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Latte stones of antiquity continue to
baffle us today. Large ones weigh tons and stand
about sixteen feet high. To quarry, lift, and
transport them would be an engineering challenge
even with today's technology and heavy duty
equipment. Latte stones were used primarily as
foundations for Chamorro houses. Once installed in
a particular location, the surroundings and lots
under houses were used for ceremonies, burials, and
work places.
The
site was treated as hallowed gound. For this
reason, latte stone foundations are usually left in
place even after the structures they support have
been destroyed. Symbolically, the ruins of a latte
site serve as a Tolai Chanmorro (Chamorro Bridge).
They provide us a tangible link to our ancestral
past and permit a glimpse, a sense, of the way we
were.
Latte
stones are found nowhere else in the world except
Guam and the other islands of the Marianas. It is
reported, however, that they are structures that
resemble them in some locations in the
Philippines.
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