#chamoru

[lizard-reads-the-world]

🏝️Pacific Islander Books🌺

Okay, here it is! In "Asian and Pacific Islander" the second group often gets overshadowed, so here it is... a Pacific-only book list. This is of course by no means comprehensive. I tried to cover as many areas as I could find literature for. I've marked queer and disability rep based on book blurbs, but I have not read most of these (yet!). Feel free to comment if you know more!

Novels

Leaves of the Banyan Tree by Albert Wendt classic novel, Samoa The Adventures of Vela by Albert Wendt mythology epic, Samoa Scarlet Lies (series) by Lani Young romance, humor, Samoa (🏳️‍🌈 side character) Mata Oti: Eyes of Death by Lani Young zombie thriller, Samoa Telesā (series) by Lani Young YA paranormal romance, Samoa Scar of the Bamboo Leaf by Sieni A.M. YA contemporary, Samoa ♿ Where We Once Belonged by Sia Figiel literary novel, Samoa They Who Do Not Grieve by Sia Figiel literary novel, Samoa Dragonfruit by Makiia Lucier Pacific fantasy, Guam author Turtle Under Ice by Juleah del Rosario YA contemporary, Filipina-CHamoru-American A Mansion on the Moon: A Guam Love Story by C Sablan Gault historical romance, generational, CHamoru (Guam) Lei and the Fire Goddess (series) by Malia Maunakea MG mythology adventure, Kānaka Maoli (Hawai'i)

House of Many Gods by Kiana Davenport generational novel, Hawai'i Song of the Exile by Kiana Davenport historical novel, Hawai'i The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera classic children's novel, Māori All That We Know by Shilo Kino contemporary, Māori ♿ The Pōrangi Boy by Shilo Kino YA contemporary, Māori How to Loiter in a Turf War by Coco Solid contemporary semi-autobiographical, multiple Pacific characters 🏳️‍🌈 The Dawnhounds by Sascha Stronach fantasy mystery, Māori 🏳️‍🌈 Kāwai: For Such a Time as This (series) by Monty Soutar pre-colonial epic, Māori Auē by Becky Manawatu contemporary novel, Māori Dawn Raid by Pauline (Vaeluaga) Smith MG historical 1970s, Samoan-Aotearoa Falling into Rarohenga by Steph Matuku YA fantasy, Māori The Imaginary Lives of James Pōneke by Tina Makereti novel, historical, Māori 🏳️‍🌈

The Bone Tree by Airana Ngarewa novel, Māori Dirt Poor Islanders by Winnie Dunn novel, Tongan-Australian The Shark That Ate the Sun by John Puhiatau Pule literary novel, Niue [read here] Breadfruit (series) by Célestine Hitiura Vaite novel, humor, Tahiti Island of Shattered Dreams by Chantal T. Spitz historical novel, Tahiti Kalyana by Rajni Mala Khelawan novel, Fiji, Indian diaspora Maiba: A Novel of Papua New Guinea by Russell Soaba classic novel

Short Stories

This Is Paradise by Kristiana Kahakauwila short stories, Hawai'i Tales of the Tikongs by Epeli Hau'ofa short stories, Tonga The Unpainted Mask by Steven Edmund Winduo short stories, Papua New Guinea

Poetry

‘Āina Hānau / Birth Land by Brandy Nālani McDougall poetry, Kanaka ʻŌiwi (Hawai'i) Ocean Mother by Arielle Taitano Lowe poetry, CHamoru (Guam) from unincorporated territory (series) by Craig Santos Perez poetry, CHamoru (Guam) Coconut Milk by Dan Taulapapa McMullin poetry, Samoa 🏳️‍🌈 Rangikura by Tayi Tibble poetry, Māori Goddess Muscle by Karlo Mila poetry, Tongan-Aotearoa Civilized Girl by Jully Makini poetry, Solomon Islands [read title poem here]

Nonfiction

Polynesian Panthers: Pacific Protest and Affirmative Action in Aotearoa New Zealand 1971 - 1981 edited by Dr Melani Anae, Leilani Tamu, Lautofa Luli Hine Toa by Ngahuia Te Awekotuku memoir, Māori activist 🏳️‍🌈 Mau Moko: The World of Maori Tattoo by Ngahuia Te Awekotuku From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaii by Dr. Haunani-Kay Trask Desert Warrior by M.B. Dallocchio memoir, CHamoru (Mariana Islands)🏳️‍🌈 No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies by Julian Aguon memoir, climate essays, CHamoru Don't Ever Whisper by Giff Johnson biography of Darlene Keju, Marshall Islands anti-nuclear activist [author not Pasifika] Samoan Queer Lives by Dan Taulapapa McMullin 🏳️‍🌈 Pasifika Heroes series by David Riley and Michel Mulipola illustrated legends/biographies, Samoa, Tonga, Cook Islands

Anthologies

Indigenous Pacific Islander Eco-Literatures anthology, climate focus (🏳️‍🌈several contributors) Vā: Stories by women of the Moana anthology, Pacific women Growing Up Torres Strait Islander in Australia, anthology Sista, Stanap Strong! anthology, Vanuatu Indigenous Literatures from Micronesia anthology, Kiribati, Palau, CHamoru, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, more An Ocean of Wonder: The Fantastic in the Pacific spec-fic anthology Hiwa: Contemporary Māori Short Stories edited by Paula Morris

Footnotes below:

Many of these will be indie/small press titles. I've tried to ensure they are available somewhere, even if it's just Kindle. A few (the Papua and Solomon Islands ones) you may need to inter-library loan.

