CHamoru homes

Although today in Guam, we live in homes primarily built using concrete, glass and metal, for thousands of years CHamoru homes were built using wood and stone and held together with rope made from local fibers such as pågu or wild hibiscus. Their roofs were made from palm leaf thatch or higai.

Tun Ignacio Meno Taimanglo, was born in Inalåhan in 1923 and started learning from the age of 22 the art of hut building and rope making, cultural skills he would spend decades of his life teaching and helping to preserve. His most important teacher was his father-in-law, Aniceto San Nicolas Quintanilla, who first guided him in some of the more intricate details of rope making, such as the best times to harvest the bark from pågu, and what size or shape of tree makes the more durable tåli or rope. Once the fiber was stripped and dried, strands of it could be turned to tåli using anything from a single nail, to deer horn or even the birådot (rope making machine).

After World War II, Tun Ignacio spent several decades working as a carpenter for the Government of Guam before retiring in 1976. He contributed to many community projects including helping build the College of Guam in Mongmong, the old Catholic Medical Center in Hagåtña, the Convent for the Sister of Mercy in Tå’i and the old kombento or rectory behind i Gima’Yu’os San Jose in Inalåhan.  

After retiring from the Government of Guam he dedicated his life to keeping alive the traditional skills of ropemaking and hut building. For three decades in Inalåhan at Lanchon Antigo and Gef Pa’go Chamorro Cultural Village he would offer demonstrations to school children and visitors. In 2009, while working at Gef Pa’gu he oversaw the holding of a balangai or gupot higai, the gathering of the community to thatch the roof of a hut as part of a federal grant to engage youth in Inalåhan in historic and cultural activities. Because of his commitment to perpetuating knowledge of CHamoru cultural traditions he was made a Master of CHamoru Culture for ropemaking and hut building by the Guam Council on the Arts and Humanities Agency (CAHA) in the 1990s.

Tun Ignacio passed away in 2014 at the age of 91.