FAMILY NICKNAMES : DAMOA

Damoa is a clan of the Mendiolas in Saipan and Luta.  You can see this Damoa decal has the image of Saipan in the latte stone.

But the roots are in Guam.

Jose Arriola Mendiola from Guam moved to Luta and married a girl from Luta, Maria Taimañao.  This would have been in the 1860s.

They had several children, one of them being Vicente Taimañao Mendiola.  He married Vicenta Santos Mendiola from Guam and raised a family in Luta.  But then he moved with his wife and children to Saipan and thus the Damoa clan spread.  Now we have Damoas living on Guam.

It's interesting that both husband and wife were Mendiolas, and had the same first name, though one in masculine and the other in feminine form : Vicente/Vicenta.

TODAY'S CHAMORRO WORD : GÅTBO

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GRETA GARBO

GÅTBO : beautiful, pretty

We borrowed this from the Spanish word garbo, which is a noun, not an adjective, and means "elegance, poise, grace."  To do something "con much garbo," "with much grace."

Sen gåtbo i matå-ña.  His/her face is very beautiful.

Ai na ginatbo!  My how beautiful!

Na' gåtbo fan i bestidu-ho.  Please make my dress pretty.

Greta Garbo

She was actually Swedish and Garbo is not her true last name.  She adopted it for her Hollywood name.

CAMPAIGN CHAMORRO

I would have spelled this "Maila' ta fan akubre."

The word kubre means "to cover," and it can also be used for "help" in the same way we say in English, "I'll cover you."  It means that the ones who have will cover the needs of the ones who don't have.

In Chamorro, putting "a" before a verb means to do that action for or to each other.  Guaiya is "to love."  Aguaiya is "to love each other."

Kubre is borrowed from the Spanish cubrir, which means "to cover."

It's interesting that our mañaina didn't change the pronunciation of this one too much, when they did change the pronunciation of cobre, which is Spanish for "copper" and also for "money" since money was often in the form of copper coins in the old days.

In Chamorro, Spanish cobre became kopble.  We don't like the letter R.  It becomes an L.  But that didn't happen with kubre.

FAMILIA : BENAVENTE

Benavente is a Spanish name. 

There are several theories as to its meaning; possibly "good wind" or "good arrival."  Whatever the case, there is a town in the province of Zamora, Spain named Benavente and people were often called by their native towns.

In Spain today, around 5,000 people have Benavente for their surname.  Not a huge number, but Jacinto Benavente, pictured above, was a famous writer who had a square in Madrid named after him.

ON GUAM

The Benaventes show up early on Guam, in the 1727 Census.  A Manuel de Benavente is listed as a soldier in the Spanish company of troops.  As always, we cannot be sure if he was a Spaniard, or from Latin America.  If he was from Latin America, he could have been pure-blooded Spanish or a mix (mestizo).  We probably will never know unless some document from 300 years ago shows up.

Manuel was married to a woman named Agustina Tana.  Tana is not a Spanish name, and it could very well have been Tanña, the Chamorro word for "taste."  Even if this is not the case, Agustina could very well have been Chamorro, since many of these soldiers came as bachelors and married local, Chamorro women.

Manuel is the only Benavente in the records, so it is safe to assume that all Chamorro Benaventes come from this soldier Manuel de Benavente who was from Spain or Latin America.  Manuel and Agustina had three boys and all three boys show up in the 1758 Census as married men.  These boys were born and grew up on Guam; mixed breed but Chamorro in language, customs and mentality.

One of the better-known Benavente clans on Guam is the Bobo clan.  Their ancestor was Mariano Garrido Benavente, who was married to Manuela Borja.  They would have been born around the 1860s.

ON SAIPAN

In the late 1890s, Fernando Mendiola Benavente moved from Hagåtña, Guam to Garapan, Saipan.  There he married Dolores Castro Villagomez and began the Benavente clan in Saipan.  Two of his sons, Ignacio and Fernando, became well-known gentlemen.  Ignacio, for example, served as a judge and as Mayor of Saipan for a while.

Msgr. James LG Benavente

Guam

Ignacio Villagomez Benavente

Saipan