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Holiday Discount Code

November 28th, 2011

Holiday Discount Code

Hafa Adai

I am offering a Holiday discount on all art purchases from eGuam.com now through the end of the year.

There are some newly added vintage Guam photographs. The Panoramic views of Agana, Tumon and Inarajan make super gifts and are only available from eGuam.com, the detail in these rare Guam photographs are amazing!

Please take a look at these fine art images of Guam and Micronesia. The discount code is valid through December 31.

Here is the Discount Code, enter it at checkout:
SBHUBU

Many of the Antique Maps and Prints for sale here are displayed in the Tamuning Branch of the First Hawaiian Bank on Guam.

A print from our collection looks great matted & framed and shows your island pride in both home and office. This is a great gift for those hard-to-gift people on your shopping list.

You can order a custom size in several formats:
• Fine Art print
• Framed Print
• Canvas print
• Note cards

Please let your family and friends know about eGuam.com and forward this eMail to anyone who may be interested.

Thanks for your support. Let me know what you think about the new site. Esta,

Tom Walsh

Become a fan of our Facebook Page and please LIKE eGuam

The Guam Flag was approved on July 4, 1917

July 4th, 2011

The Guam Flag was approved on July 4, 1917

On July 4, 1917, Gov. Roy C. Smith approved the plan for the Guam flag, and two days later, the flag was unveiled for the first time at a Hagåtña parade.

The blueprint shows a tree and proa (canoe) in front of a silhouette of Two Lover's Point and specifies the flag's colors. There are several possible inspirations of the flag's design, including a photograph from Gov. Robert E. Coontz's collection from 1912, and the works of local artist Francisco Feja and Helen Paul, the wife of a U.S. Navy officer. The center of the flag features the Guam Seal.

Taken from the center portion of the Guam Flag, Governor Roy C. Smith approved the design as the "Official Coat of Arms" for the territory of Guam on July 4, 1917. April 4, 1930 was the formal adoption date of the official Seal of the Territory of Guam, under the administration of Governor Willis W. Bradley Jr. who changed it from one with an eagle on it.

The Seal was designed in the city of Agana from a scene where the diverted Agana River formerly empties into the Philippine Sea in a spot known as the Navy Yard Reservations. Following a disastrous typhoon which left only a coconut tree standing, this setting inspired the design for the official Seal of Guam. The shape of the Seal represents the shape of the slingstone which the ancient Chamoru warriors employ as an implement for defense. That iconic shape cradles and protects the rest of the features within the seal. At the heart of the seal is the coconut growing in the unfertile sand which depicts determination. Although partly uprooted during the recent typhoon, as if in utter defiance to all adversities, this tree with trunk partly bent, turned its open fronds to receive illumination from the heavens and continue its growth.

Find out more here: http://ns.gov.gu/seal.html

Fathers Day Discount Code

June 19th, 2011

Fathers Day Discount Code

Hafa Adai

I am offering a 20% discount on all art purchases from eGuam.com now through the end of the month in honor of all fathers.

I have added many new images including some botanical prints that will make for great decor additions to any office or home. I really like the breadfruit and Palm images.

Plus there are some newly added vintage Guam photographs including Sumay Village. The Panoramic views of Agana, Tumon and Inarajan are only available from eGuam.com, the detail in these rare Guam photographs are amazing!

Please take a look at these fine art images of Guam and Micronesia. The discount code is valid through June 30.

Here is the 20% Discount Code, enter it at checkout:
NAYYVL

Many of the Antique Maps and Prints for sale here are displayed in the Tamuning Branch of the First Hawaiian Bank on Guam.

A print from our collection looks great matted & framed and shows your island pride in both home and office.

You can order a custom size in several formats:
• Fine Art print
• Framed Print
• Canvas print
• Note cards

Please let your family and friends know about eGuam.com and forward this eMail to anyone who may be interested.

Thanks for your support. Let me know what you think about the new site. Esta,

Tom Walsh

Become a fan of our Facebook Page and please LIKE eGuam - click below

EGuam


Captain Wilson - Shipwreck of the Antelope on Palau

May 15th, 2011

Captain Wilson - Shipwreck of the Antelope on Palau

“The most extensive contact the Palauans ever had with outsiders, was during the time of Captain Henry Wilson, captain of the East India Company's packet the Anetlope, when his ship was wrecked off Ulong in 1783. Probably that was the first time that Palauans and Europeans ever came into contact for an extended period of time and actually co-existed or tried to understand each other. Captain Henry Wilson was here for six months when his ship was shipwrecked.

