IslandTAT Legends · Drop 02
SIRENA
Daughter of the Sea
One of Guam's most remembered stories. A daughter drawn to the water. A mother's words that could not be taken back. And a story that has traveled through generations.
The legend before the artwork.
Artwork coming soon. Original artwork by IslandTAT Senior Artist Maddy Tellez.
Coming Soon / Pre-Release · Artwork Not Yet Revealed
Artwork / Coming Soon
SIRENA
Legends · Drop 02
Original artwork by / Maddy Tellez
The finished design will be revealed before the limited preorder opens.
BEFORE THE SHIRT,
THERE IS THE STORY.
IslandTAT Legends was created around a simple idea: if we put a story on something you wear, we should also tell you where that story came from.
Drop 02 turns toward Guam and one of the island's most remembered figures: Sirena. Often introduced simply as "Guam's mermaid," her story carries considerably more than the image of a woman beneath the sea.
It is a story about childhood and responsibility, the power of a parent's words, the bond between a child and her godmother, regret, transformation and the consequences of words spoken in anger.
Before Maddy Tellez reveals her interpretation of Sirena, we want you to know the story she is interpreting.
THE WATER HAD A HOLD ON HER.
The Artist Behind Drop 02
MADDY TELLEZ
Senior Tattoo Artist · IslandTAT
CHamoru & Mexican
For Maddy, this one is personal.
Maddy Tellez is a Senior Tattoo Artist at IslandTAT whose CHamoru and Mexican heritage has always been an important part of her identity and her work.
She originally moved to San Diego to apprentice under IslandTAT founder Joshawa Elsas and developed through the IslandTAT system from apprentice to senior artist. Today she is known for precise linework, attention to detail, strong body flow and artwork built around cultural and personal connection.
Maddy has spent much of her tattoo career working within Polynesian-inspired composition. Outside tattooing, however, she has wanted to continue expanding herself as an illustrator and artist. The Sirena project created an opportunity for both.
Because Sirena belongs so closely to the storytelling of Guam, Maddy wanted to go deeper than simply drawing a mermaid. She began with the story — researching its setting, the different versions that have survived, the women at its center and what generations of CHamoru families have understood it to mean.
It also gave her an opportunity to explore a different visual language outside the Polynesian tattoo compositions people normally associate with her work.
This is not simply Maddy illustrating a legend. It is a CHamoru artist returning to a story connected to Guam and deciding how she wants to interpret it through her own art.
Meet Maddy"I wanted to start with the story before I started with the drawing."
Estoria Sirena
THE STORY GUAM
KEPT TELLING
Long ago in Hagåtña, where fresh water made its way toward the sea, there lived a young girl named Sirena.
The water had a hold on her.
Whenever she could escape her chores, even for a little while, Sirena would find her way back to the river. There she could swim, play and disappear for a time into a world that seemed to call to her more strongly than anything waiting on land.
One day her mother sent her to gather coconut shells that could be used for making charcoal.
Sirena set out to do what she had been asked.
But the river was there.
And Sirena could not resist it.
She entered the water and began to swim. Minutes became longer. Her errand was forgotten. Back home, her mother waited.
And waited.
Sirena's matlina — her godmother — was visiting when her mother began wondering where her daughter had gone.
She already suspected the answer.
Sirena was probably in the river again.
Frustration turned into anger.
And in that anger, her mother spoke words that would change everything.
If Sirena loved the water so much, she said, then she should become a fish.
Her matlina immediately understood the weight of what had just been spoken.
She intervened.
Then let the part of Sirena that belongs to me remain human.
At the river, Sirena began to change.
The young girl who had entered the water emerged as something between two worlds.
From the waist upward she remained human.
Below, she had become a creature of the sea.
Her mother's anger disappeared the instant she understood what her words had done.
But regret could not recall them.
The curse could not simply be unsaid.
Sirena could no longer return to her old life on land.
And so mother and daughter faced one another for what the story tells us would be the final time.
Sirena did not leave without love for her mother.
She understood that the words had been spoken in anger.
But understanding could not change what had happened.
She said farewell.
And then Sirena turned toward the water she had always loved and disappeared into the sea.
The girl from Hagåtña became Sirena.
And generations continued telling her story.
SOME WORDS CANNOT BE TAKEN BACK.
LEGEND, FOLKTALE
— AND A WARNING
Today Sirena is widely known as "The Legend of Sirena" and is one of Guam's best-known traditional stories. Its history, however, is more complicated — and that history is part of what makes the story interesting.
Guampedia's documentation of the story draws from I Tetehnan, a collection connected with CHamoru and Spanish-loan proverbs. In that account, Sirena is identified not simply as a legend, but as a proverb.
Researchers also place the familiar Guam version within the Spanish colonial era rather than describing it as an ancient pre-contact CHamoru story. The name "Sirena" itself comes through Spanish.
Over generations, however, Guam made the story its own. Its setting became Hagåtña. Its family relationships reflected CHamoru life. Its lesson was repeated from parents to children. And Sirena became part of the island's shared cultural memory.
That distinction matters to IslandTAT. Preserving culture does not require making a story older than it is. Sometimes the more interesting question is how a people receive a story, reshape it, pass it forward and eventually make it part of the way generations understand themselves.
