Tag Archives: spain

Banana Peels and Sore Throats

Nationality: American
Age: 67
Occupation: Realtor
Residence: Houston, TX
Performance Date: April 10, 2016
Primary Language: English

The informant, my grandfather, is a 67-year-old man who was born and raised in the Sacramento Valley. His mother was also born in the United States, and is of Spanish, German, and French descent. While riding in the car on the way to breakfast, I asked if he remembered any of the home remedies his mother would use when he was sick.

“When I or any of my siblings had a sore throat, my mom would take a banana, peel it, and place the moist side of the banana peel against our feet. Then we had to put socks on. Apparently, whatever was left in the banana peel would heal your sore throat. Maybe it had to do with the potassium or something. I’m not sure if it ever really worked, but we still did it.”

I was a bit taken aback by this form of folk medicine, mostly because I could not imagine the sensation of having a banana peel forced inside of my sock. The informant did not initially tell me where his mother learned of this remedy. After I followed up to determine whether it was an idiosyncrasy, the informant said that his mother learned of the healing properties of banana peels from her mother, who was born in Spain, and that the tradition had been prominent within their community as doctors were scarcely available and most remedies were communicated orally. However, the informant decided not to continue the tradition and pass it down to his children because he felt there were better remedies available for a sore throat. Perhaps the idea of a banana peel having medicinal properties comes from the fact that fruits, and bananas in particular, are rich in vitamins and minerals. Banana peels are cool to the touch, and so may be capable of alleviating skin irritations or abrasions. It is unclear how these properties applied to the bottom of one’s foot would help to remedy a sore throat, but maybe the unfamiliar sensation served as a distraction from the pain that the child felt in their throat by focusing attention to a different area of the body.

Names

Nationality: African American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish, and many other languages partly

Collector: Oh! Do the story about why that guy got mad at you, or got mad at someone…

Informant: So, I don’t know if you’ve heard this story Maddie, um when I was in Spain, uh, so the word, like the colloquial term for blowjob is a person’s name in every city in Spain, and so, um, like in my friend’s town Toledo, Maria, and then in Granada it’s Victoria, um, so that’s just the context. So, I’m out with my friends—I was friends with this Spanish guy named Mario—and in Spain you go on dates, it’s like middle school style dating, so group dates. And so, um, Mario would ask me out and said invite some of your friends, so me and my two American friends were meeting up with his two friends, but then last minute his really good friend from where he’s from, Cordova, came to visit down in Granada, and so we were like—he was like “one more person” and I was like “oh my other friends are busy,” and he was like, “it’s fine, like [whatever his name is] will just come hang out”—I think his name was David. And so, we’re all at this bar hanging out, and then, um, we were doing like a pub crawl, and so we were supposed to head down to the next place, and so, um, his other friend, Luis, was like “oh guys we’re going to this next bar in 5 minutes, like finish your drinks,” and so like all the Spanish people are lightly sipping, and the Americans start to, like, you know, really try and down their drinks, and my friends, Claire and Diana, had like straws in their drinks and so they were trying to, kind of like, furiously sip.

Person: You have another friend named Diana?

Informant: Mhm

Person: Rude. Rude!

Informant: She looks nothing like you, so it’s okay.

Person: Sorry, continue.

