When you were growing up, did you practice the Chamorro custom of respectfully greeting elders by taking their hand and sniffing it? In my family we would just go around giving hugs and kisses to our elders, so when I was introduced to this custom I wasn’t used to it at all! Here is a short story in Chamorro about this custom, written by Carmen C. Blas, from a book about Chamorro customs that I found in the KPV collection (the direct link to the entire PDF can be found under the References for this post). If you would like to learn more about the mannginge’, I have also included a short list of free, online resources for further reading on this Chamorro custom.

This post includes the Chamorro text, an English translation of the story and a Chamorro audio narration by Jay Che’le. Happy reading!

taitai Mas