Exploring the Sexual Wounds of Spanish Colonization in Tåno Låguas yan Gåni (the Mariana Islands) during the Late 17th Century By Enrique Moral de Eusebio Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona/Universitat Pompeu Fabra Abstract: At first, CHamoru/Chamorro communities welcomed with hospitality the Jesuits who settled on the shores of Tåno’ Låguas yan Gåni (the Mariana Islands) in June 1668. However, the evangelizing ambitions of the newcomers, which sought to disrupt most of CHamoru lifeways (including sexuality), soon led to armed conflicts between both populations. The aim of this paper is to explore the role that sexual encounters, practices, and beliefs played in these conflicts, which, following archaeologist Barbara L. Voss, will be partially understood as ethnosexual conflicts. I examine how certain institutions linked to sexuality were at the center of these confrontations, such as the guma’ ulitao or the practice of repudiation between CHamoru couples, as well as the Christian sacrament of indissoluble marriage and the Jesuit schools as the new spaces of (sexual) socialization for the CHamoru youth. Finally, my hypothesis is that these conflicts opened a first sexual wound in the CHamoru communities, which were stripped of their traditional sexual practices and beliefs, as well as they led to deeper wounds (such as sexual violence) during the subsequent period known as La Reducción.
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