Informant: She’s Italian and from upstate New York. Um, and so, we—but I had a beer, and so I needed to like, chug it, so I just, you know, like, I’m an adult and a frat star, I chug my beer. And I look, everyone’s kind of staring at me, because in Europe you don’t have to, like, chug your drinks because you’re an adult, um and you can drink it slow and be a normal person. Um, and so I’m like, whatever, I did it, it’s done, don’t make fun of me. And, um, I look up, and David is like smirking, and he says, “Aye que buenas Mayas,” and in Granada, at least in Spain, mallas, I’ve always been taught that means leggings, so it’s M-A-L-L-A-S, leggings, like, you know, like, the pants, so, um, I was like “what?” because I was wearing jeans, so I was like, maybe he thinks these are like, jeggings, okay whatever. And, like, I look over at Mario, and Mario looks furious. And I’m like, okay. And he said something really fast to David in Cordovan slang, and—Cordovian—and like, I don’t know what it means, and I, but I can tell he’s really pissed, but I’m like, I don’t know why you’re angry, okay. And so we start walking to the next bar, and I’m like holding hands with Mario, and I’m like, “Why were you so upset?” And he was like, “Oh, I don’t want to talk about it.” And I’m like, “No, I don’t understand, I didn’t really get the joke, so like what did that mean?” Because like Mario speaks English and Spanish, and so in Spanish I’m asking this, but like, “Can you explain it in English because I don’t get it.” And he was like, in English, “No we’re not going to talk about it.” And I was, he never speaks to me in English unless I ask him to, so I was like, “No, just, just, tell me.” And he like, will not say it, and I’m like, I’m the worst, when I want to know something, I will, I will force you to tell me, and so eventually he’s like, “He was saying, you know like how here Victoria means, like, blowjob?” I was like, “yeah.” He was like, “Well, in like, our town, outside of Cordova, like, Mayas are like blowjobs.” And I was like, “Wait what?” And he was like “Cause, you know, you chugged your drink, so you have to like open your throat, just kind of pour it…” And I was like, “Oh, Bueno, Bueno, [what sounds like “tamos”] a qui…” I switched right back to Spanish, because I was like I don’t want to talk about this hmmmm. So, that’s the end of that story.

 

Informant is a junior at the University of Southern California. She is studying communications here. She is from Boston, Massachusetts. She spent a while in the southern part of Spain, and speaks fluent Spanish. I spoke to her while we were eating lunch at my sorority house one day. We were sitting together with some of my other informants. Much of what she told me was learned from her own experiences.

 

I had recalled her telling this story, and thought that it was interesting and a new part of a culture I wasn’t very familiar with. As we were sitting at lunch discussing folklore, I remembered that she had told me this before, and asked her to tell it again. I haven’t heard of any other culture that does this to so much of an extent. It seems that every place, or so it’s suggested, uses some woman’s name for blowjob. It’s also interesting to see the difference in cultures having to do with the consumption of alcohol. It seems that a stereotype perpetuated by the party culture of many large and small universities is so different than the way the majority of the world consumes alcohol.

Family Ties to Cortés

Nationality: USA
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: April 8, 2015
Primary Language: English

“My mom always tells me this story of how her family came over on Hernán Cortés’ actual boat. There aren’t really any documents of it actually happening, but it’s been a belief in my family for generations. My ancestor was a Spanish soldier on Cortés’ initial conquest of the Aztecs, but he had mixed feelings about how they treated the natives. After he befriended an Aztec women before Cortés reached Tenochtitlan, he decided to abandon the conquest and moved away with the woman. They eventually started a family in Mexico, and over a few generations, my branch of the family ended up in what is now Española, New Mexico. My mom’s family has been in Española for hundreds of years, and a whole bunch of my family lives there still.”

 

This comes from one of my friends whose mother is fully racially Mexican, but has lived in Española, New Mexico, her whole life. Her family actually was really prominent in Española and owned a lot of land in the New Mexico territory. He essentially said that he doesn’t really believe the story fully and thinks that his mom’s family has probably exaggerated it a lot, but he still finds it really cool how strong the belief is in his family, and he actually thinks it’s awesome that there is somewhat of a possibility that his family has a connection to such a significant historical event.

 

Los Cabezudos y Gigantes

Nationality: Spanish
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Madrid, Spain
Performance Date: April 26, 2014
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

“All the people in my village in Avila meet at the ‘Plaza de Ayuntamiento’ (City Hall). After we set off fireworks and when they finish the ‘Cabezudos’ start running and chasing after the people with branches and they hit the people. These ‘Cabezudos’ are first and then in the back are the ‘Gigantes’ (Giants) with the town band.  If you want to get chased you go to the front of the procession and if you want to be safe you go to the back with the giants and the band. This happens in the morning and then at night they do another thing. It’s called ‘Toro de Fuego’ (Fire Bull). One man puts a still structure with a bull form and in the horns they put ‘corre calles’ or ‘bengalas’ (light sticks, type of fireworks). When they fall off the horn the fireworks dance around the street on their own, like a type of rocket. This is a festival in my town and is less known than Sen Fermines.”

