THE OUTHOUSE

A SLICE OF OLD GUAM

As well as the rest of the Marianas.

Even today you might see an outhouse - the kommon sanhiyong - here and there in a hidden rural area of the island. But I am old enough to remember outhouses even in densely populated Sinajaña in the 1960s, right in between the houses.

In the prewar days, many families just didn't have the money to pay for indoor plumbing. Many of the houses were just not built for that either. According to the sanitary inspector in Hagåtña before the war, only 20% of the 1200 houses in the capital city had indoor plumbing. Most people did their toilet business in the kommon sanhiyong built in between houses.

After the war, many homes were made of wood and tin roofing, and indoor toilets were just not part of the plan, financial or otherwise. Even when people could afford a modern bathroom, some were just so used to the outdoor toilet that they continued to use them. One of my neighbors in old Sinajaña had both an indoor modern toilet and a kommon sanhiyong which predated the new indoor toilet. They never bothered to pull down the outhouse because the family was large and a second toilet came in handy for so many users.

"It kept the bad odors outside the house," an older lady shared with me, whose family could have added a modern toilet but kept the outhouse until they replaced their wood and tin roof house with a concrete one in the 1970s.

People were putting TV antennas on their roofs and driving brand new cars and parking them next to the outdoor toilet they were still using, despite their new cash flow.

The outhouse used no water and usually no store-bought toilet tissue so owners didn't care if the neighborhood kids used theirs, as there was no added expense. I remember the one in our neighborhood was available to all the kids if they were playing outside and their own indoor toilets were too far for an emergency. Sometimes one outhouse was shared by more than one family.

Six to ten feet. The hole was usually between six to ten feet deep. The deeper the better because in time you would cover the human refuse with soil or what have you and the hole would become shallower.

No door knob. Sometimes not even a handle. So the unlocked door was slightly ajar. You walked in and closed the door by using a simple hook latch.

Sit over the hole. The toilet was just a piece of ply board with a large hole cut in. I remember looking into the hole and seeing nothing. It was too dark to see anything in the hole. But the smell told you what was in the hole. I don't remember it being particularly bad. Just musty. Or earthy.

Odor Control. One way to control the foul odors was to burn newspapers or dead vegetation in the hole. A favorite one was dead banana stalks, which had dried out, were chopped into smaller chunks and dropped into the toilet then set on fire. The hole was deep enough that the fire wasn't a threat but the smoke replaced the odor of the human waste. Don't be surprised, though, if all sorts of critters (cockroaches, rats) scurry out of the hole.

The Daily News. You had to buy the daily newspaper anyway. In 24 hours, the newspaper became obsolete. Rather than let the paper go to waste, we used the paper for human waste. That's what we wiped ourselves with. I remember going into the outhouse and finding newspapers and even mail order catalogs lying around for us to use. Sears and Montgomery Ward.

Someone even came up with a little ditty about it, using the Håfa Adai song :

ORIGINAL SONG	KOMMON SANHIYONG VERSION
In America they say, “How are you?” Filipinos say, “Kumusta kayo? But when you’re on Guam you simply say, “Hafa Adai! Hafa Adai!”	In America they use toilet tissue. Filipinos use banana leaf. But when you’re on Guam you simply use Daily News. Daily News.

TEN CENT TOILET TISSUE IN THE OLD DAYS

INTO THE OCEAN

OUTHOUSES IN PREWAR SUMAY

Straight into the water

Even better than the  kommon sanhiyong in your backyard was when you could do your business into the ocean. That way nothing accumulated in your backyard for flies to gather and transport harmful bacteria to you or your homes.

In Hagåtña and all the coastal villages, there were a few piers that stretched out as far as it could over the water. A small shack was built at the end and into the water went your human waste. You can see the ones in Sumay before the war in the pic above.

A man who was a teenager before the war in Hagåtña told me how people would send their kids to these seashore outhouses with their "honey dew" buckets of human waste and dump them there.

courtesy of Joe Quinata GPT

Some of the seaside outhouses weren't that far from shore, as seen in the pic above of a public outhouse in Humåtak in the 1960s. I am told that in some places the concrete foundation can still be seen.

MORE THAN GOING TO THE TOILET

The kommon sanhiyong was used for more than its intended purpose. Since the outhouse was avoided, due to the smell and contents, except when truly needed, some people found it a convenient place for things you wanted to hide.