HAGÅTÑA
The story is associated with the Saddok Hagåtña — the Hagåtña River — in an area historically referred to as Minondu in Barrio de San Nicolas. Guampedia records that the river system and surrounding neighborhoods changed substantially during Guam's Spanish colonial period, including the rerouting of the river in the early 1800s. The landscape described in the Sirena story therefore belongs to a Hagåtña very different from the city seen today.
- Place
- Hagåtña, Guam
- Water
- Saddok Hagåtña / Hagåtña River
- Historic Area
- Minondu · Barrio de San Nicolas
- Story Tradition
- CHamoru / Guam
THREE WOMEN.
ONE STORY.
SIRENA
Youth · Freedom · Transformation
Sirena represents the child standing between freedom and responsibility — still drawn toward play and the water while entering a world where expectations are beginning to change.
I NÅNA — THE MOTHER
Authority · Responsibility · The Weight of Words
The mother carries the responsibility of raising her child. Her anger lasts only a moment. Her words last far longer.
I MATLINA — THE GODMOTHER
Spiritual Kinship · Protection · Intervention
Sirena's godmother changes the outcome by claiming the part of Sirena entrusted to her. Her presence reflects the important place godparents and extended spiritual family have held in CHamoru society.
The older telling is striking because its central characters are all women. Sirena. Her mother. Her godmother. Guampedia connects these relationships to both the matrilineal history of ancient CHamoru society and the later Catholic institution of the godparent.
WORDS CAN OUTLIVE
THE MOMENT THAT CREATED THEM.
One of the deepest interpretations of Sirena has nothing to do with mermaids. It is about speech.
The story is associated with the CHamoru idea that the words of parents carry extraordinary weight in shaping their children.
Sirena's mother does not intend to lose her daughter. She speaks in anger. Then immediately wants the words back. She cannot have them back.
That is why Sirena survives as more than a children's warning about completing chores. It is also a warning to adults. Be careful what you place upon a child with your words. Some things cannot simply be unsaid.
THE GIRL FROM HAGÅTÑA BECAME SIRENA.
WHY SIRENA
STILL MATTERS
Stories survive because every generation finds something recognizable inside them.
A child may hear Sirena and understand: Listen to your parents. Finish what you have been asked to do.
A parent may hear something entirely different: Do not let a moment of anger become a wound your child carries.
A historian may see the layering of CHamoru society, Spanish colonial influence, Catholic godparent relationships and Guam's changing landscape.
A CHamoru artist may see something else again:
A woman suspended between land and ocean. Between childhood and adulthood. Between consequence and freedom. Between what was chosen for her and what she eventually became.
That is the Sirena Maddy is now interpreting.
BEFORE YOU WEAR THE STORY,KNOW WHERE IT CAME FROM.
Interpreting Sirena
THE STORY IS FINISHED.
THE ARTWORK ISN'T.
Maddy's design is currently in development. Rather than beginning with a generic image of a mermaid, the artwork is being developed from research into Guam's version of Sirena, the water surrounding the story, its emotional tension and the transformation that defines it.
This project also gives Maddy room to step outside the Polynesian tattoo compositions for which she is best known and explore a more illustrative side of her work.
The final image remains unrevealed. For now, the story comes first.
SIRENA
Original artwork by Maddy Tellez
Reveal Coming Soon
Legends · Drop 02
THE STORY
AVAILABLE NOW
Meet Sirena and learn the history behind Drop 02.
THE ARTIST
AVAILABLE NOW
Meet Maddy Tellez and learn why she chose to interpret a story from Guam.
THE REVEAL
COMING SOON
Maddy's finished Sirena artwork and the first complete shirt design will be revealed.
THE PREORDER
DATES TO BE ANNOUNCED
Pricing, colorways, sizing and the limited ordering window will be released with the finished design.
ONE DESIGN.
ONE WINDOW.
THEN THE ARCHIVE.
IslandTAT Legends is not an inventory-driven clothing line. Each release begins with a story.
When the artwork is complete, Drop 02 will open for a limited preorder window. We will make the shirts ordered during that window.
When the release closes and the run is completed, this exact Sirena edition will be retired into the IslandTAT Legends Archive.
No permanent restock. No endless inventory. No mass production.
If another interpretation of Sirena is ever created in the future, it will be treated as a new piece of artwork — not a reprint of Drop 02.
WHEN THIS VERSION IS GONE,
IT BECOMES PART OF THE ARCHIVE.
SEE SIRENA FIRST.
Join the reveal list and we'll let you know when Maddy's finished artwork is unveiled, when the shirt is shown for the first time and when the limited preorder window opens.
Artwork reveal · Pricing · Preorder dates
No spam. Just the drop.
THE STORY IS FINISHED.THE ARTWORK ISN'T.
WE DON'T JUST PRINT THE IMAGE.
WE TELL YOU WHY IT EXISTS.
IslandTAT began with art, clothing and Pacific culture long before the tattoo studio became what it is today. The Legends Series brings those worlds back together.
Every release begins with a story from the Pacific. We research it. We identify where it came from. An IslandTAT artist interprets it. We share what we learned. Then we release the artwork for a short period of time.
The shirt becomes the physical artifact. The story is what survives it.
Questions
Research & Cultural Context
IslandTAT researched the Sirena story using documented Guam historical and cultural resources, including Guampedia's account of "Folktale: Sirena" and historical material concerning Hagåtña, CHamoru family relationships and the development of the story during Guam's Spanish colonial period. This page is an IslandTAT retelling and interpretation. It is not intended to replace the original cultural and historical resources from which we continue learning.