Year: 2025

The Heat of the Road: Exploring Spiritual Energy and Sickness in Chamorro Life

On By Schyuler LujanIn Chamorro VoicesLeave a comment

Prefer to listen? Hear this essay narrated below on Spotify:

For the past two weeks, our Saturday morning practice group has been reading an interview with the suruhåna Tan Maria Palacios Crisostomo, featured in the Directory of Traditional Healers & Medicinal Plants in the CNMI. I chose this text because she discusses a concept called Minaipen Chålan—literally “the heat of the road,” but more accurately describing the harmful spiritual energy that one can pick up while traveling.

Since I would need Tan Maria’s written permission to share the full interview here, I instead wanted to write about the rich discussion her words inspired in our group. In this post, I’ll share some of our reflections on how heat, spiritual energy, and spiritual sickness are understood in Chamorro culture, as well as the practices we engage in—or have seen in our families and communities—around these ideas.

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Learning “Don’t” in Chamorro, Part 2: Referencing Yourself With Mungnga’ – “Don’t Ask Me”

On By Schyuler LujanIn Chamorro Lessons: Intermediate1 Comment

In part 2 of this mini-series on saying “don’t” in Chamorro, we’ll learn how to tell someone not to do something to you—for example, “Don’t talk to me”, “Don’t touch me” or “Don’t ask me.” We’ll still be using mungnga’ in this post, but with a slightly different speech pattern. And if you missed it, check out Part 1 of this blog series for a brief introduction on using mungnga’.

As always, this post includes example sentences, Chamorro audio narrations by Jay Che’le and English translations. Happy studying!

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Before You Begin: 9 Things You Need to Know About Learning Chamorro in Adulthood

On By Schyuler LujanIn Study TipsLeave a comment

Learning Chamorro as an adult can feel intimidating—especially if you didn’t grow up speaking it or have never learned another language to conversational fluidity. You might wonder if it’s too late to start, or if you’ll ever sound natural. But here’s the truth: adult learners bring powerful strengths to the table—discipline, self-awareness, and life experience—that make progress not only possible, but deeply rewarding.

In this first post of the Getting Started series, I’ll share 9 key lessons I wish I had known before I began learning Chamorro. These ideas will help you build a strong mindset, prepare you for some potentially unexpected challenges, and approach your studies with confidence and patience.

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Kåntan Chamoru: Fanohge

On By Schyuler LujanIn Chamorro Songs2 Comments

I’m working my way through our Saturday evening practice group’s song backlog, and here’s one we transcribed back in mid-July. It’s another Daniel De Leon Guerrero piece, written in honor of Angel Santos, a political activist who championed the rights of the Chamorro people. In this song, we get a musical tribute that amplifies his calls to action—urging the Chamorro people to stand up and defend our culture, customs, people, and land.

As always, this post includes Chamorro lyrics and an English translation for the song Fanohge by Daniel De Leon Guerrero. Happy listening!

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Kåntan Chamoru: Atkahót

On By Schyuler LujanIn Chamorro SongsLeave a comment

Last Saturday our evening practice group finished the 36th and final song from our current “season” of content, which focused entirely on songs from Daniel De Leon Guerrero. We’ve been making our way through this list of songs since April or May of 2024, and so it was a huge accomplishment to finish all the songs. I’ve personally felt how much my listening comprehension has improved from these evening practice groups, and we’ve also seen progress with those who’ve stayed with our group over the years. This song also took us longer than usual to transcribe, and we are so grateful to everyone who attended last Saturday and to those who were able to stick with us to the very end. In agradesi hamyu 🙂

Now that we’ve finished this list, we are already preparing a new round of songs for our evening group. Jay has landed on a focus that I appreciate, and we can’t wait to get started on transcribing them together.

In this post, here is that final song, called Atkahót by Daniel De Leon Guerrero. It’s actually a cover of a country song by Brad Paisley, which shows both the destructive and tragic nature of alcohol abuse. As always, this post includes Chamorro lyrics and an English translation. Happy listening!

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