of the old Spanish church at Agaña, ruined by war, were hewn from solid ifil trunks cut near the site of the building. The wood is saffron when cut, finally turning black walnut in color. Although coarse-grained, it takes a glossy polish which does not dull with time.
In 1898 Americans found all the better houses of Guam furnished with tables and settees made from this remarkable wood, and in exceptional cases, even floors, which were polished with grated coconut wound in a soft cloth to emphasize their lustrous tone.
Houses made of newly cut ifilwood are not whitewashed or painted until the wood has had time to dry and season and turn its final dark shade. The tobacco-colored sap of the wood rises to the outer surface of the wood as it dries and will ruin whitewash unless the wood is completely cured before it is applied. Old and properly seasoned ifil becomes so hard that holes must be bored into it in order to drive in nails or fit screws.
Two types of functional bamboo grow profusely on Guam—the thorny bamboo and the smooth bamboo. The thorny variety is studded with spines and in the moist, decaying interior valleys it sometimes attains a height of fifty feet, growing so fast that it can literally be seen to rise several inches a day on its stalk. The thorny variety is the stronger of the two types. Large canes are cut into six- to eight-foot lengths, hollowed out at one end and used for water-carrying vessels, or a pair is tied together with fibre rope and slung over the back of a carabao, as in aboriginal times. Single joints make attractive flowerpots and served in early days as vessels for collecting coconut sap.
Both the thorny and smooth bamboos were used extensively in construction of native huts in aboriginal days, were split into slats and employed as platforms and bed frames, and were used for drinking troughs and pen fences beneath homes for the protection of young fowl from marauding animals. Today bamboo appears more frequently in furniture than in any other role and is ideally adapted to the functional frame chairs and cushioned settees which are now so popular everywhere in the Pacific areas and are spreading through the Americas and Europe.
UNUSUAL PLANTS
Although the range of plant life in Guam when judged by Pacific-island standards is not prodigious, the infinite variety of tropical forests, strand growth, interior valley cultivation, and wild foods is a source of constant awe and wonder to a Statesider used to the more formally controlled aspects of botanical expression. Being able to live—if one had to, and as many Guamanians did during the near-famine periods of the Japanese occupation—only on what one can "pick right off a tree" is still quite possible in some portions of the southern mountains or in the matted cliff jungles of the northern plateau. And this could be a thoroughly interesting and agreeable experience if one cared to explore its possibilities.
William Safford lists scores of edible plants in his Useful Plants of Guam which can be eaten after simply bringing them to a boil, and many others which can be consumed in their natural state. Cashew nuts now grow wild, having spread from their original plantings in villages. The glue-weed, a coarse fodder plant frequently cooked as a potherb, is also used in the treatment of dropsy but is dangerous to small birds feeding on it, for the viscid milk which catches insects will also seal shut the eyes of young fowl if they brush against it.
A four-winged flying bean—tender, free of stringiness, agreeable in flavor—is an excellent cooked vegetable, with its pods often used for native pickles. Having escaped from the fences surrounding green gardens, it now runs wild across the island. New varieties of taro, a succulent plant with edible starchy rootstocks, have been introduced. Thoroughly cooked, it is quite palatable; and raw, after a fermentation process, it becomes the Polynesian poi so highly favored by Hawaiians and southern islanders, though not a native taste of the Chamorros.
The papaw (papaya) tree, looking very much like a palm, yields melon-shaped fruit whose juice, when green, may be used as a natural tenderizer for meat, and when ripe and yellow, may be eaten with either sugar or salt, or in its natural state. Inferior to a musk melon, the papaya is usually an acquired taste for visitors. The soap orange, mentioned earlier, is identical with the species found in Samoa and the Fijis, and it is considered to be of prehistoric indigenous origin throughout the Marianas. It is a wild orange and was falsely called by the Spanish "the bitter Seville orange." It is not easily edible and has a tough skin which upon drying becomes shell-like in its hardness. In Guam at the beginnng of the 1898 occupation, it was a common sight to see scores of women and girls standing waist deep in the winding, dammed-up Agaña River with their oblong shallow wooden trays (bateas) before them. On these trays the family linen would be spread, rubbed with orange pulp from the soap orange, and vigorously scrubbed with a corncob. Often the entire surface of the river where the current was sluggish would be covered with decaying orange skins. The soap orange, which is not sweet, is particularly fine for tart marmalade.
Guam lemons are miniature, of fine quality, and grow almost spontaneously in the warm atmosphere of the island. Formerly planted to make impenetrable thicket defenses against foraging animals, the plants now grow wild and range throughout Guam. Their juice is perfect for seasoning meats and flavoring iced drinks, as any islander will tell you. Mangoes grow wild in certain areas, but, despite reports to the contrary, the fruit is not top-grade and cannot compare in either sweetness or size with the delicious Philippine mango on Luzon.
The screw pine or pandanus exists on Guam in three varieties: a knob-fruited species whose kernels are edible, a fragrant-fruited type whose drupes are the particular fancy of the flying fox, and the textile screw pine, whose dry leaves are most favored by the natives as lashings for hut framework and for securing the lighter nipa-palm thatching. In aboriginal times the textile screw pine served as material for the sails of outrigger canoes and was called aggak tree. The tree is also a convenient roosting place for domestic fowl, placing them out of danger from wild life. The gnarled upper branches make superior walking sticks, and the tough leaves of the pandanus are also used in the plaiting of hats, mats, and carryall bags. It is probable that the rice sold to the early Dutch navigators by the natives was contained in bags woven from these same leaves.
A few native orchids do grow in the inner forests of Guam, although they are not conspicuous for their great beauty. Leis are frequently made from the yellow-flowering ilangilang tree, introduced from the Philippines because of its fragrance. It also furnishes a natural heavy perfume often used in a native cosmetic lotion made of coconut oil.
Yams and many edible wild roots abound. The purslane family offers varieties of greens and potherbs that are extremely palatable. Since the days of long voyages and the plague of scurvy, the preventive and curative qualities of potherbs have been well recognized, and most islanders also eat the young taro leaf to maintain their health. For taste, these must be thoroughly cooked, as must the root. The horseradish tree furnishes an edible pod, if gathered when young and tender, though not to be indulged in too freely, since it has cathartic qualities.
There are also plants to stay away from. Four of these can be used in reef fishing to stupefy fish (see Chapter 3—Animals of Guam), and five have the definite anthelmintic action of destroying intestinal worms. Tangantangan, a locust-like feathery shrub fast overruning the denuded hillsides of certain southern areas, causes the hair of cattle to fall out when eaten. The piga-palayi plant's juice can be used as a snakebite antidote or as a remedy for eating poisonous fish. It was also employed in aboriginal warfare, so legend goes, to poison arrows, although this is not substantiated by accounts.
Other plants have names almost too exotic to be credible. The candlenut tree, similar to the castor bean, is one of these; it is a mild cathartic, nuts of which are sometimes burned as candles. The futu tree, the seagoing pod tree mentioned earlier, is quite abundant on the eastern island shore near Pago Bay. Mangroves send down their multiple roots at the edge of the sea near the mouths of fresh-water streams. Most unusual of these is the milky mangrove, whose acrid sap was thought by the aborigines to be a cure for leprosy; its soft white wood is used for net floats. Most handsome is the many-petaled mangrove, whose astringent bark is employed in tanning leather.
The royal poinciana, also called the flame tree, is a recent introduction and is being propagated widely across the island in an effort to add color to the highways and towns of Guam. In season it has a flaming crest which makes a bright color contrast to the infinite