March | 2020 | HYPERCOMMON

Lovers leap worldwide. Across the globe, these romantic dramas climaxed on romantic real estate. Actual geographic locations presumably add veracity to the implausible stories. Our research revealed the global reach of this tale of stalwart and undying love.

Souvenir and postcard of the Lover’s Leap in Guam from Todd Hoose.

Tourist postcards identifying Lover’s Leaps have been produced by the millions and I recently received such a reminder from a friend. Todd Hoose was deployed by FEMA to Saipan following Super Typhoon Yutu. While there, Todd emailed, saying he would be in Guam for a meeting; where was that Lover’s Leap we were putting in the book? I sent him the story:

Puntan dos Amantes, Two Lovers Point, Guam, USA, is a full-service tourist attraction. … The park honors Guam’s Lover’s Leap legend. A 25-foot tall statue of the two tragic lovers by Philippine sculptor Eduardo Castrillo was created in 1984. It was destroyed by Typhoon Pongsona in 2002, but retrieved from a junkyard, restored, and reinstalled in 2015.

A plaque on the base tells the story of “The Legend of Puntan dos Amantes.” It’s the familiar Romeo-and-Juliet premise with a Sappho conclusion. An “impressive beauty” is ordered to marry a “powerful, arrogant Spanish captain” by her “wealthy Spanish aristocrat” father. Alas! She loves a “young, gentle, strongly-built and handsome Chamorro man.” They rendezvous on the cliff where they first met:

When the father discovered that his daughter was gone, he told the captain that his daughter had been kidnapped by the Chamorro boy. The father, the captain and all the Spanish soldiers pursued the lovers up to the high cliff above Tumon Bay. The couple stood at the very edge of the cliff. The boy and girl took the long strands of their hair and tied these together into a rope-like knot . . . They looked deeply into each other’s eyes and kissed one last time. In that instant, the young couple leaped off the long, deep cliff into the roaring waves below.

French explorer Louis Claude de Freycinet in 1819 published a slightly different version, which he claimed to have learned from locals. In it both the boy and girl were Chamorro (natives of Guam). She was of higher caste. Without her father’s permission to marry they became impoverished outcasts. They put their love child in a stone vault and climbed to the overlook. Binding their hair together they jumped to their deaths. In later renditions, the baby has disappeared. This unique tying of hair together has persisted and is portrayed in all graphic representations.