"From the accounts received, it was a positive relationship. We read that it was a very humane kind of a treatment. The Englishmen were very kind, although they had guns and knives and muskets, they wanted to be friendly with the islanders and the king also was kind because he was curious."

Ulong Island, once inhabited in the ancient days, was remote from the settled areas of Palau when Wilson arrived. But it was under the control of the Ibedul of Koror nonetheless.

"Most of the time the Palauans were very curious about the color of their skin, the color of their hair, the way they talked, their mannerisms. This was all very new to them, so it was sort of like an exchange, a cultural exchange if you will, between two different cultures, and they were trying to find out things, to understand each other in this situation.

"The Englishman really had no choice but to be kind to the locals, because they needed them and they needed to stay and they needed to get themselves ready to go on to do their journeys."

"But Captain Henry Wilson was an exceptional man and he was of very high society. He was a gentleman of the highest order. He treated the natives very, very kindly. And throughout this, guns were exchanged, the Palauans had a taste of cigarettes and smoking, and taste of the whiskey. And the Palauans in turn exchanged bananas and brought food and all of that, so there was this kind of good social exchange between them."

“His first agenda was to get his ship repaired and then go back to England and report what he found; and then continue his voyage, which was commissioned by the Queen to explore this area, to lay claims to some of the islands and the lucrative spice trade that was going on in this area.

"So after six months, they finally got the ship together: they cut the lumber here and took whatever they could from the ship and rebuilt the Antelope. The name of the ship was the Antelope, and it sailed back to Macau.

"When they went back to England, they took Leeboo, who was the son of the Ibedul, the high chief of Koror. And they took him to England, but he died of smallpox there. The East India Company erected a monument over Leeboo’s grave in St Mary's Churchyard, Rotherhithe. It was Wilson who gave the archipelago the name "Pelew Islands".

Latte Stones of Guam and the Mariana Islands

May 9th, 2011

Latte Stones of Guam and the Mariana Islands

A latte stone, or simply latte, is the term for a pillar (Chamorro language: haligi) capped by a hemispherical stone capital (tasa) with the flat side facing up. Probably used as building supports by the ancient Chamorro people, they are found throughout most of the Mariana Islands. In modern times, the latte stone is seen as a sign of Chamorro identity and is used in many different contexts.

The history of the pre-contact Marianas is usually divided into three periods: Pre-Latte, Transitional Pre-Latte, and Latte. Latte stones began to be used in about 800 A.D. and became increasingly more common until the arrival of Ferdinand Magellan in 1521 and Spanish colonization, when they fell rapidly out of use and were entirely abandoned by about 1700. Latte stones have been found on Guam and the southern islands in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, including Rota, Tinian, Aguiguan, and Saipan, as well as several small northern islands, such as Pagan.

The largest standing latte is the House of Taga in Tinian, (Shown in the photo) where capstones measure between 2.7 – 2.48 meters in diameter and shafts are 3.87 – 4.23 meters long. The Chamorros never completed what would have been the largest latte in the Marianas. Those latte elements remain in the quarry at the As Nieves in Rota. The northern most latte sets or structures are located on the island of Pagan.

Undisturbed stones are found usually arranged in parallel pairs of between eight and fourteen lattes framing a rectangular space. The more pairs in the structure, the taller the latte stones. One twenty latte arrangement was found in the current location of the military Ordnance Annex on southern Guam. While none of the early European visitors to the islands appear to have drawn pictures of latte stones in use, several accounts from the 16th and 17th centuries state that houses were erected on the stones, with one eyewitness specifying that the structures on lattes were used to shelter proas and served as community meeting places. However, the lack of definitive, consistent evidence means that all theories are disputed. Some archaeologists believe that only high status Chamorros lived in structures built on latte stones, while others have put forward the theory that all Chamorros in the Latte Period lived in latte structures, and that the height and number of the stones in the structure indicated social status.

