“My father, she say you having too many good-morning flowers on your house.”
The words might have been taken as implying criticism, but the smiling face of the plump, brown-skinned girl who stood barefooted in the dusty road below reflected only the warm-hearted friendliness that was so much a part of Guam’s people. While they knew that all the Americanos were crazy, that their every act was based on ideas and logic that no sane person could comprehend, the Chamorros never failed to show a kindly courtesy toward us. Their generous tolerance and compliance with our orders, which they knew to be the effluvia of unsound minds, showed a most complaisant nature.
It was morning, after our first night in the solid mahogany house that friends had reserved for us in Agana. My wife and I had been much disturbed by bleating of goats and squealing of pigs, as the yipping dogs chased them beneath our house. Before daybreak we had been finally awakened by shrill cries of, “Hey! So-o-os! Hey! So-o-os.” Did they call the pig by his Latin name? We wondered. But we soon came to realize that this was the correct Spanish pronunciation of Jesus, which seemed to be the commonest name for boys.
Somewhat later, gentle scratching of a discreet fingernail on our bedroom door warned us that it was time to arise. The ritual of the bath and toilet posed many problems which were matters of some embarrassment to Margaret and me, but aroused the liveliest interest in Cristopolo, our Filipino cook, Vicente, the Chamorro house boy, and Nicolasa, the little maid. The facilities were located in a comer of the kitchen, separated from the culinary activities only by a low partition. This closure offered incomplete protection from curious eyes, and no damping of sound effects. When either of us entered this secluded area the servants watched and listened with rapt attention. One’s progress was closely followed by the audience, which expressed its interest by shrill giggles, quick discussions in hissing whispers, and laughingly shouted reports to people in the road below or in the neighboring houses. They gave most generously of their attention to every detail of our lives.
Breakfast soon followed. There were green oranges with pebbled skins, pink flesh and an exquisitely sweet flavor. There was also the shaddock, the dry, woody progenitor of the grapefruit, named for the English naval officer who first introduced it to civilization. There was coffee with aroma of such elegance as we had never before known. Vicente, at daybreak each morning, ran two miles up in the hills to Sinajana where the best coffee grew, and picked the choicest berries for our table, Under the house he roasted, hulled, and ground them. Within two hours after it was picked the coffee was served to us with every fugacious flavor, every volatile aromatic substance intact.
After breakfast we strolled out to the gallery, which was laced with a gaudy yellow convolvulus, to examine our new cosmos, so different from the official circles of Washington, whence we had come. It was then that Ana looked up and voiced the polite comment on our morning-glories. She lived in the whitewashed, tile-roofed house next door, the one with the 2-foot stone walls and the bird-cage windows. Margaret invited her to come up and, from then on, we never lacked an interpreter to tell us of the people, their ideas, their beliefs, and their customs.
It was Ana who told us the legends of the anitae, the taotaomona and the tao-taojalumtano, a confused group of spirits, some of them persisting from the ancient folklore of the Micronesians, others budding from the new religion that the Spaniards brought in the seventeenth century. Apparently these were not kindly spirits, for Ana described all of them as fearful and awe-inspiring.
In Guam, as in other primitive lands where we have lived, we were most impressed with the weaknesses and limitations of these spirits that, to the natives, appeared omnipotent. For instance, every woman carried an umbrella when she went out on moonlit nights. As she passed under the banyan tree she never failed to raise the umbrella and hold it over her. This simple device completely thwarted the taotaomona which lurked in the banyan, for the evil one could reach straight down and possess itself of one’s soul, but it could not reach down and under the umbrella.
