A cultural event

While I was talking to his mother, my six- or seven-year-old nephew came over and immediately proceeded to kowtow to me. That is, he bent down and started to place his face about six (or so) inches away from the back of my right hand, as a symbolic gesture of good-will, affinity and cultural respect. However, before he could fully complete the ordeal, I immediately interrupted him by seizing his right hand and shaking it rather vigorously, as my own gesture of goodwill, affection and mutual respect.

“No, no,” I said. “You don’t have to fanigi/Amen with Uncle Charles. Just shake my hand. That’s OK. Salute me if you want. But no more fanigi with Uncle Charles.”

As an Uncle to a number of nieces and nephews, I don’t go for that sort of thing. It is a rather awkward feeling to have a bunch of little kids come up and kowtow to you. I generally prefer a brisk handshake — or in some cases, even a hug or a kiss will do (American-style).

What can I say? I am an Americanized Chamorro.

When I was a youngster, I always resented parental pressure to execute the Chamorro kowtow. So now that I am an adult Chamorro relative with full kowtow privileges, I want to waive that cultural entitlement and allow younger relatives to be free.

The way I feel about it is, if a kid doesn’t want to smell the back of my hand, heck, he doesn’t have to do it. I sure as heck don’t want to force it upon him.

When you really consider it, Chamorro kowtowing is really a form of cultural hazing –- the sort of thing upper classmen do to freshmen.

A number of Chamorros are particularly strict about the kowtow: They demand it as a sacred God-given right and look upon any failure to execute as a serious felony offense subject to more than one year in prison and/or a $10,000 fine. It is almost as if they are saying, “Gosh-darn it, I had to do this when I was a child. I was forced to do it, so you had bloody well better execute when you see me, darn it. I deserve it.”

It’s actually amusing to see the kowtow executed at huge family gatherings. You see a well-trained, well-meaning youngster encounter a barrage of relatives in rather quick succession—-say, about ten on each side. And like an agile young athlete, he plunges ahead undaunted.

He goes in for the cultural ingratiating, bends down, bobs his head to the left and to the right, in quick, rapid movements. Aha, a record kowtow! The crowd cheers. Hooray! A new world-record-holding kowtow champion.

The Department of Community and Cultural Affairs should really get together with the Man’amko aging center and the Division of Youth Services and sponsor a local kowtow contest. Here’s the idea: get a pack of Man’amkos from the aging center and pair them up with a bunch of troubled teens from the Youth Services Department. Each teen will then have to execute a series of “Amens” (kowtows) with as many senior citizens as possible in record time. Each contender would, of course, have to correctly execute the maneuver, so the Indigenous Affairs Office would have to come up with the official fanigi competition rules, clearly specifying the exact distance from face to hand, angle, duration (two seconds), etc. The judges would naturally come from those most hell-bent on keeping this dying tradition alive.