Dumont dUrville Commander of the Astrolabe

May 9th, 2011

Dumont dUrville Commander of the Astrolabe

In August 1822 d’Urville sailed on the ship Coquille from Toulon with the objective of collecting as much scientific and strategic information as possible on the area to which it was dispatched. Duperrey (Who first sailed with Freycinet) was named Commander of the expedition because he was four years older than Dumont. On the Coquille, Dumont tried to reconcile his responsibilities as second in command with his need to carry out scientific work. He was in charge of carrying out research in the fields of the botany and entomology. The Coquille brought back to France specimens of more than 3,000 species of plants, 400 of which were previously unknown, enriching moreover the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris with more than 1,200 specimens of insects, covering 1,100 insect species (including 300 previously unknown species).

Two months after Dumont returned on the Coquille, he presented to the Navy Ministry a plan for a new expedition, which he hoped to command. The proposal was accepted and the Coquille, renamed the Astrolabe in honour of the ship of La Pérouse, sailed from Toulon at the beginning of 1826 towards the Pacific Ocean, for a circumnavigation of the world that was destined to last nearly three years.

The new Astrolabe skirted the coast of southern Australia, carried out new relief maps of the South Island of New Zealand, reached the archipelagos of Tonga and Fiji, executed the first relief maps of the Loyalty Islands (part of French New Caledonia) and explored the coasts of New Guinea. He identified the site of La Pérouse’s shipwreck in Vanikoro (one of the Santa Cruz Islands, part of the archipelago of the Solomon Islands) and collected numerous remains of his boats. The voyage continued with the mapping of part of the Caroline Islands and the Moluccas(Guam and Micronesia). The Astrolabe returned to Marseille during the early months of 1829 with an impressive load of hydrographical papers and collections of zoological, botanical and mineralogical reports, which were destined to strongly influence the scientific analysis of those regions. Following this expedition, he invented the terms Malaisia, Micronesia and Melanesia, distinguishing these Pacific cultures and island groups from Polynesia.

Dumont d’Urville passed a short period with his family before returning to Paris, where he was promoted to captain and he was put in charge of writing the report of his travels. The five volumes were published at the expense of the French government between 1832 and 1834 images from these publications and the folio are offered here.

Artist Jacques Arago aboard the Freycinet world voyage to Guam and Micronesia on the Uranie

May 9th, 2011

Artist Jacques Arago aboard the Freycinet world voyage to Guam and Micronesia on the Uranie

Jacques was born in Estagel, Pyrénées-Orientales. He was the brother of François Arago (1786–1853), a scientist and politician, the most famous of the four Arago brothers. His two other brothers were Jean Arago (1788–1836), a general in the Mexican army; and Étienne Arago (1802–1892), a writer and politician.

Jacques Arago joined Louis de Freycinet on his 1817 voyage around the world aboard the ship Uranie, which inspired his witty Voyage autour du monde.

Although he lost his sight in 1837, he went on traveling and writing for the theater. In Curieux voyage autour du monde (1853), he tells of his round trip without once using the letter "a".

He died in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Over forty of his drawings were donated to the Honolulu Academy of Arts by Frances Damon Holt.

A word about Louis-Claude de saulces de Freycinet

May 9th, 2011

A word about Louis-Claude de saulces de Freycinet

Louis de Freycinet - In 1817, he commanded the Uranie, in which Louis Isidore Duperrey, Jacques Arago, Adrien Taunay the Younger and others went to Rio de Janeiro, to take a series of pendulum measurements as well as a larger scheme for obtaining observations, not only in geography and ethnology, but in astronomy, terrestrial magnetism, and meteorology, and for the collection of specimens in natural history. Freycinet also managed to sneak his wife Rose de Freycinet aboard, with a guard of 17 officers.

For three years, Freycinet cruised about, visiting Australia, the Mariana Islands, Hawaiian Islands, and other Pacific islands, South America, and other places, and, notwithstanding the loss of the Uranie on the Falkland Islands during the return voyage, returned to France with fine collections in all departments of natural history, and with voluminous notes and drawings of the countries visited.

The results of this voyage were published under Freycinet's supervision, with the title of Voyage autour du monde sur les corvettes Uranie et la Physicienne en 1824–1844, in 13 quarto volumes and 4 folio volumes of plates and maps many of which are for sale here.

Freycinet was admitted into the French Academy of Sciences in 1825, and was one of the founders of the Paris Geographical Society. He died at Freycinet, Drôme.