Chamorro People - "Chamori", "Chamorro" & "Chamoru"

"Chamori", "Chamorro" & "Chamoru"

Pre-colonial society in the Marianas was based on a caste system, "Chamori" being the name of the ruling, highest caste.

After Spain annexed and conquered the Marianas, the caste system eventually became extinct under Spanish rule, and all of the indigenous residents of the archipelago eventually came to be referred to by the Spanish exonym "Chamorro". The name "Chamoru" is an endonym derived from the indigenous pronunciation of the Spanish exonym.

Some people theorize that Spanish definitions of the word "Chamorro" played a role in its being used to refer to the island's indigenous inhabitants. Apart from "Chamorro" being a Spanish surname, in Spanish it also means "leg of pork", "beardless ", "bald", "close-cropped", or "shorn/shaven/ cut close to the surface". Circa 1670, a Catholic missionary reported that men were sporting a style in which their heads were shaven, save for a "finger-length" amount of hair at the crown. This hairstyle has often been portrayed in modern-day depictions of early Chamorros. However, the first European descriptions of the physical appearance of the Chamoru people in the 1520s and 30s report that both sexes had long black hair which they wore down to their waists or even further. Another description, given about 50 years later, reported that the natives at that time were tying up their hair into one or two topknots.