ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS. 95 
loose bark of trees, in search of their insect prey. They are carnivo- 
rous and seize their victims with their pincer-like Jaws, injecting their 
venom. They are very quick in their movements and tenacious of 
life. When one is cut in two each part makes off in an independent 
direction at full speed, but the posterior part does not get very far. 
THE PEOPLE. 
ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS.“ 
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS. 
The aborigines of Guam were described by the early navigators and 
missionaries as fine-looking, tall, robust, well built, and of better pro- 
portions than the Spaniards, though sometimes inclined to be corpulent, 
and as possessing ‘great strength fitting to their statures.” They were 
of a brown color (un pardo bazo), lighter than the natives of the 
Philippine Islands and taller than they. Their hair was naturally jet 
black, but at the time of Legazpi’s visit was bleached to a yellow color. 
At the time of the discovery the men wore it loose or coiled in a knot 
on the topof the head. Later they were described as shaving the head 
with the exception of acrest about a finger long, which they left on 
the crown, Some of the men were bearded. The women, too, were 
tall. They were handsome and eraceful and fairer and more delicate 
than the men, and at the time of the discovery wore their hair so long 
that it touched the ground.” No mention is made of tatooing or of 
piercing the ears or nose. Both sexes anointed themselves with coco- 
nut oil. The natives were remarkably free from disease and physical 
defects, and many of them lived to an advanced age, ** for among those 
alone who were baptized the first year of the mission there were more 
than 120 who were past the age of a hundred years; owing perhaps to 
their rugged constitutions, inured from their infancy to distempers 
which afterwards do not affect them, or to the uniformity and natural- 
ness (naturalidad) of their food without the artifice which gluttony has 
introduced to waste the life which it sustains, or to their occupations 
necessitating plenty of exercise without too great fatigue, or to the 
which are roses and thorns whose prick- 
absence of vices and worries 
«The information regarding the aborigines of Guam is derived from the narratives 
of early navigators and from contemporary accounts of the Jesuit missionaries who 
first settled on the island. The most important of the former are Pigafetta’s history 
of Magellan’s voyage, the several narratives of Legazpi’s expedition in the archives 
at Madrid, and those of Gaspar and Grijalva, who accompanied Legazpi. The latter 
were published at Madrid in 1685 by Padre Francisco Garcia, of the Society of Jesus, 
in his Vida y martyrio del venerable Padre Diego Luis de Sanvitores. (See List 
of works. ) 
bLe donne son belle, di figura svelta, pitt delicate e bianche degli uomini, con 
capegli nerissimi scioltie lunghi fino a terra. (Pigafetta, Primo viaggio intorno al 
globo terracqueo, p. 51, Milano, L800. ) 
