Chants of re-enchantment: Chamorro spiritual resistance to colonial domination

Farrer DS, Sellmann JD (2014)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2014

Journal

Social Analysis University of Adelaide

Book Volume: 58

Pages Range: 127-148

Journal Issue: 1

DOI: 10.3167/sa.2014.580107

Abstract

The Chamorro people inhabit an archipelago known as the Mariana Islands located in the western Pacific Ocean. Seventeenth-century Chamorros took ancestral skulls into warfare against the Spanish in the period of the Spanish conquest. The possession of such skulls manifested profound symbolic power. In the aftermath of the war, the survivors converted to Catholicism, amalgamating their ancient religious practices with that faith. Resistance through the centuries against Spanish, Japanese, and American colonial power has been anchored in Chamorro cultural continuity, albeit in an ostensibly fragmented and augmented form. A site of strategic US military bases, Guam now anticipates further military build-up. War magic and warrior religion are lenses that enable the study of colonial domination where the battle lines fault across military, economic, and political frames toward cultural fronts. © Berghahn Journals.

Authors with CRIS profile

Douglas Farrer

Involved external institutions

University of Guam (UOG) / Unibetsedåt Guåhan GU Guam (GU) University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa US United States (USA) (US)

How to cite

APA:

Farrer, D.S., & Sellmann, J.D. (2014). Chants of re-enchantment: Chamorro spiritual resistance to colonial domination. Social Analysis, 58(1), 127-148. https://doi.org/10.3167/sa.2014.580107

MLA:

Farrer, Douglas S., and James D. Sellmann. "Chants of re-enchantment: Chamorro spiritual resistance to colonial domination." Social Analysis 58.1 (2014): 127-148.

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