We asked Ana why these fearsome spirits never bothered the white people, and her explanation of that was perfect: “You no believing in taotaomona, she no can hurting you.” Then we inquired why, if simple disbelief gave complete immunity, she didn’t forget and ignore them, so that they couldn’t hurt her. She held up her hands in wide-eyed terror and gasped at the thought. She must, believe in them, she told us, because all through her life she had been taught about them. She had even seen one staring out at her one moonlight night from behind a banyan tree, like a huge dog, with glowing eyes as large as saucers. She had quickly put up her umbrella and gotten safely away. Here was the whole idea of fear and courage in a nutshell. If you didn’t believe in dangers they couldn’t hurt you. But if your were taught about them from infancy, you must believe in them and be dominated by them.
We observed similar limitations of the loup-garou or werewolf in Haiti. As we returned from a 3-day trip to the top of Mome La Selle, the highest peak, we stopped to talk with a native man at his mountain home. When we commented on his caille having but a single small window he said that, when sunset came, he went inside, shut the door and window, and didn’t want even to know what the loupgarou was doing outside. Then we called attention to the hole left for the dog and cat, and asked if the werewolf couldn’t get through. So he showed us how, with a little corn meal sprinkled in a semicircle before the hole and just the right words of incantation, the evil spirits could be effectually barred. It is just these little weaknesses of the powers of evil that encourage the human race to carry on.
This pleasant tropical isle dropped like a pearl from a broken string into Uncle Sam’s hand as he reached for the Philippines. Why the string was broken, and how it was that he got only the one pearl is a curious story.
After Admiral Dewey’s victory at Manila it became necessary to send troops to complete the occupation of the islands. So unprepared was our country for the surprising victory that it required more than three weeks to muster enough volunteers for the transports that sailed from San Francisco on May 25. The three ships, with about 2,500 officers and men, were joined at Honolulu by a cruiser, the U.S.S. Charleston, Captain Henry Glass. From there they put to sea on the fourth of June, and Captain Glass opened his sealed orders. They directed him to “stop at the Spanish island of Guam . . . capture the port of Guam . . .” on his way to report to Admiral Dewey at Manila.
Guam is the largest of the Marianas Islands, which extend northward from it in an arc of about 120 miles. It has been the seat of government for the group since Magellan first landed there in March, 1521. The arrival of the four American ships on June 21, 1898, aroused the greatest interest in those who saw them from the beach. No one in Guam knew of the declaration of war between Spain and the United States, and no warlike preparations had been made. On the American side it was believed that powerful Spanish cruisers and fortifications would have to be overcome.
As he approached the port of Apra Captain Glass ordered the transports to remain a safe distance from the island while the Charleston went in alone to meet the enemy forces. Rounding Orote point, the harbor gradually opened up but the Spanish cruisers could not be seen, and no hostile guns were fired from the high ground back of the town of Sumay. The ship went warily on until Fort Santa Cruz was within range, then fired a dozen shots at the ancient stone structure. Still there was no answering gunfire, so she anchored, ready to meet any hostile demonstration.
Word was quickly carried to the Spanish commandant, Don Juan Mariana, in his palace in Agaña, that a foreign ship had entered the harbor and was saluting him. He immediately sent some small saluting guns down the 6-mile road to the port, while his aide hurried on ahead to apologize for his lack of courtesy in not returning the salute, a formality that would be carried out as soon as the guns arrived. To this message of the astounded aide Captain Glass is reported to have answered, “Make no mistake, I fired no salute. War exists between our countries, and those were hostile shots.”
The accounts of this episode, a natural plot for a comic opera, are sufficiently bolstered by official reports to assure their approximate truth. After turning over the affairs of the island to an American, John Portusach, whom he found there, Captain Glass sailed away to Manila without taking any steps to secure the other islands of the Marianas group. On our part, it was probably assumed that when the seat of government was captured the other islands went with it. But Spain didn’t think so, and with quick opportunism she sold the rest of the islands to Germany. In 1919, after the first World War, Japan was given a mandate over them because of our virtuous declaration that we desired no territorial gains from the war.
