WHAT THE AMERICANS DENIED, THE JAPANESE ALLOWED

 

CATHOLIC SISTERS IN PREWAR SAIPAN

but no Catholic Sisters were allowed on Guam

Every Catholic mission throughout the world wanted religious Sisters.

Sure, the priests were the most crucial. The priest said the Masses, baptized, preached and so on. But the work of the Church involved more than that. 

The religious Brothers did a lot of the manual work. They were the carpenters, brick-layers, cooks, tailors and sacristans for the priests. Many a priest said Mass in a chapel built by a Brother.

But the religious Sisters were also very important, especially with the children. Children, both boys and girls, are nurtured best by mothers and the Sisters were the mothers. If Sisters were working in a mission, the children were well-grounded in the faith. Besides the children, the Sisters worked with the mothers and single women of the community, teaching them domestic and academic skills besides religious subjects. The Sisters formed choirs and taught the women to sew, many times for the needs of the church.

So in both American Guam and in Japanese Saipan, the Spanish priests looked for Sisters.

The difference was that the American Navy on Guam blocked the arrival of Catholic Sisters, but the Japanese Government in Saipan, who weren't even Christian, gave Catholic Sisters a warm welcome.

IN BOTH CASES, SPANISH MISSIONARIES WERE POLITICALLY NEUTRAL

In the 1920s, when the Spanish Jesuits in Saipan looked for Sisters and the Spanish Capuchins in Guam did the same, Spanish Sisters was the original thought.

Spain by that time was no longer a world power, having been defeated by the US in 1898 and having lost almost all of its Latin American territories even before that. Therefore, in the 1920s, neither the Japanese nor the Americans had a reason to fear Spanish missionaries working in the Marianas, who might represent a foreign power at odds with Japan or the US. 

Besides not being a political threat to the colonial governments, Spanish Sisters could work well with Spanish priests and brothers.

And so the Japanese welcomed the Spanish Mercedarian Missionaries of Berriz into Saipan in 1928. These were Sisters straight from Spain. The Japanese saw the Sisters as a good influence on the people of Saipan. The Sisters wouldn't compete with the Japanese public schools for the Chamorros and Carolinians either, not that the Japanese sought to give the islanders a complete education anyway. Schools for the island children went up only to a certain point. Only the more promising native students were given more educational opportunities, with the main idea being that they would become good Japanese.

A MERCEDARIAN CONDUCTING CHOIR PRACTICE IN SAIPAN

ON GUAM, THE ISSUE WAS DIFFERENT

On American Guam, however, the idea of bringing in Catholic Sisters was totally opposed by the US Navy.

The main reason for this was that, on Guam, Catholic schools were hoped to be opened, and those Catholic schools would compete with the government's public schools. Being strongly Catholic, many parents, especially the higher status ones, would favor sending their children to a Catholic school more than to a government one. The Navy wanted to Americanize the younger Chamorros already by the 1920s, and the Navy thought that Catholic Sisters, especially non-American ones, would slow down the Americanization process. The Navy already felt that was true with the Spanish priests, and had them slowly replaced with American priests in the late 1930s.

Ironically, the Navy also feared that Catholic Sisters would be a financial drain on the people of Guam since the people would have to financially support the Sisters. But if the Sisters could be allowed to charge tuition at their schools, there would have been less need to rely on the charity of the people.

AN INTERNATIONAL GROUP OF SISTERS

THE FRANCISCAN MISSIONARIES OF MARY

The Spanish Capuchins on Guam, sensing that the US Navy feared even more Spanish missionaries on Guam, turned to a group of Sisters who were international in nature, the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary (FMM). Founded in India by a French Sister, the FMM Sisters had spread to various countries of the world by the 1920s. They were in the Philippines at the time the Spanish Capuchins on Guam were looking for Sisters.

A handful of Sisters of different nationalities, but all speaking English to some degree, were selected for Guam. But the US Navy put up a roadblock. No Sister would be allowed passage to Guam without first passing an English test. Then, when the Sisters passed the test, a new qualification was added. The Sisters must not only speak English well, but also speak it without an accent.

What accent? Did it have to be an American accent? And if so, which American accent?

So an Australian or Irish Sister, whose mother tongue was English, would fail. But what about a Bostonian accent? Or did it have to be a Wisconsin one?

The requirement was a pretext for turning down all the Sisters from sailing for Guam. A Navy examiner in Manila tested the Sisters for accents and they all failed.

It was the one major defect of the Guam Catholic Mission, so said some Spanish missionaries. The Church on Guam had no religious schools and so Sisters.

So the Americans, who are Christian of one sort or another, denied Guam Catholic Sisters, but the non-Christian Japanese allowed them in Saipan. When Japan knew it would enter into war with the US in the 1940s, the Japanese then began to restrict the activities of the Spanish Sisters in Saipan.

