Category: Chamorro Stories

Legend: Si Chaifi

On By Schyuler LujanIn Chamorro Legends, Chamorro StoriesLeave a comment

This is another Chamorro legend that I never heard about until I started learning Chamorro, which is the legend of Chaifi, the god of fire or the underworld. This is the version written by Georg Fritz, who was a German colonial official of the Northern Mariana Islands starting in 1899. I have a transcription of the Chamorro as it was written by Georg Fritz (with updated spelling) and an English translation in this post, but you can also access it in a pdf from a Digital Library Project compiled and maintained by Dirk Spennemann. There is also a paper by Steve Pagel that dives into the more linguistic aspects of the language, and includes a line-by-line translation of the legend across all three languages (English, German, and Chamorro). The narration for this story is done by Jay Che’le. Hope you enjoy it!

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Latti, Haligi, yan Tåsa

On By Schyuler LujanIn Chamorro StoriesLeave a comment

A big part of my own Chamorro language learning journey has been reading and collecting books and articles about the Mariana Islands. One gorgeous book I recommend reading is “Latte in the Marianas”, which you can purchase from the Guampedia Heritage Gift Shop. The majority of the book is written in English, but there are two essays written in Chamoru with English translations included. This is one of those essays, written by Påle’ Eric Forbes, about the Latte/Latti stone. It can be difficult to find long-form written Chamorro (other than the Bible), so this essay gave our study group some excellent practice. The narration for this is done by Jay Che’le. Listen and enjoy!

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A Love Puzzle

On By Schyuler LujanIn Chamorro StoriesLeave a comment

Here is another delightful story from Påle’ Eric’s book Estoriåye Yo’, which our practice group read a few weeks back. It reminds me of the story The Three Princes and the Princess Nouronnihar from 1,001 Nights, which I’ve always liked since I was a kid, and I enjoyed reading a Chamorro version of this tale. The ending prompted some fun discussion in our group, as we debated (in Chamorro) which brother the woman should pick. So here’s the story, with a narration done by Jay Che’le. Hope you enjoy it!

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Legend: Why the Kakkak is Skinny

On By Schyuler LujanIn Chamorro Legends, Chamorro StoriesLeave a comment

One of the most gratifying things about learning Chamorro is discovering new stories in the language that I have never heard before. The story about the Kakkak, or the Yellow Bittern, is a story that I never heard growing up. I found this version in a legends book from the KPV Collection that was collected and translated by Carmen C. Blas. This narration is done by Jay Che’le, listen and enjoy!

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How the Japanese Started Honoring Their Elders

On By Schyuler LujanIn Chamorro StoriesLeave a comment

This was a lovely story that I found on Påle’ Eric Forbes’ blog called Estorian Reinhold Mangloña which was told to Påle’ Eric by Richie Mangloña, who heard it from his father Reinhold Atalig Mangloña , who heard it from his Japanese teacher when he was growing up on Luta. We read this story together in one of our Chamorro-language practice groups, and everyone really enjoyed it. The story’s moral of respecting elders gave us all satisfaction, and the Chamorro stretched some of our brains, helping us to learn new vocabulary.

This post includes the Chamorro text with modified spelling, the English translation, and an audio narration by Jay Che’le, since Påle Eric’s original blog post for this story did not include a narration. Enjoy!

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