4 ~ Legendary Chamorro Strength SKELETAL EMBODIMENT AND THE BOUNDARIES OF INTERPRETATION Gary M. Heathcote, Vincent P. Diego, Hajime Ishida, and Vincent f. Sava Indjyi.d \,IgLPro:fi Ie ~ite:Tgga Location: Southwest coast ofTinian, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana .lslancJ~ (CNf\i1I) Cultural Affiliation: Late part ofLatte period (A.[). 1000-1521) or early part of Early Historic period(Ap. 15~.1.. ~ 1700). (f\i1oore and Hunter-Anders()n1999) Dat.e: Probably 16th~ 17th centuries, based onarchaeologica I context Feat.ure:Latte28-5~24, .. a12-pillar latte structure, with .. shaftsstanding.ca,5.4 feet above theground, and capstonesl1leasuring 53feet indiarneter (Sp()ehr 1957:89) Locationof Grave: Noinformationother than that the burial vvas recovered within the boundaries of Latte 28-5-24 Burial ilndGra"e Type:Skull and body on left side, recoveredatqepth()f39 inches (H orf) bostelJ924) Ass()ciated MatE!rials:. Manqibles frorntwo other individuals placed directly over knees; shell mo ney recovered 2Y2 feet fro rn sku II Preservatiolland Completeness: Excellent preservation, butincompletei at thetimeof!itudy (1990l,therernainswere curatedat the Bishop Muse Urn and included only the skull,clavicles,long bones, and tali Age.at[)eathand BasiliofEstimate: 45~55years, based on dental attrition, cranial suture closure,and arthriticchanges Sex.. and Ba.lii.s of Determination:Male,based oncranial morphology andlong bonesize and robusticity Conditions .observed: Healedstab wound through the frontal processofthe right malar;remarkable robusticitYOf clavicles, armpones, tibiae; rnoderateto markedlyqevelopedexpressiOf) of three posteriorcranial superstructures Specialized Analysis: StudYOf occipital superstructure develoPrnent and covariation withlongb()ne robusticity Excavated: 1924, byHans Hornbostel, fortheBerniceP.l3ishop Museum, Honolulu Archaeological ~eport: Hornbostel 1924iThompson 1932; Spoehr1957 Current Disposition: CNMI Museum of History andCulture, Saipan 44 This chapter focuses on a protohistoric Chamorro (Chamoru) man referred to as Taotao Tagga' (a man of Tagga', Tinian), situating him within his cul­ ture, society, and historical period. Chamorros are the indigenous people of the Mariana Islands, an archipelago in the western Pacific that consists of two polities today, the unincorporated U.S. territory of Guam (Gwlhan) and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), which includes the island of Tinian (figure 4.1). We present and evaluate evidence suggesting that Taotao Tagga' and a considerable proportion of (mostly) male compatriots pos­ sessed great musculoskeletal strength, especially of the upper body, which lends credence to claims of extraordinary strength that appear in Chamorro legends and in the chronicles of early European visitors to the Marianas. In discussion of the skeleton, we focus on two kinds of muscle use/hypertrophy indicators: posterior cranial superstructures and an index of humeral robusticity. Regard­ ing motor behavioral and kinesiologic reconstruction, we probe the boundaries of osteobiographical interpretation (Saul and Saul 1989), attempting to infer what we can about the muscular strength and related activity patterns of Tao tao Tagga' (and fellow ancestral Chamorros) without crossing over the line of cau­ tious interpretation. Since 2002, forensic artist Sharon Long's facial reconstruction of this man (figure 4.2) has been featured at the CNMI Museum of History and Culture in Saipan. The reconstruction was modeled on a cast of his skull and does not portray the serious facial injury he sustained as a younger man (see below). He lived into his fifth or sixth decade, probably during the sixteenth and seven­ teenth centuries. His remains were interred at a former village along the south­ west coast of Tinian, now known as the Taga (Tagga') site, in association with a latte house (guma' latte) situated close to the House of Taga. Latte houses consisted of A-frame superstructures of wood and thatch built atop megalithic foundation columns (haligi) with capstones (tasa). The House of Tag a (listed on the National Register of Historic Places) is the largest completed latte structure in the Marianas (figure 4.3). The megalithic foundation is approximately 21 x 64.3 feet across, consisting of two rows of six limestone haligi and tasa that stood 16 feet above the ground and weighed approximately 14 tons each (Mor­ gan 1988: 133-34). Taotao Tagga"s place of burial, labeled Latte 28-5-24 by ar­ chaeologist Hans Hornbostel (1924) and later as Latte 17 (Spoehr 1957: 87), may also have been his home and his place of work. This latte house was second in size to the House of Tag a (Morgan 1988: 133) and was spatially and contextually unique among the 16 other latte structures at the site, being aligned axially with only the House of Taga. Its size and location closest to the sea suggest a special significance of this guma' latte within the community of its time, and that those buried there were individuals of societal distinction. Legendary Chamorro Strength: Skeletal Embodiment and Interpretation . 