Chamorro Maga’håga and Makana Ritual Specialists

Record summary

Spanish accounts of the Marianas describe Chamorro ritual specialists, often rendered as makahnas, as figures involved with healing, divination, funerary practice, and relations with ancestral or spirit powers. Female specialists and gendered ritual authority also appear in records, though terminology and roles vary. This lead is important for comparing indigenous esoteric expertise with colonial demonological interpretation. The sources include missionary and administrative writings produced amid conquest and conversion, so they document both Chamorro practice and Spanish efforts to suppress or recategorize it.