Chamorro

Note: The history of this word is still in need of complete elucidation. The earliest record of the language of the Marianas was made by Estevan Rodríguez, a pilot on one of the ships commanded by Miguel López de Legazpi that, after touching on Guam, began colonization of the Philippines in 1565. Rodríguez listed 67 Chamorro words with their Spanish meaning (see Colección de documentos inéditos relativos al descubrimiento, conquista y organización de las antiguas posesiones españolas de ultramar, 2. serie, tomo 2:1, De las Islas Filipinas [Madrid, 1886], pp. 392-93; and Rafael Rodríguez-Ponga, "El primer vocabulario de la lengua de las Islas Marianas," Archivo Augustiniano, vol. 95, no. 213 [2011], pp. 445-60). The pilot Rodríguez records chamor with the meaning "friend" (amigo), and earlier relates an encounter with a group of men who attempted to board their craft "dichiendo: chamurre, chamurre, que quiere decir: amigos, amigos; y trayendo la mano por al barriga que es señal de amistad" ("saying 'chamurre, chamurre,' that is to say, 'friends, friends,' and bringing the hand over the stomach, which is a sign of friendship"). It was apparently this word that was used in the name "Islas de los Chamurres o Ladrones" ("Islands of the Chamurres or Thieves"), which is recorded in another document of the Legazpi expedition for the islands later renamed Marianas (see Colección de documentos inéditos … tomo 3:2, p. 227). A century later a nearly homonymous word chamorri is recorded, but with a different sense; in a chronicle of the Jesuit mission to the Marianas in 1669-70, the chamorris are the highest social class among the indigenous inhabitants: "No se casará uno de los Principales, llamados Chamorris, con la hija de un Pleveyo, aunque este sea muy rico, y el muy pobre, y necesitado … y antiguamente matauan los parientes al Noble, que se casaua con la hija de un Pleveyo." ("One of the highest class, called by them Chamorris, will not marry the daughter of a plebeian, be her father ever so rich and he ever so poor and needy … and formerly the noble who married the daughter of a plebeian was killed by his relatives," from an anonymous pamphlet Noticia de los Progressos de nuestra Santa Fe, en las Islas Marianas … desde de 15. de Mayo de 1669, hasta 28 de Abril de 1670, sacada de las cartas, que ha escrito el Padre Diego Luis de Sanvitores, y sus Compañeros [place and date of printing unknown], p. 4; see Mission in the Marianas: An Account of Father Diego Luis de Sanvítores and His Companions, 1669-1670, translated by Ward Barrett [Minneapolis, 1975], p. 22.) It seems improbable that the Chamurres "amigos" of the 1565 encounter could have been a misunderstanding of the Chamorris "principales" of the Jesuit narrative, though equally improbable that the two words are unrelated. Muddying the picture further is a Spanish word chamorro "having closely cropped hair," which may in some way have contributed to the acceptance of chamorro as the name for a people.