112 USEFUL PLANTS OF GUAM. 



when he baptized them took away from them their " idols '' or figures of 

 their ancestors, to whicli they paid certain veneration, and burned them, 

 "in oi-der that by the light from these tires they might see more clearly 

 the truth of our holy faith." On his fii'st visit to Guam he caused a 

 goodly pile of these little idols (idolillos) to be burned before the holj- 

 cross on the day of its triumph, July 16, 1668, and for this victory 

 which the cross gained over the devil he named the village, which before 

 was called Pigpug (Pegpog), "'The Triumph of the Cross." He made 

 them bury the skulls of their ancestors in order that they might be 

 considered people of God." By his zeal there were established on 

 the island of Guam tlie customs and Christian ceremonies of solemn 

 masses, sermons, proces.sions, oflSces of holy week, and the other prin- 

 cipal feasts of the year, according to the capacity of the villages. Thus 

 he availed himself of all the means and attractions possible to win the 

 love of the INlarianos for the Christian faith. In order that they might 

 go the more willingly to mass and to school for instruction in the doc- 

 trine, he gave them some slight presents, so that not only the people of 

 the village of Agana but many others of outlying villages flocked to 

 him. At Christmas he made an altar of the natiA'ity, and people from 

 nearly all the villages of the island came, attracted by curiosity, and he 

 allowed them to see it on the condition that they should say the creed, 

 the commandments, the act of contrition, and other prayers; and the 

 same father testifies that he reaped much fruit from the Christmas 

 ceremony. On the death of Kipuha, the chief who received them on 

 the island, the father determined to give him a solemn funeral: he con- 

 quered man}' difficulties in order to bury the dead chief in the church, 

 going for him to his house with a trumpet and the banner of San 

 Ignacio and San Francisco Xavier, and he said his vigil (wake) and 

 chanted mass and caused to be pei'formed for him the ceremonies 

 which were wont to be performed for one of the Society of Jesus, 

 which pleased the people of Agana, who at first were opposed to the 

 new manner of burial, so that they now asked whether when they 

 should die they would be buried in the same way.* 



Superstitions. — The natives took care to spit when no one was 

 looking, and they would not spit near the house of another nor in the 

 morning, which seemed to be connected with some superstitious fear.'' 

 This superstition was probably of the same nature as that of other 

 islands of the Pacific and of the East Indies, where it is feared that 

 some evil charm can be worked upon a person by one getting possession 



« See also Garcia, Vida y Marty rio de Sanvitores, p. 221, 1683. Some of the natives 

 resented the desecration of the bones and images of their ancestors, threatening to 

 kill the fathers and their assistants with their spears; but this did not deter them 

 from burning the images amid the jeers of other natives, who did not share in their 

 veneration. 



6 Idem., p. 408,409. 



« Idem., p. 198. 



