Chief Mata’pang Was Right
Revisiting a centuries-old tale of Indigenous rights, colonialism, and the importance of consent.
In the Mariana Islands, we learn of the story of a Chamorro Chief of the village of Tumhom, Guahan (Tumon, Guam), Magalahi Mata’pang, and Pale (Padre) Diego Luis de San Vitores. We've been taught in Chamorro (Indigenous to the Mariana Islands) history that the Spanish priest, San Vitores was a martyr for religious persecution while the Chief's name has become synonymous with being arrogant, stuck-up, or difficult for no reason. In short, to call someone Mata’pang in modern spoken Chamorro is considered an insult. Chief Mata’pang’s name literally means, “to be made pure by cleansing," in Chamorro.
However, I’d argue that Chief Mata’pang had more than a few valid points in being angry with San Vitores and his Filipino settler sidekick, Pedro Calungsod. It’s time to have an honest discussion about how both European and Asian settler colonialism continue to interfere with or mute Indigenous Pasifika voices.
The Backstory
In 1672, when Chief Matapang specifically instructed Pale San Vitores not to baptize his daughter, San Vitores ignored the Chief's wishes.
Chief Mata’pang had initially been converted to Christianity as a mere gesture of gratitude. Pale San Vitores assisted the Chief in a time of illness and as a favor, allowed the priest to baptize him.
However, Chief Mata’pang later renounced it as a means to control and manipulate Chamorros for colonial Spanish interests. The Spanish later saw Chief Mata’pang’s daughter as a strategic opportunity for a public baptism in effort to further convert Native Chamorros.
While Chief Mata’pang expressed his appreciation for San Vitores and his prior aid in ill health, he sternly refused the baptism. He didn't want it for his daughter, and while the reasons are not clearly stated, the Spanish, let's face it, were the victors in decimating the Chamorro population and destroying parts of our identity we're still struggling to recover today.
But the message today is quite clear: Chief Mata’pang’s consent was clearly violated by the Catholic Church and Spanish colonizers.
On April 2, 1672, the Catholic priest and his Filipino servant, Pedro Calungsod, forcefully entered Chief Mata’pang’s home without his consent and took his daughter to the beach in present-day Tumhom (Tumon) and performed the baptism against the will of the family. As soon as Chief Mata’pang learned of the gross violation made upon his family on his own land by Spanish and Filipino outsiders and that a religious conversion was being performed without his consent, he was understandably enraged.
At the time, it was thought that Spanish priests were spitting in the baptismal water and intentionally infecting Native Chamorros with diseases brought in from Europe, which was one of a few motivating factors for Chief Mata’pang to reject the baptism. However, forcefully entering the Chief’s home was a demonstrable insult to Chamorro traditions and beliefs that San Vitores had notoriously disregarded.
This wasn’t the first time San Vitores had done this and had been documented baptizing Chamorro children without parental consent. If you’re familiar with centuries of learning about Catholic Church human trafficking and sexual abuse of children, this isn’t exactly a surprise.
After continuous disrespect and now a home invasion and abduction, Chief Mata’pang then brought a close associate named Hirao to the beach with him where they executed both Pale San Vitores and Pedro Calungsod.
A Tragic Legacy
500 years ago today, when the Spanish first arrived in the Mariana Islands in 1521 with Magellan and his crew, Chamorro language, culture, customs, and everything that make us a unique seafaring culture had been gradually wiped out of history.
Mass rapes, torture, genocide, and widespread disease and destruction were many of the horrors the Spanish brought for nearly four centuries (yes, you read that correctly) in addition to pressured religious conversion to Roman Catholicism upon the animist Chamorros.
Today, Roman Catholicism dominates the religious preference in the Mariana Islands and the Spanish language is so infused into the Chamorro language along with other foreign words that it's become the accepted standard of our Indigenous mother tongue. But how often do we ask for Spanish or even Vatican accountability? Seldom, if ever.
We look at the US for demilitarization and decolonization, but has Spain or the Philippines ever offered an apology for committing institutional and direct genocide against the Marianas? Japan during WWII? Nope.
To add more salt to the colonial wound, San Vitores was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1985, and Pope Benedict XVI canonized Pedro Calungsod in 2012 as an official Catholic Saint.
Obsequious ottoman for the Spanish Empire, Saint Pedro Calungsod. An obvious signal that the Philippines would do well to recognize their own internalized oppression, settler colonialism, and their hand in genocide in the Pacific.
Religious Hypocrisy
Vatican-related sexual abuse cases, polygamy cults, churches picketing military funerals, and Evangelical white supremacists storming the Capitol, some Chamorros and residents of the Marianas may feel like these problems are worlds away. Yet, we were facing another version of terror since the 16th century, only it was the Spanish conquistadors with their Inquisition mindset, the Japanese in WWII, and a current anemic and apathetic American occupation that enlists young men and women in the Marianas in droves to fight in US military wars but refuses to give them the right to vote or even a functional VA hospital that isn’t over 3,000 miles away.
Patriarchal religions like Catholicism have been used in positive ways in coping with stress, grief, loss, and daily struggles, but let us not look the other way in the damage it’s done not only to the Marianas but throughout the world.
It may sound a bit Mata’pang to throw the book back at religion on our islands and in the Chamorro diaspora, but it's also a bit San Vitores to violate someone’s consent, affect legislative action via religious fundamentalism, and violate the civil rights of others by enabling white supremacist terror.
When we consider the two historic foes, let us also ask: who was the one being arrogant, stuck-up, or difficult for no reason? Was it the Chief who requested specific abstinence from foreign religious pressure on his children, or the Spanish priest who openly flouted the Chief's request and kidnapped his daughter anyway? Think about it.