Those who remember the bitter dissension that was stirred by the proposed annexation of the Sandwich Islands, and the later acquisition of the Spanish colonies in the Pacific, will understand the general failure to recognize and take advantage of the potential strategic value of these islands. The general idea seemed to be that since the Navy had taken Guam, it would serve the Navy right if it was made to keep the island. There is an oriental belief that if you save a man’s life you are responsible for his future and must continue to support him. So Guam remained under the control of the Navy. It was a mildly paternalistic form of government, with a great deal of attention paid to the material and physical welfare of the native people.
The American public, which was never quite sure whether it was Hawaii, Haiti, or Tahiti that belonged to the United States, had no more appreciation than did their statesmen of the necessity for outposts in the far Pacific. Thus Guam was neglected, and finally disarmed in 1934. Even the marine aviation unit was withdrawn, and the few guns were dismounted and shipped away. Few Americans even remembered the existence of Guam until it became one of the steppingstones for aerial transport on the route to Asia.
In the Navy, being sent to Guam for duty was laughingly spoken of as the ultimate of cruel and unusual punishment. When we arrived, however, we found that many of the officers there were doing their second or third tour of duty in the island. So delighted were they with the placid, idyllic existence that they said nothing when joshed about being banished to Guam, but wangled it quietly to return again and again. It was like having a perfect cook, and keeping her under wraps so that the neighbors might not learn of her ability and hire her away.
When the United States takes charge of a new area, one of the first units to be established is the Medical Department. In Guam as in Haiti, Panama, Puerto Rico, and the Philippine Islands, hospitals were established and a public-health survey was made to estimate the prevalent diseases and the needs of the people. Later on, a school for training native girls as nurses was developed. An elaborate campaign was started to reduce infant and maternal mortality, provide safe water, and generally improve the sanitary conditions. Then came education for all children with the slogan, “The school follows the flag.”
One result of this was that, in 40 years of rule by the U. S. Navy, the native population increased to more than three times the number found there in 1898. The Spanish had followed the opposite plan. Not many years after Magellan claimed the islands for the Spanish crown in 1521, they adopted their standard colonial policy of enslavement, forced labor, and promiscuous killing of all who did not immediately accept the Cross and Spanish rule. The population was soon decimated. In the later years of their rule Guam was made a penal colony, to which political prisoners from other Spanish possessions were banished.
Our colonial policy has been freely condemned by people of European nations. They have been very frank in saying that democracies like ours should not be permitted to have colonies. They point to Guam and Puerto Rico as monitory examples of our ineptitude and say that, through our public-health activities, we have increased the population of the islands until the food production was unable to support them. We even allowed them political initiative and a taste of self- government. This taste, they said, when once aroused becomes insatiable and makes a firm colonial government much more difficult. Instead of exploiting them and making them sources of natural wealth, we poured money into them, developed them, and even educated many of the natives out of the common-labor class. Such arguments serve only to emphasize the wide divergence of national points of view.
In Guam, these policies served to develop a happy, healthy people, for whom life was placid and involved a minimum of labor. In the public schools English was taught. The Spanish priests taught their language in the church schools, while Chamorro dialects were spoken in the home. The result of this bewildering mélange was a curious patois which combined fragments of terms and grammar from many languages. One who understood English, Spanish, any Polynesian tongue or China-coast pidgin could always find a familiar straw or two to grasp in a sea of words.
“She,” as the Chamorros used the word, was the universal third-person pronoun, both singular and plural, without distinction of gender. Verb forms were very limited, so the present participle of English verbs was commonly used to express all tenses. An example of this is Ana’s description of a stingy man, “She all the time keeping the money in the pocket.” A Chamorro who wished to console me for my lack of success in fishing murmured, “Fish, she liking you smell, she bite. No liking, no bite.”
Living among a people of such kindly disposition, our men of the Navy and Marine Corps sometimes enjoyed relations more intimate than platonic. What prostitution there was rested on a friendly basis rather than a mercenary one. But there were a dozen or so of native women who were so freely accessible that they were listed as “public women” and were examined by the doctors at regular intervals for evidence of disease. When found to be infected they were confined in a locked ward for treatment until they could be given a clean bill of health.