45 144° 147° • Farallon de Pajaros I'Maug • Asuncion Pacific Ocean Philippine Sea • Agrihan ~ Pagan 7° • Alamagan Commonwealth of • Guguan Northern Mariana Islands • Sarigan - Anatahan , Farallon de Medinilla Saipan 15° Mariana Islands I-------....-=T-in-ia-n------+--'-'-- .- Aguijan ..,. Rota Guam (U.S. Territory) Figure 4.1. The Mariana Archipelago in the western Pacific Ocean. Figure 4.2. Reconstruction stages of the face and head ofTaotao Tagga: (Courtesy of Sharon Long.) Tales of Strength: Legends to T-Shirts A relatively common theme in Chamorro legends is that ancestors-usually Maga'liihi siha (chiefs)-possessed great strength and carried out astounding physical feats (Thompson 1947: 31). Folkloric themes of culture heroes with ex­ traordinary strength are widespread throughout Oceania and elsewhere (Knap­ per 1995; Flood et al. 1999; Taonui 2006), but Chamorro legends are about more than the strong chiefs of old. They are about the ever-present embodied spir­ its of these ancestral culture heroes. Despite generations of condemnation by church officials, Chamorros maintain beliefs about the active role of ancestral spirits in their daily lives (Thompson 1946; Mitchell 1986). A recent review of Marianas folklore, legends, and literature (Torres 2003) includes a section on the "Legends of Strength" motif, which focuses on the leg­ endary chiefs and supernatural "before time ancestors" known as taotaomo'na. Frequent themes include gigantism, bravery, physical prowess, and great strength (Mitchell 1986). Taotaomo'na are a class of embodied ancestral spirits that are often, but not always (Cunningham 1992: 104), gigantic headless men of Legendary Chamorro Strength: Skeletal Embodiment and Interpretation . 47 Figure 4.3. The last remaining upright halig; and tasa from the latte set foundation of the House ofTaga on Tinian. (2011 photograph courtesy of Sandra Yee.) superhuman strength who were formerly chiefs of various districts (Thompson 1945: 22; Nelson and Nelson 1992: 41). In the Guam legend of Chief Masala and the Tinian legend of Chief Taga, both are "strong and boisterous chiefs of enor­ mous size, able to perform gargantuan feats. Each could build a huge latte house with the massive stones. Each had a precociously strong son" (Torres 2003: 11). In the story of Masala, his son's strength (uprooting a large coconut tree at age three) proved so threatening to him that he tried to kill the boy who, fearing for his life, leaped from the northernmost tip of Guam (named Puntan Patgon, or Child's Point), across more than 40 miles of ocean, to the island of Rota (Luta). Today in the Marianas, representations of (mostly male, but sometimes fe­ male) Chamorro strength abound on T-shirts, automotive window decals, and airbrushed paintings on pickup trucks depicting iconic ancestral Chamorros. Recent projects by indigenous artists reflect a spectrum of imaginings about or connections with their ancestors through spiritual communion (Flores 1999). These include portrait series of Chamorro archetypes with faces that emanate intelligence, dignity, and fearlessness, and scenes of ancient village life in which men's physical strength is portrayed as ancillary to communal virtues includ­ ing the practice and mastery of traditional skills such as stone working, house building, seafaring, and food procurement. Early Chroniclers' Impressions: "Behold the Chamorros!" Early European chroniclers of the people of Remote Oceania were practically unanimous in describing various Pacific Islander groups as "tall, muscular and well-proportioned" (Houghton 1996: 31). The early historical record regard­ ing Mariana Islanders has multiple references to their stature, robust bodies, muscularity, pleasing body proportions, and great strength. One of the more interesting historical accounts is attributed to Fr. Martin Ignacio de Loyola, a Franciscan priest aboard the Espiritu Santo during a late-sixteenth-century Acapulco-to-Manila stopover on Guam (Levesque 2002: 385): They are as tall as giants, and of such great strength that it has actually hap­ pened that one of them, while sitting on the ground, got hold of two Span­ iards of good stature, seizing each of them by one foot with his hands, and lifting them thus as easily as if they were two children. (de Loyola 1581, in Levesque 1992: Document 158lB) Accounts of Chamorro physical appearance (e.g., Driver 1988; Levesque 1990-96) from the early European contact period