100 USEFUL PLANTS OF GUAM. 
The statement has been frequently repeated” and Pigafetta erro- 
neously cited as authority for it. That it is not true is evident when 
one considers that their principal food staples could not be eaten 
uncooked. Moreover, they had words pertaining to fire in’ their 
vernacular, many of which were of etymological identity with similar 
terms in other islands of the Pacific. Among these were cuafi (fire), 
apo (ashes), aso (smoke), tuno (roast), manila (flame), pinigan (live 
coal), songge (burn, v. t.), hanon (burn, v. intr.), sotne (boil), and 
other words. They must have possessed these words in prehistoric 
times. Not one of them is derived from the Spanish; all are allied to 
corresponding words in Malayan and Pacific languages. 
USEFUL ARTS, 
The natives made excellent houses and were skillful canoe builders. 
They furnished themselves with spears and slings for fighting, stone 
adzes or gouges for working in wood (PI. XVII), and lines, hooks, 
and nets for fishing, and they planted and cultivated their gardens and 
rice fields. They were not wood carvers nor engravers, nor did they 
possess the art of weaving by looms, as did the Caroline Islanders, the 
natives of Santa Cruz, and some of the Philippine tribes. Their mats 
they braided diagonally after the manner of the Polynesians and 
Melanesians. The men made the houses and boats, the women braided 
the mats for beds and for boat sails. Pottery: was unknown. — Fish 
were caught by hooks from the shore (etupog) or by trawling from 
canoes under sail. They were also speared on the reef, attracted by 
torches (suld) and caught with a net at night (gade), stupefied by sink- 
ing narcotics in holes in the reef, and trapped in pounds of bamboo 
wickerwork (guigao). Fishhooks (hagiiet) were made of mother-of- 
pearl and tortoise shell. 
NAVIGATION, 
Their wonderful ** flying praos” were the admiration of all the early 
navigators. Descriptions of them were given by Pigafetta (1521), 
oS 
they saw it for the first time when Magellan landed in one of their islands, where 
he burned about 50 houses in order to punish these islanders for the trouble they 
had caused him, They regarded the fire at first asa kind of animal, which attached 
itself to the wood, upon which it fed. The first who approached it too closely havy- 
ing burned themselves, made the others afraid of it, and only dared look upon it 
afterwards from a distance for fear said they of being bitten by it, and lest this 
terrible animal might wound them by its violent breath, for this was the idea they 
first formed of the flame and the heat. This frivolous fear did not last. They saw 
their mistake, and they became accustomed in a short time to see the fire and to use 
itas we do.”? (Charles le Gobien, Histoire des Isles Marianes, nouvellement conver- 
ties i la religion Chrétienne, etc., p. 44, Paris, 1700.) 
“See Létourneau, Charles, La sociologie d’aprés ethnographie, p. 566, Paris, 1892; 
Goguet, A.-Y., De Vorigine des lois, 6" édition, I, p. 89, 1758; Raynal’s Indies, 
vol. 3, p. 381, 1788. See also Plutarch: ‘‘ Aqudne an ignis sit utilior,’’ in Plutarch’s 
works (vol. 2, p. 955, Frankfort, 1620), which probably suggested to Pére le Gobien 
his graphic description. 