Some authors have more books than listed, so please look into their full bibliography. Witi Ihimaera and Albert Wendt especially are pillars of Pacific literature and have many publications.

There are more Māori authors than listed here! But I wanted to keep a balanced list.

I have left out children's picture books of which there are many, though some may be locally published.

I included Sia Figiel for her contributions to Samoan literature despite her recent... troubles.

I am not PI, I just make lists. Feel free to correct any mistakes I've made or add more to the comments!

[jenbunny-star]

🫡

[aniti-i-tano]

Hafa Adai!! Thanks for having me~

Guahu si Aniti. We go by they/them pronouns! Come along on our journey of cultural and identity exploration!

See below more about us~

Nice to meet ya :D This is Aniti / the Muse !!

They/it (any pronouns, not she/her tho) Pansexual, Panromantic Genderqueer

Not sure what else to say :') , I'll be the one making comics and stufff!

Heyy~ I don't really have a name but, I wanted an intro anyways!!

Call me Sage/Lyla/Rouge whatever~ I honestly don't really care hehe She/her/bow/bows

Panromantic, polyromantic, ace My gender is like- literally the dividers..

Likes ~ pink, bows, neon lights Anyway you should totally like ask me questions in the asks.. it says "I'm sorry, say that again?" in CHamoru

@i-the-vezzel ~<3

Credits: @strangergraphics-archive - the green planet divider! @k1ssyoursister - the tree divider! @anitalenia - the corset divider! @bernardsbendystraws - the bow divider!

[m1kuhoneym1lktea]

miku from guam -- i drew her a while ago but never posted!!

[mooniacs]

In neuroscience, there has been a wellspring of new studies over the coarse of decades pertaining to the human brain that suggest it is the brain, the eyes, and the central nervous system which primarily generates reality: The bizarre science behind how our brains shape reality by Dr Lisa Feldman-Barrett, Neuroscientist to talk about how the brain creates reality by Sarah Eddy, etcetera.

to Micronesia, this concept is not new. It is a part of the CHamoru people's understanding of reality in non-duality:

[...] in the journal of Fray Juan Pobre de Zamora, who visited the nearby island of Rota in 1602. He relates an exchange that took place between his friend Sancho and some Chamorro elders. Sancho asked who had made the heavens, the earth, and the ocean (see Driver 1993: 23). From a European (also enchanted, although dualistic) perspective, Sancho expected the elders to say that God, the First Cause and Prime Mover, had created the world. The Chamorros, however, thought the question was foolish. They replied that they themselves make the heavens by looking at them, the earth by tilling the fields, and the ocean by fishing and sailing on it. [...] the Chamorros had a different worldview: they understood that things have value and meaning when humans engage and work them. The object perceived depends on the perceiving subject to be the kind of thing it is, and the subject, in turn, is construed, at least in part, by standing in relationship with the object. The subject and the object are intertwined in a non-dual relationship that gives rise to a form of 'enchanted rationality'. [...] Micronesian cosmology is organized around the focal point of a center: the interaction and interpenetration of the bipolar opposites are harmonized by maintaining balance at the center. This is especially true of Micronesian navigation techniques. The navigator (fa'ulos) must continually negotiate his course from the center of the star compass as his position changes (Alkire 1972: 489). SOURCE; Chants of Re-enchantment: Chamorro Spiritual Resistance to Colonial Domination by D. S. Farrer, James D. Sellmann / Social Analysis: The International Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 58, No. 1, WAR MAGIC AND WARRIOR RELIGION: SORCERY, COGNITION, AND EMBODIMENT (SPRING 2014), pp. 127-148 (22 pages)

I think that the ancient CHamoru people were wise beyond their years. They had their own proto-science which combined spirit (ancestral worthship, spiritism) and matter (herbalism, healing, chants/music, etc.)(hence why the spanish named our healers and magicians "cirujano," meaning surgeon, which was adopted by CHamoru via the Suruhånu/Suruhåna). And this understanding of non-duality is still intuitive among indigenous Micronesians.

For example, the belief that spirit and matter are one; there is no distinction between these realities. There is no veil. Time and space exists as one, and so does all of reality. While duality found in nature-reality is recognized as sacred and perceivable, its inherent unity and interrelatedness ultimately represented non-duality. It can be allegorical to the ocean, in which Micronesians are ancestrally connected to: it is a coalescence of life, in which all life forms and elements are intrinsically interconnected and interrelated in accordance with the nature of the sea (and subsequently the "cosmic ocean", which Micronesians call the Sky Dome or Sky World).

[vegan-nom-noms]

CHamoru Empanåda (Fried Red Rice Turnovers)

[sumahi]

Chamoru youth fishing in Guam's waters in the late 1940s.

[i-the-vezzel]

indigenous people are the strongest people I know