The pursuit of such activities did not appear to have any damaging effect on the social standing of these women. One of our leading Japanese merchants presented himself in my office one day and, after the traditional bowing and hissing, handed me a note:
To. Pass. Ass. Surgeon Johnson.
I respectfully request you to please see that the woman, Maria N—, alias Marian D—, be released from her actual confinement in the hospital, to which she has been taken for medical treatment purposes.
It prompts me to make this request to you, my earnest desire to have celebrated with her, the contract of marriage to which both of us are pledged, as speedy as possible after her release from her actual confinement.
Very respectfully,
We were glad to accede to this sentimental request, and the ceremonies proved to be one of the most elaborate social events of the season. On another occasion one of the public women under treatment in the hospital sent me an urgent message:
Dearest mr darctor Jhason
Why please can you give me a liberty on Sunday afternoon at 3 aclock until 5 aclock can you Darctor Jhason I am come in back at 5 aclock Because I am go to the church to I get the baby to catuly on Sunday afternoon at 3 aclock pleas dorctor can you give me that I ask you pleas I ask you if you want dorctor Jhoson if you could give me that I ask you only I could do any thing I want.
Miss Concepcion D—.
After reading this several times I was still uncertain about her needs and intentions, so I called Concepcion in to question her about it. Hidebound as I was by the tenets of my Puritan forefathers, I did not believe her when she told me that she was to go church to act as godmother for her sister’s child. Later that day, the matriarch of one of the most aristocratic families remaining from the old Spanish r6gime called on me and told me that Concepcion was her daughter, and that she really was to be godmother for a niece. The mother saw nothing unseemly in having such a woman assume those honorable obligations.
The Chamorros, while they argued and wrangled extensively, and loved to sue each other for slander in the courts, never struck or injured others. During two and a half years of my first cruise there, I do not remember a single case of deliberate injury inflicted by one Chamorro on another. That was not true of the Filipinos among the population, for they were of a much livelier and more aggressive nature.
Every male native carried a machete, of a special, short, heavy type, quite different from any I have seen in other primitive countries. This is a tool of a thousand uses. It serves to pick one’s teeth, clean a pipe, kill and dress a pig, cut down a tree, or trim the timbers for a boat. The home builder needs but the one tool. They seemed never to injure themselves with their machetes, except just before a typhoon. When a considerable number of men cut themselves with their machetes, and others fell out of coconut trees, it was an infallible warning of a heavy storm. Even the animals seemed aware of some atmospheric change, for more people were bitten by dogs, and more ranchers were gored by their carabaos in the hot, still days of a brewing typhoon.
There were, of course, no houses like those to which we are accustomed at home. Those dating back to the Spanish days were of massive stone construction with tile roofs. These did not do well in the frequent earthquakes, and the tiles were dangerous missiles when the typhoons struck. Later houses were built of mahogany logs and boards with roofs of nipa thatch or corrugated iron. It was customary for white people coming to the island to rent a native house and then have toilets, running water, and other modern improvements installed. The new sewerage system served only a few blocks, so most of the shower baths were built with a grating which allowed the water to run through into the earth. It was no uncommon thing to discover native boys lying on the ground, looking through the slats into the bathroom.
We asked Ana about this curious custom and she explained, with no embarrassment whatever, “She just want seeing your meat, if you being white all over.” Then she told us of the Chamorro belief that the Americanos were white only on the exposed parts, that under our clothes we were brown, just as they were.
As we sat on our gallery in the evenings, we could detect the passing Chamorros by their heavy, acrid, sweaty odor without seeing them. It gave us a pleasant feeling of superiority to feel that we were odorless, until Ana told us that they found the odor of the white man most offensive. In Haiti, also, the blacks told us that the smell of the white man was almost unbearably repulsive to them, and they believed it was because we used soap on our bodies. They heartily agreed with the belief of the French, that the use of soap removes protective oils from the skin and makes one peculiarly susceptible to various diseases. One has to be careful about ridiculing such ideas of primitive peoples, for they are the result of keen observation, and many of them have proved to be correct.
