Foodways, Missionaries, and Culinary Accommodation in the Mariana Islands (1668–74)

Abstract

Abstract The Jesuits played a vital role in the diffusion of crops, animals, agricultural practices, and eating manners throughout the early modern world. In the Mariana Islands (western Pacific), the arrival of the first missionaries in 1668 entailed the introduction of new foods and food-related material culture deemed necessary to establish a self-sufficient mission. However, during the first six years of the mission (1668–74), the resistance and opposition of the native inhabitants—the CHamoru people—to the Jesuits’ activities, the unreliability of maritime trade routes, the conflicts that arose inside the Society of Jesus, and the tensions between the Jesuits and the Spanish colonial authorities affected missionaries’ expectations regarding diet and cuisine. This article explores the strategies that the Jesuit missionaries followed to adjust their foodways to the social and physical environment of the Mariana Islands and pays attention to the process whereby local foods were adopted. In that sense, it argues that culinary accommodation—or “gastronomic accommodation” as defined by Cristina Osswald—was both a common practice to overcome the lack of Iberian resources and a political strategy to ease tensions and forge alliances with the indigenous population.