104 USEFUL PLANTS OF GUAM. 



inordinately vain, considering themselves to be men of the greatest 

 genius and wisdom in the world, in comparison with whom all other 

 nations were contemptible. They attached great importance to caste, 

 and had sharply defined lines between families of 'high, low, and middle 

 extraction. This led the early fathers to imagine that they must be 

 descendants of some polite nation. "Thus it is seen," says Padre 

 Garcia, "how Pride, banished from Heaven, dwells in all parts of the 

 earth, going in some nations clothed and in others naked. " a Under 

 no consideration could a Chamorri, or noble, marry a girl of common 

 caste, though she might be rich and he poor. In ancient times it was 

 even customary for kinsmen to kill a noble who for love or for gain 

 should disgrace his family by such a marriage. People of low caste were 

 not permitted to eat or drink in the houses of nobles or even to come 

 near them. If they wished to communicate with them, they must do so 

 from a distance. This custom was especially marked among the nobles 

 living at Agaiia, where, on account of the excellence of the water and 

 for other advantages of the site, lived the nobles of the highest rank. 

 They were regarded b}^ all the rest of the island with fear and respect. 

 In this town there were 53 houses in which the nobility lived. The 

 rest, about a hundred and fifty, belonging to the common people, 

 occupied a position apart and were not considered as a part of the 

 town or of the court. The prejudice of caste was one of the first 

 difficulties encountered by the early missionaries. The chiefs did not 

 consider it seemly that people of low caste should share with them the 

 benefits of baptism, saying that so noble an institution as the fathers 

 taught them to regard it should be enjoyed only by the nobility and 

 not b} r plebeians; and, indeed, the fathers had great difficulty in over- 

 coming the fear of the common people, so firmly rooted was their 

 feeling of abasement in the presence of their betters. 6 



SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS AND CUSTOMS. 



Marriage. — Though more than one wife was permitted, 3 r et a man 

 had, as a rule, only one. Marriage between relatives was strictly 

 forbidden. The wife was essentially the head of the family. Adulteiy 

 on the part of a man was punished in various manners. Sometimes 

 the injured wife would call together the other women of the village, 

 and putting on their husbands' hats and arming themselves with spears, 

 they would go to the house of the adulterer, destroy his growing crops, 

 and, making a demonstration as though about to spear him, they would 

 drive him from his house. At other times the injured wife would 

 punish her husband by deserting him, whereupon her relations 

 would assemble at his house and carry away all the property, leaving 



"Garcia, Vida y Martyrio de Sanvitores, p. 199, 1683. &Idem., p. 219. 



