The most distinctive indigenous Chamorro instrument is a one-stringed bow called a “belembaotuyan.” This cousin of the Brazilian berimbau appears at Chamorro weddings or other celebrations. According to Guampedia’s introduction to the belembaotuyan, “the meaning of belembao in Chamorro means ‘swaying of the trees’ and tuyan means ‘stomach.’ Essentially, belembaotuyan means either a ‘one-stringed belly echo’ or ‘vibrations of the belly.'” We like both.
One of Guam’s favorite traditions is “Kantan Chamorro,” a playful tradition of improvised poetry and silly, taunting song. A Kantan Chamorro session might start with one singer choosing a familiar four-line chant and using it to tease another member of the group, who then pick up the musical challenge and tease back. This interplay can last for hours. The poetic interplay of Kantan Chamorrita is part of a widespread global tradition of jousting through poetry and song, which appears in the Caribbean as an “extempo war,” in Lebanon as “zajal,” in Greenland as a “drum dance” and in the U.S. as a rap battle.
Yesterday we met a man who is arguably Guam’s favorite Chamorro musician, roots rocker J.D. Crutch. Let’s listen to one more song in this video as we appreciate the appreciation Guampedia expresses for this “Talofofo Boy”: “The musician ‘J.D. Crutch’ was a man who was both artist and outlaw, in a manner of speaking….His voice was a blend of Rod Stewart raunch and the nasal sound of the Chamorro techas who lead prayers at Guam rosaries and novenas.”
One of Guam’s most popular Chamorro-language rockers of all time is J.D. Crutch. Born in 1955, the son of one of the Guamanians
who captured jungle-hiding Japanese World War II “straggler” Shoichi Yokoi, John Anthony Castro Duenas became known as “J.D. Crutch” after he had to adopt the use of crutches due to a childhood bout with polio. When Crutch was young he was an enthusiastic singer of Kantan Chamorita, traditional Chamorro poetic songs that often take the form of competitions between two vocalists competing to impress the crowd, often by taunting their opponents. Crutch’s quick wit and broad irreverence made him a natural and propelled him through an energetic career as a Chamorro roots-rock star. Crutch passed away in 1996.
We start our week in the Mariana Islands in Guam, where we are the special guests at an intimate party in the backyard of a Chamorro family. “Careless Love” is an old jazz-blues standard, a traditional tune with lyrical variations aplenty that has been an active part of the repertoires of jazz and blues artists since the beginning of the 1900’s. Musicians have taken many liberties with the song’s lyrics, but the story always has to do with a broken relationship, destroyed by one partners’ carelessness, or lack of depth in love. W.C. Handy’s 1926 “Loveless Love” compares “loveless love” to artificial food: “Oh love oh love oh loveless love, Has set our heart on goal-less goals,, From milkless milk and silkless silk, We are growing used to soul-less souls.” The version we hear in this video blends traditional lyrics with a version in Chamorro, the main indigenous peoples’ language of Guam. Enjoy this Chamorro cover song performed at the Camacho family’s home. A translation: “Why are you like that baby to me. Please come closer to me and I’ll tell you how my heart is hurting. We’ve been together a long time. And now this is our situation. Baby please tell me what have I done wrong To make your heart also hurt.”
We spend this week in our online classes among the Marianas, a chain of islands in Micronesia. Archaeologists aren’t of one mind about the exact history of the people who initially populated the Mariana Islands, but most suggest people first arrived from Southeast Asia, likely from Indonesia, about two thousand years B.C. The people came to be called the Chamorro, and they developed their own language as well as a particularly stratified social structure that is fairly similar to that in place in other nations in Micronesia. The first European visitors to the Marianas — consisting of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands — arrived in 1521 with Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, sailing on behalf of Spain, which eventually colonized; over time an estimated 90%-95% of the islands’ original Chamorro population either died from diseases they caught from the Spanish or married non-Chamorro settlers. By the late 19th century the Germans and Americans claimed the islands too. Early in World War I Japan invaded the Northern Marianas and a day after attacking the U.S. at Pearl Harbor in 1941 brutally took Guam. U.S. forces fought defeated the Japanese in 1944. Today, Guam is an “unincorporated territory” of the U.S.. and the Northern Mariana Islands are considered a “commonwealth” — both are considered “insular areas.” The islands sometimes ponder reuniting politically, but memories of the incredibly difficult relations between the two during wartime years still remain.
