My previous post mentioned the "First Polynesians" or Menehune, and also some mythical dwarves of the Polynesian lore. Among them were the "Duende" (Spanish word for dwarf, elf), of the Philippines. Today's post will look at another Polynesian dwarf, found in the Marianas Islands.
The Marianas Islands are the summits of (mostly) extinct volcanoes that rise from the seabed of the Pacific Ocean 145°E, forming a 2,500 km-long (1,500 mi.) north-to-south arch between 12° and 21°S in Micronesia, east of the Philippines, west of Hawaii, and north of New Guinea.
They have been inhabited for thousands of years by people who reached them from the Philippines. They did so before the appearance of the "Lapita" culture, which is found in Melanesia (south of the Marianas), and which later originated the current Polynesian culture. This implies that Lapita and Chamorro were different groups of people heading into the Pacific from the Philippines, the latter heading east to the Marianas (2,100 km - 1,320 mi. See map with the location of the Marianas), and the former heading SE into Melanesia 1,600 km - 1,000 mi. See map).
Ferdinand Magellan was the first European to reach the Marianas, coming from the east, in his journey from Spain, South America, Patagonia, the strait that bears his name, and after crossing the Pacific in a SE to NW course. He named them Islas de los Ladrones (Thieves Islands) because the natives stole a small skiff (boat) from his fleet: "The captain general[Magellan] wished to stop at the large island and get some fresh food, but he was unable to do so because the inhabitants of that island entered the ships and stole whatever they could lay their hands on, so that we could not protect ourselves. The men were about to strike the sails so that we could go ashore, but the natives very deftly stole from us the small boat." (Pigafetta, 1522, p. 91.
The people were called Chamorro by the Spaniards. Later many died, due to disease, and they were also diluted by the arrival of people from Mexico and the Philippines (Guam was the main stopover spot between Manila and Acapulco for the Spanish trade ships). They remained a Spanish posession from 1521 till 1898. They were named after the Spanish Queen Mariana. After its defeat in the Spanish-American War of 1898, Spain ceded Guam to the United States and sold the remaining islands it had in Micronesia to Germany in 1899. After World War I, the League of Nations took them from Germany and placed them under a Japanese mandate. During WW II there were many bloody battles in the Marianas (Guam, Saipan, and Tinian), following WW II, they were placed under U.S. control by the United Nations, and since 1986, the Northern Marianas became the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, joining the U.S. Guam is also part of the U.S., but as a separate entity.
Original Inhabitants
A paper published in 2020 found that the first people to live in the Marianas, roughly 2,200 years ago had DNA that linked them to the Philippines. These people are "closely related to early Lapita skeletons from Vanuatu and Tonga" which suggests that they also played a role in the peopling of Polynesia. The chamorro were great navigators, having crossed 2,000 km of open ocean to reach Guam in their voyage from the Philippines. This was quite a feat at that time (3,500 years ago), unsurpassed by the European-Mediterranean civilizations, and only equaled by the wave that populated Polynesia around 1,500 years ago.
They were excellent sailors (source) and used canoes known as "sakmans" they were outriggers that measured up to 12 meters long (36 ft.) and carried a lateen sail.
Pigafetta, who navigated with Magellan and was one of the few to survive the voyage around the world, described these boats as follows:
"Those people seeing us departing followed us with more than one hundred boats for more than one league... Those boats resemble fucelere**, but are narrower, and some are black, [some] white, and others red. At the side opposite the sail, they have a large piece of woodpointed at the top, with poles laid across it and rest- ing on the water, in order that the boats may sail more safely. The sail is made from palmleaves sewn together and is shaped like a lateen sail. For rudders they use a certain blade resembling a hearth shovel which have a piece of wood at the end." (Pigafetta, p. 95)
** Note: The editor remarks that "Mosto (p. 68, note 5) says that these boats were the fisolere, which were small and very swift oared-vessels, used in winter on the Venetian lakes by the Venetian nobles for hunting with bows and arrows and guns. Amoretti conjectures that Pigafetta means the fusiniere, boats named after Fusine whence people are ferried to Venice."
The Dwarves of Guam and the Marianas
A blog post (online here) reports that around 1844, an American whaler captain named Alfred Kendrick Fisher, from New Bedford, stopped with his ship, "America", at Tinian where he saw some large stone structures (the "House of Taga") built by the ancient Chamorros. He wrote different articles that were published in the media of that time (see this example, and this one on p.385). He also wrote about the local dwarves. According to the blog post a local Chamorro named Juan Taitano from Hagåtña there were dwarves, who were kind and returned children who got lost in the jungle to their parents. They also helped heal people struck with sickness. They lived in isolation, secluded lives, they did not speak at all.
Dean Karalekas in his article, The Primordial Little People Tale-Type: Tracing Pacific Dwarf Myths throughout the Austronesian Expansion, (2024, doi:10.1163/9789004708341_013), mentions the Taotaomo’na of the Marianas Islands. These, according to the Chamorro were "the 'people before history' or 'ancient people'". Karakelas echoes Taitano's description, noting their kind, protective and helpful behavior. He argues that the Spanish missionaries and colonizers (just as they did in the Philippines) transformed these benevolent dwarves into evil, pagan spirits. He cites Guampedia's entry on Taotaomo’na which is very good. I would also add this webpage as a reference.
When Freycinet visited the Marianas in 1819, his draughtsman, Jacques Arago visited Tinian and, after seeing the ruins there concluded that "from these ancient ruins, alone we may infer, that the present inhabitants of this archipelago have not inherited the genius of their ancestors" (Source). Below is Arago's sketch of the "Ruins of ancient columns seen on the Island of Tinian":
These stone structures are known as "Latte" not for the coffee, but after the Chamorro word that designates them. Current consensus is that the Chamorro people built them between 1,500 and 500 years ago.
Could the first arrivals at the Marianas not stopped there, and headed east, reaching the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Hawaii and South America?
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