Hiding Things

One man growing up in the 1950s was so naughty that he was regularly whipped by his parents with the kuåtta, the dreaded cow's tail whip. He told me that several times, when his parents weren't around, he'd take the kuåtta off the hook on the wall, the traditional place many parents kept them. The first time he threw the kuåtta on top of the outhouse roof. But his sister noticed it some time later and they retrieved it. So the second time he threw it into the outhouse hole. No one ever found out.

In the 1950s, a home in Dededo was broken into while the family was out. Stolen was a tin can with cash and jewelry in it. The family had a kommon sanhiyong. Just on a hunch, one of the police officers at the scene flashed his light down the hole and saw a silvery reflection. Yes, they retrieved the box, but it was empty.

Hiding Yourself

The kommon sanhiyong was a good place, at least for a while, to hide when you wanted to smoke or drink the little whiskey left in the bottle uncle forgot to put back. If the outhouse were so situated, you could hide behind it rather than inside it and still not be seen, but this way avoid the odors.

Discarded Babies

Sad to say, even unwanted or unexpected babies ended up in the kommon sanhiyong .

In 1958, an 18-year-old single lady in Aniguåk was feeling unusual in her abdomen and thought she needed the toilet. It was late at night. She went to the outhouse and gave birth to a baby boy. She told police she was not aware she was going to give birth, as she never had been pregnant before and had no idea what to expect. She put the baby on the floor of the outhouse and ditched her blood-stained clothes in the bushes. Hours later, her mother needed the toilet and found the baby, not knowing whose it was. The baby was taken to the hospital. Three days later the mother of the baby was feeling feverish and went to the hospital. There she confessed what happened.

A sadder story happened the following year in Tamuning. There, a 16-year-old high school student got impregnated by a 20-year-old unemployed drifter. She gave birth, unseen by anyone, and dumped the baby down the hole of the  kommon sanhiyong. A few days later she went to the hospital for post-delivery complications and coughed up the truth. The body of the dead baby was retrieved and an autopsy needed to be done to find out if the baby died before or after birth. No subsequent news story can be found to know the answer.

This case happened in 1962. The mystery was never solved.

Suicides

Believe it or not, the kommon sanhiyong was a chosen place for several suicides in Guam history. Again, people don't hang around the outhouse so it's a place to do something you don't want people to notice, at least for a while.

In 1957, an 86-year-old man hanged himself in his outhouse in Sinajaña. He tied a woman's scarf around his neck. His step son-in-law saw him go into the outhouse but started to wonder why he was taking so long so he checked, and found the old man already dead. He had tried twice before to take his own life, but was prevented by others.

In 1959, a 49-year-old man in Dededo tied a bed sheet to his neck and to the beam of the roof of his kommon sanhiyong. His wife could not think of a reason why he would kill himself. What made this story so sad is that he did it on Christmas Day and his lifeless body was discovered by his 8-year-old daughter.

ROMANCE?

You would think that the outhouse would be a good place to meet a sweetheart, especially under cover of night.

There were two problems that made the outhouse not ideal. First, the odors and setting were less than romantic. Second, although the outhouse was usually avoided and thus private, when Mother Nature calls you answer, any time of the day or night.

A lady told me the story many years ago. It happened before the war.

Diesisais åños ha’ yo’ guihe na tiempo ya trabia ti siña yo’ gumai nobio

(I was 16 years old only that time and I couldn't have a boyfriend yet)

lao guaha ha’ iyo-ko uno. Kumontråta ham para in asodda’ gi kemmon sanhiyong,

(but I did have one. We agreed to meet each other at the outhouse,)

para in kuentos ha', gi oran a las dos gi chatanmak sa’ pine’lon-måme na todos

(just to talk, at 2 o'clock in the morning because we thought that all)

esta man mamaigo’ gi taiguihe na ora. Lao ai sa’ ha baba i petta uno na primu-ho

(would be sleeping at that hour. But oh my because one of my cousins who was staying)

ni sumåsaga giya hame. Hu faisen kao siña ha tåmpe, ya ilek-ña nu guåho,

(with us opened the door. I asked him to cover it up, and he said to me,)

“Ti bai kehåye hao lao debe de un promete yo’ na achok ha’ guaha håfa båba bidådå-ho

("I won't tell on you but you have to promise me that even if there is something bad you see me doing)

ni un li’e’ ti para un kehåye yo’ lokkue’,” ya kumonfotme yo’.

(you won't tell on me either," and I agreed.)

You never know when someone will need to relieve himself, so the avoided outhouse could be suddenly invaded.