page_title: Culture of Guam
section_title: Background and customs
hierarchical_section_title: Culture of Guam / Background and customs
caption_attribution_description: English: Chamorro people in 1915日本語: チャモロ人（1915年サイパン島にて撮影）
context_page_description: The culture of the Marianas Islands, including Tinian, Saipan, Rota, and Guam, reflects traditional Chamorro customs in a combination of indigenous pre-Hispanic forms, as well as American, Spanish and Mexican traditions. The Chamorro people have lived on the Micronesian island of Guam for nearly 4000 years, and have cuisine, dance, fashion, games, language, music, and songs of their own.
context_section_description: The island’s original community is of Chamorro natives who have inhabited Guam for almost 4000 years. They had their own language related to the languages of Indonesia and southeast Asia. The Spanish later called them Chamorros, a derivative of the local word  Chamurre (meaning of Chamorri is "noble race"). They began to grow rice on the island. Western people came to the island from the 16th century and wrote about the culture of these people. Many scientists (including ethnologists, doctors, botanists, archeologists)  came to Guam from Spain, Russia, France to study from the 1700s, apart from Spanish governors who had written on the local people. Many of their collections are now in the Guam Museum.
caption: Chamorro people in 1915
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