Like most tropical lands, Guam had many beautiful young girls with most graceful figures. But maturity quickly brought obesity, and the standard production rate of a baby each year offered little aid in maintaining a slender body. Many adolescent maidens were well worth a painter’s brush when decked in their chemises of brightly colored husi cloth, with hibiscus flowers in their glossy hair.
In our hospital we took young native girls to be trained as nurses. They were most tractable and kindly in their treatment of the sick, but the amount of knowledge that they could absorb was limited. Of course, their basic education was very scanty. The decimal point, for instance, remained an unfathomable mystery to them. They could not see why a temperature of 98.6 was different from one of 9.86 or 986. After graduation they were issued licenses as midwives, and did valuable work among their people. Many lives of mothers and babies were saved by bringing modern methods of midwifery to the native home.
The young girls were instructed by the Navy nurses, and lived in the hospital under the close guardianship of one of the first graduates of the school, a Chamorro woman of the noblest character. Maria Roberto remained in this position for many years, until she developed a chronic disease which proved to be leprosy. She was regarded with reverence by all the white doctors and nurses, as well as by her own people.
Some of the older, self-made midwives did much harm by maintaining old native traditions, such as putting heavy weights on the mother’s abdomen to aid delivery, and dressing the stump of the baby’s cord with fresh cow dung. One of them, whose license was revoked because most of her patients died, employed a Filipino as her attorney to get her reinstated. He was a very adroit person who delighted in finding ways of embarrassing the government without getting in trouble himself. His plea in behalf of his client was this:
Sir:
In view of to have, to effectuate muchs examins, and I have service, seventeen years, in the subjects of midwife, and I have approbation, and without fault in sayings subjects; for the Physicians of the United Estates for consequent how I am poor and not I have recourse for to sustain my life: I respectfully request permission of to expedite on my license of midwife in the Village of Ynarajan for power to pass and to meet my subsistence diary.
For reason of my petition is for what my situation is very old of age of sixty-five years, and for this conceit I should like at the some time, to expedite the license for my justification.
Ynocencia T—.
After war was declared with Germany in 1917, the first warlike act between the two countries occurred in Guam, and its background provides an interesting footnote to the history of the island.
A small German gunboat, S.M.S. Cormoran, was cruising in the southern Pacific when the European war got under way in 1914. She visited a number of ports to collect German reserves, and also captured a few enemy ships, among them a small Russian liner. The gunboat and her prize made their way to Tsingtao, which was a gathering place for German vessels in the Pacific. There the gunboat was dismantled and her crew and guns were put aboard the former Russian ship, which became the new Cormoran. She was intended for use as a commerce destroyer, but had little success because she was slow and her fuel demands were excessive. Eventually she made her way to Guam, using coconut shells for fuel, and on December 14, 1914, slipped into Apra Harbor while a Japanese patrol ship was at the far side of the island.
International law requires that a warship of a belligerent power, remaining in a port of a neutral nation for more than 24 hours, be interned. So the Cormoran stayed on, and her people made a very pleasant addition to the small colony of white people. Her New Guinea messmen were stalwart, jet-black fellows with close- curled hair. Their tribal tattooing and red lava-lavas, worn with the imperious manner of chieftains, made them a striking contrast to the brown, friendly, straight-haired Chamorros.
Diplomatic relations between Germany and the United States were broken off in February, 1917, and from that time on all the officers and men of the Cormoran were required to remain aboard the vessel. This created a considerable vacuum in the life of the community, for among the German officers were a number of cultured men conspicuous for their social graces. One of these married our operating-room nurse, the best one I have ever worked with. She became so violently pro-German, so intolerant of all things American, that her services were lost to us.