PREGNANT YET KILLED

 

ROSALÍA'S GRAVE

with sister Carmen

Pedro Guevara Dumanal, better-known-as Pedro'n Tagålo, was a wanted man by the Japanese in 1943.

Dumanal had always been on the list of people to watch out for by the Japanese. Being an ex-US Navy man, he was considered pro-American and dangerous. He was rumored to have a large cache of weapons hidden somewhere, and to have spoken to some Chamorro men to organize some resistance to the Japanese.

So Dumanal went into hiding.

So the Japanese questioned a lot of people whether they had seen Dumanal or not.

One of them was Dumanal's wife, Rosalía Reyes Quintanilla Dumanal. Not only was she questioned; she and a daughter were taken to the Sumay Cemetery and tortured.

According to the lore told by older people in Santa Rita, Rosalía was pregnant at the time. She had just given birth in 1942 to her youngest born, a daughter named Enriqueta.

She was asked by the Japanese, "Where is your husband?"

"I don't know," she repeatedly replied.

But Rosalía was pregnant, and probably showed.

"How can that be when you are pregnant? You must know where he is!" the Japanese said. 

And so Rosalía was beheaded. It was April 25, 1944.

The sad fact was that Pedro, her husband, was already dead and the Japanese knew it.  On February 23, two months before, Pedro had met up with a Saipanese interpreter on the road, and was killed by the interpreter, who claimed self-defense. Why then were the Japanese asking information on a man they knew was already dead?

Now both mother and father were dead. Their two oldest daughters got married soon after the war and became guardians of the younger children, Enriqueta being the youngest born. But a sibling died along with Rosalía in her womb.

Rosalía was the daughter of Vicente Cruz Quintanilla (familian Orong) and Gertrudes Taitano Reyes.

Rest in peace. U såga gi minahgong.

FAMILIA : TAISIPIC

 

From some French scientists and scholars we do know the meaning of this truly, indigenous surname.

The Freycinet Expedition (1817) was a visit to the Marianas by those French investigators, who left us many reports about just about everything concerning our islands, including some notes about language.

They tell us that SIPIK meant fisherman. Taisipik would therefore mean "without a fisherman." Perhaps that meant the person lacked a fisherman in the family. Other people had the surname Gofsipik, meaning "good fisherman," and others Sipikña, meaning "his or her fisherman," or "a better fisherman" than others.

Father Callistus Lopinot, a German missionary in Saipan became a student of Chamorro and visited Luta, as well, says that, in Luta, to fish is sumibek (sumipik).

The Taisipics seem to have roots in the old village of Pågo, and when that village was closed due to the smallpox epidemic in 1856 which killed off a large part of the small community, the survivors moved to other villages, and the Taisipics seem to have moved to Yoña where they were documented in the 1920s.

AN OLD NAME

Being indigenous, it's no surprise that TAISIPIC is a name found in old Spanish records.

There was a Manuel Taisipic who is listed as a pig pen worker for the government farm in 1796.

Taisipics were found living in different villages in the 1700s; in Hågat, Malesso', Inalåhan, Sinajaña and Hagåtña.

Since the old records also show that a number of Taisipics were intermarried with well-known families from the now extinct village of Pågo, such as the Taitingfong and Quichocho families, I think there's a good chance that the Taisipics, at least some of them, were from Pågo. Another indication this might be true is that, when the Spaniards closed down the village of Pågo when the village died out from the smallpox epidemic in 1856, many of the Pågo people moved to Yoña, and the Taisipics eventually were found in Yoña, although there are in Hagåtña in the late 1800s, too. Some Pågo families moved to Hagåtña, then to Yoña later on, where their farms were.

TAISIPIC - QUICHOCHO

It seems all the Taisipics of Guam are descendants of JOSÉ TAISIPIC and SUSANA QUICHOCHO. Susana is still alive in the 1897 Guam Census.

BALBINO (or BALVINO) QUICHOCHO TAISIPIC was their son, and Balbino married Carmen Mafnas.

Their son GREGORIO MAFNAS TAISIPIC married Ana Campos Taitingfong. This couple had numerous children. A great number of Taisipics on Guam are the descendants of GREGORIO and ANA.

Balbino had a sister MARIA, who had a daughter ANA (or JUANA) TAISIPIC out of wedlock. Ana married Juan Quidachay. Maria then married José Pangelinan Siguenza.

Balbino had a brother Juan, who had mental issues and caused some problems in the community as reported in court documents.

The government records speak of a Jose Quichocho Taisipic, born in 1874, so probably another brother of Balbino's, but he seems to disappear from sight and no family, it seems, comes from him on Guam.

Most of the Taisipics today, therefore, are the descendants of GREGORIO MAFNAS TAISIPIC and ANA CAMPOS TAITINGFONG.