The week of October 19, 2021, the island lost one of its cultural masters, with the passing of Tun Frank “Cornbeef” Lizama (Familian Kondo).

Tun Frank was a World War II survivor, a Vietnam Veteran and a Guam Fire Department Chief. In 1985, he along with Frank Cruz and Joe San Nicolas who were also Guam fire chiefs, received a cultural apprenticeship grant to learn blacksmithing from Tun Jack Lujan, the last of the prewar traditional blacksmiths. In this image from the early 1990s Tun Jack is on the left, with Tun Frank standing next to him.

CHamoru blacksmithing has declined dramatically since the end of World War II, as more and more CHamorus stopped farming and needing the tools made by a blacksmith to sustain their lives. Imported tools that were cheaply made off-island now readily available in island stores also helped to deter blacksmiths from passing on their trade.

Tun Jack Lujan, began teaching blacksmithing and taking on apprentices at a time when other cultural masters were worried about their traditional trades becoming lost. Tun Frank continued to make machetes and fosiños and other tools after finishing his apprenticeship, eventually teaching others and helping to educate the island and the Pacific about this once integral part of CHamoru culture.

A few years ago, he began to teach his sons and others the art of blacksmithing, starting Lizama’s Forge. For his role in helping keep alive CHamoru traditions and culture, Tun Frank was honored in 2012 by the Guam Council on the Arts and Humanities Agency as a Saina Herreru or Master of CHamoru Culture for Blacksmithing.

U såga gi minahgong.