THE GOOD CARLOS MAAÑAO

 

Our ancestors both welcomed the Spanish missionaries AND opposed them.

One such Chamorro who embraced the Catholic faith was a young boy named Carlos Maañao.

Carlos died on February 22 in the year 1698. The missionaries wrote that he was a student at the Colegio de San Juan de Letrán, the school established in Hagåtña by Sanvitores for the education of select Chamorro boys.

He fell into sickness and two Jesuit priests assisted him in his last days. On his sick bed, Carlos spoke so tenderly and lovingly of Christ suffering on the cross, and of the Blessed Mother, that the priests and the young boys in the Colegio were moved, some to tears. He prayed ardently for the forgiveness of his sins and that he might not have to pass through Purgatory.

When he was told how serious his illness was, he began to go to confession and receive Holy Communion every eight days. He prayed the Rosary devoutly. He died, in the opinion of the missionaries, a holy death.

ONRA? PAT ONRO?

 

How does one say HONOR in Chamorro?

When we sing the Fanohge Chamorro, we say ONRA. "For the honor" is "Para i onra."

When we are at Mass, we say ONRO. "For yours is all the honor" is "todo i onro."

If we look at Spanish, there is a Spanish word honra, but no Spanish word honro. Honra means "honor, esteem, respect" and so on.

Påle' Román (1932) says onra means "honor," and Padre Ibáñez says the same thing in 1865.

In Chamorro, onra is also a verb. Ma onra i taotao. The person is honored.

Påle' Román says that the noun "honor" is inenra. One can turn almost any word into a noun by adding the -IN infix. The adjective "good" or "maolek" becomes the noun "goodness" or "minaolek."

So where does onro come from?

My guess is that when a word is seldom used, as "honor" is I would submit, the word is more likely to undergo transformations based on personal whim or leaning. Frequent usage sets a sort of standard you are held to. But rare usage opens one up to more freedom to modify.

A CHAMORRO-GREEK PASSION

 

ISABEL GUERRERO VENEZIANO

He was Greek, she was Greek-Chamorro. But their union was not meant to be.

Athanasios Malis, a young Greek man in his 20s came to Guam in 1915 for reasons I am not sure of yet. He had only immigrated to the United States a few years before that, so there's a good possibility it was through the military. He was somehow connected to the American military collier Nereus.

There just happened to be on Guam, at the time, a fellow Greek man named Alexander Veneziano, married to the Chamorro Ana Guerrero. The two Greek gentlemen met, and some kind of friendship formed.

Veneziano had a daughter, the beautiful Isabel. Malis fell in love with her. He claimed she also fell in love with him, and asked him to marry her. 

Isabel denied falling for Malis and, even if she did have feelings for him at first, they didn't last. In 1917, she was giving clear signs to Malis she would not marry him.

Complaints about Malis were lodged by Isabel in April, July and August of that year. Even Isabel's new romantic interest, the Navy pay clerk John Charles Poshepny, filed a complaint. Malis was bothering Isabel and threatening to do harm, even to himself. A telephone operator heard Malis speak abusively to Isabel on the phone.

JOHN CHARLES POSHEPNY

Isabel's future husband filed a complaint against Malis

Malis showed up at Aina de Vásquez's store in Hagåtña, asking to buy bullets for his revolver. Aina wouldn't sell him any. She knew he was having trouble with Isabel. Thank goodness for Aina's good sense. She may have prevented the spilling of blood.

STOREKEEPER AINA DE VÁSQUEZ 

MAY HAVE PREVENTED THE SPILLING OF BLOOD THAT DAY

It wasn't a surprise Aina knew about this drama. Malis could talk about nothing else other than Isabel. Even at work, that's all he would talk about. His work supervisors were of the opinion that Malis was love sick and mentally unbalanced.

So, the Navy doctors were asked to chime in. After examining Malis, they said he wasn't insane, but they recommended Malis be sent away. He was, and the Island Attorney asked that the case be dismissed. It's all recorded in court documents at the time. 

Two years later, in 1919, Athanasios Malis was described on a ship manifest as an "indigent American" traveling from Manila to San Francisco on US Army transport.

In 1920, he was admitted to a mental hospital, the Mendocino State Hospital in Ukiah, California, and was described as speaking irrationally and having delusions. He gave different answers to the same question.

He remained a patient at the hospital all the way till 1950, if not longer, and passed away in 1970. For much of its history, the Mendocino State Hospital was notorious for mixing serial killers and criminally insane with the mentally ill. The hospital was guilty of abuse, such as experimenting on patients and subjecting them to bizarre treatments against their will.

I hope Malis finally found peace in the merciful hands of Jesus. 

"More torturous than anything is the human heart. Beyond remedy; who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9-10)