishment.
Despite the strict marriage code, men did have their youthful freedom through the long houses. This custom extended clear down to the Florida Islands and is maintained in modern times. There are still houses—or were before the last war—where "the large canoes are kept, men congregate, and young men sleep, strangers are entertained. . . ." The romantic aspect may be gone, but the general pattern remains, and the long houses are still the expression of young male freedom before marriage.
EARLY HOUSES
According to the word of early writers, the aboriginal houses were better constructed than any other Pacific dwellings. They were made of several native woods, generally rectangular in shape, with roofs of palm leaves, solidly twisted and woven. Sturdy, resistant wood formed the support posts, raising the floor several feet off the ground. In some cases the houses were built in sections. A sleeping unit for the whole family would be elevated on wooden or stone posts, while the kitchen would be constructed at ground level with a covering of thatching, and behind this would be a split-bamboo pen for small domestic animals to protect them from marauders. Floors were generally of split bamboo, and this practice has been carried down to the present era.
The houses themselves in the early villages were usually located either on the actual strand itself or in proximity to a convenient harbor. Often huts dotted the gentler banks of the small rivers so that the inhabitants would easily have a good water supply and a place for bathing and washing clothes (after they began to wear them). In some cases, villages were settled, as on the southern-mountain coast, high on hilltops to make them secure against attack. Often the early beach villages ran to 150 houses, while the interior villages seldom ran above 20 houses each.
By modern Western standards the early houses could scarcely be said to contain much in the way of furniture. The only parallel to be drawn here is that everything in the ancient Chamorro house was completely functional. There were common floor mats, diagonally braided, and softer sleeping mats, some of them extremely fine in texture being made from the leaves of the textile screw pine. Water vessels were fashioned from lengths of large hollow bamboo stalks, five or six feet long and open at one end, filled, and supported against the side of a wall for storage.
Coarsely woven pandanus (textile screw pine) held everything from dried breadfruit to rice. Each native carried a small finely woven sack of some type of native material to hold his individual supply of betel nut and pepper leaves and the necessary pinch of lime. Coarse portage baskets were created from soft fresh coconut leaves as the need arose. These were utilized until they were stiff and dry and then discarded, probably into a kitchen fire to swell the blaze. Bamboo baskets were the most pliable of all types and the most durable. The skill of making these has been handed down, and there are still excellent ones to be found on the island.
FOOD
In ancient times the Chamorros' diet was simple and salutary. It consisted mainly of the various indigenous island fruits (see Chapter 2—Other Food Staples), yams, taro root, and various salt-water fish. Coconuts were prepared in many different fashions; sugar cane provided a ready natural sweet by chewing sections of the fresh stalk; bananas were eaten raw or cooked (in the case of plantains) over roasting fires. The ubiquitous breadfruit was always there, either to be eaten hot from stone ovens for part of the year or baked and stored dry in thatched communal storerooms to be drawn on during the
