Chants of Re-Enchantment

What is it about?

This article discusses 'Chamorro chant’ employed as a means to nourish and empower discourses of indigenous identity. On Guam, a remote tropical island serving as the ‘tip of the spear’ for the colossal might of the American war machine, the ambiguous, paradoxical, and contradictory forces of 'war magic' and 'warrior religion’ are interwoven into centuries of colonial history to emerge as forms of exploitation as well as forms of resistance.

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Why is it important?

What better way to appropriate a people's land than to claim they don’t exist? Racist colonial discourses regard the indigenous Chamorro as wiped out centuries ago by ‘outsiders' leaving only ‘mulattos.’ Supposedly lacking in culture and tradition, they now create ‘inauthentic’ versions of dance & chant. The re-enchantment of the cultural sphere, however, challenges colonial logics of terra nullius to demonstrate Chamorro culture as emergent, and not the sole province of the deceased Ancients.