100 USEFUL PLANTS OF GUAM. 



The statement has been frequently repeated n 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 h're in their 

 vernacular, many of which were of etymological identity with similar 

 terms in other islands of the Pacific. Among these were guafi (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 AKTS. 



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. The}^ 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 (sulo) 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. 



Their wonderful "flying praos " were the admiration of all the early 

 navigators. Descriptions of them were given by Pigafetta (1521), 



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 as a kind of animal, w r hich attached 

 itself to the wood, upon which it fed. The first who approached it too closely hav- 

 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 

 it as we do." (Charles leGobien, Histoire des Isles Marianes, nouvellement conver- 

 ties a la religion Chretienne, etc., p. 44, Paris, 1700.) 



See Letourneau, Charles, La sociologie d'apres 1' ethnographic, p. 566, Paris, 1892; 

 Goguet, A.-Y., De 1'origine des lois, 6 me Edition, I, p. 89, 1758; Raynal's Indies, 

 vol. 3, p. 381, 1788. See also Plutarch: " Aqmine an ignis sit utilior," in Plutarch's 

 works (vol. 2, p. 955, Frankfort, 1620), which probably suggested to Pere le Gobien 

 his graphic description. 



