As one of the most important plants in the life of all Pacific Islanders, the CHamoru people have many legends about the “trongkon niyok” or coconut tree. Here is one legend of Guam’s first coconut tree, written by the late educator Remedios L.G. Perez:

“Many, many years ago, when people had nothing but caves for homes and leaves for their clothes and shoes, and fruits and fishes for their food, a woman who had lost her husband in a war with another village, died of a broken heart. She left behind a son and daughter with no one to care for them.

The children hid themselves in a cave and in the daytime left only to catch fish and pick fruit. One day, when they returned, they found an old woman in their cave. They kept her and gave her the best part of their meal, many times giving what little food they had to her.

Sometimes she tried to show gratitude to them by trying to do a little work but she was half blind and deaf and had little use of her muscles. The woman never spoke a single word and the children thought she was dumb until her dying hour when she handed them a seed and said, “Bury this in my grave when I die and my spirit will aid you when I am gone. You have been very kind to me when no one else would help me.” With these words she died.

The children buried her in the seashore and they did what they were told with the seed. There came up a palm tree, and it grew so tall and began to bear fruits just as they grew into a man and a woman.

They ate many of the tree’s nuts and over time the trees had scattered and covered the seashore. They cut some of them down and built a small hut using the trunk to hold up the leaves, which served as walls and a roof. They made many other uses of the tree – making brooms, fans, cups, baskets, rope, oils and many things to eat.

Today we find many coconut trees along the seashore and they are just as useful today as they were then.

The moral of the story is “be kind to the helpless.”