Preparations were made for the defense of the island. It was common knowledge that war was impending, and the German ship was suspected of having more guns and trained fighting men than our forces on the shore. At last the word that war had been declared with Germany came, in the early morning of April 7. The commandant’s aide went at once in a boat to the Cormoran and demanded its surrender. With dramatic intensity, Captain von Zuckschwerdt replied that we was willing to surrender his officers and crew, but not his ship.
As the aide went down the ladder to enter his boat, he saw the German crew throwing overboard chests, suitcases and life preservers, then diving into the harbor and swimming away from the ship. When his barge had cleared by a hundred yards or so, several muffled explosions were heard and the ship began to settle by the stern. She slowly turned over to starboard and sank from sight. The work of rescue was started at once, and only seven of the 370 Germans were lost.
The native jail usually had a few tenants, locked away for minor misdemeanors, and they led an idyllic existence. They could have dug their way out with their bare hands if they had wanted to do so, but they were well fed and were even given a daily allowance for the support of their families. Theoretically, they worked on the roads but actually they had plenty of time to recline at ease and share the daily gossip with neighbors who passed by. On Saturdays at noon, or sometimes on Friday, they were sent home so that they could spend the weekend on their ranches.
Like other countries, Guam had an occasional nonconformist, one who was at odds with the government and agitating to have everything changed. One of these eventually landed in jail, which further inflamed his hatred of all in authority. He harangued his fellow prisoners and pointed out the indignities and persecutions that they suffered. At last he aroused them to such a pitch of rebellion that they joined him in refusing to go home for the weekend, unless the government paid them an additional allowance for their food while they were absent from the jail.
The simple mind of the jailor was entirely discomposed by this complicated situation, but he handled it in a very competent manner. He went home until Monday morning, leaving the jail wide open.
Society in Guam resolved itself quite naturally into three levels, each identified by its footgear. At the bottom was the barefoot gang, the ranchers and laborers. Next came the slipper gang, wearing wooden soles with cloth toe covers. At every step the heels dropped down, slapping the ground or the floor, and thus advertising the social status of the wearer. At the top was the shoe gang, those who wore shoes all the time. They were the Japanese merchants, a few families who remained as representatives of the former Spanish regime, and the families of white men who had married native women and become a permanent part of the native community.
Most of these white men, unlike the traditional conception of the beachcomber, were of fine character, successful business men, who were determined to raise their numerous children to be good American citizens. Many of the second generation were sent to schools and colleges in the United States. But there were some few who illustrated the tragic state of the white man gone native. One of our enlisted men was an example of such a tragedy. He had saved his money and completed his requirements for entrance to a college of engineering. We knew him as a sober, industrious youngster with high principles. On the night before he was to sail for home the other men gave a farewell party for him. He had his first drink that night, and woke the next morning to find himself in bed with one of the native public women. No matter what the character of the woman, he felt that since he had sinned with her he must marry her, to save her soul and his own. He did so, and I saw him many months later, a dejected figure holding a menial job among native laborers.
When I told Mr. Shimizu, the head of the local Japanese colony, that his latest offspring was a boy, he made no effort to conceal his joy. “Another soldier for the Mikado,” he shouted, and hurried to the cable office to have the new son registered in Tokyo for military duty and for citizenship. The Japanese formed a sedately prosperous unit of the community. They did most of the importing and exporting, also owned the largest and most popular saloons, where the sailors and marines liked best to hang out and argue the fine points of their professions.
One evening, after twilight had fallen and the trade wind had died, we walked along the beach seeking any errant breeze. There we came upon a forlorn, emaciated figure sitting on his haunches and gazing out to sea. It was a Japanese patient of mine, near death from tuberculosis. With a look of infinite sadness, like a modem Enoch Arden, he was looking westward, toward the land of his birth, that he would never see again.
All that is now past. Knowing what conditions the Japanese have imposed on the native populations of other lands that they have invaded, we must realize that the simple, pleasant way of life among the kindly people of Guam has ceased for a time.