 

When does this festival take place?:

“The festival starts the 15th of July to about the 30th of July. The festival happens once a year and celebrates the saint of our town, San Pedro. ”

What are some other things that you guys do during the town festival?:

“There’s no school during this time because it’s summer. During any other summer night it would be normal to see lots of young people out on the street. But during the festival all ages and types of people are out on the street celebrating. A group sets up a stage and there are concerts and performances every night.”

Do you know how or who build the Cabezudos or Gigantes?:

“‘Cabezudos’ are big, plastic heads. I think they buy some and other, smaller ones they make. The same people who wear them during the procession either make or buy their own heads.”

 

The direct translation for “cabezudo” is an adjective meaning headstrong. But within the context of this festival the term is used as a noun for the large-headed characters that are a part of the parade. The direct translation for “gigantes” is giant. In the town festival these accompany the ‘cabezudos’ and are similar caricatures but are giant in height.

Upon further research I learned that the “cabezudos y gigantes” tradition is not isolated to the informants hometown of Avila. These characters are present in the parades of the patron saint festivals of many towns throughout Spain and now even in Latin America. The most famous example of them is from the patron saint festivals of San Fermin, known as ‘San Fermines’, as the participant had mentioned. Most town throughout Spain include them as a part of their parades, but not all do.

Ojos que no ven, corazon que no siente

Nationality: Spanish
Age: 51
Occupation: professor
Residence: Redlands, CA
Performance Date: April 27, 2014
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“The saying goes: Ojos que no ven, corazon que no siente. If the eyes don’t see, the heart doesn’t feel, literally. In English a close equivalent would be “What you don’t know won’t hurt you.” My grandmother Victoria would use this saying very often. She was actually my main source for Spanish sayings and proverbs, lo que llamamos ‘refranes’ (what we call ‘sayings’), ‘El refranero popular’ (popular proverbs). Much of it is not recorded and has been passed down from generation to generation. She, in her daily speech would sprinkle constantly ‘refranes’. And my other grandmother and other ladies would use them constantly. To a level that I don’t hear anymore in the younger generations, even my parents, as those ladies who were all born at the turn of the 20th century. And they would constantly, constantly use these popular sayings. Because of the circumstances they were my babysitters after school, I was exposed to their speech everyday. We would gather at my maternal grandmothers house and my paternal grandmother would join us everyday. And there we would have an after school snack, ‘la merienda’ and a number of other neighbors routinely would join and come also. “Las mismas viejas venian todo los dias. Jaja.” (The same old ladies would come every day. Haha.) My grandmother Encarna and grandmother Victoria. So I learned a lot of these ‘refranes’ directly from my grandmothers. Now talking to you I can clearly see that later generations would not use as much these refranes or popular sayings in their everyday speech. To the point that every situation, every conversation, whether happy or festive or sad or even, because then there was a point there were some children shows on television shows. My grandmother had a television; and they would react to these shows and situations or the news with ‘refranes.” Tengo una lista de refranes muy larga. (I have a very long [mental] list of sayings.)  But this one that I’m telling you about was very widely used by my paternal grandmother. She would use it many different ways. For family members and relatives or for more removed situations. She would often use it with the meaning of ‘don’t make someone suffer unnecessarily.’ And her second most favorite one was “Donde las dan, las toman.” *laughs* The donde is very undefinied but in English it could be “what goes around comes around.” Siempre estaba diciendo esto. (She was always saying this.) I remember she would use this a lot from the small children. Like if one of the kids would hit another kid, and then the kid tripped she would say “Donde las dan, las toman.”

It’s kind of sad really, up until that generation, those people were not all necessarily educated but they had all of these refranes in their “acervo cultural” (cultural heritage, cultural tradition). It was a big part of their cultural baggage. And today we don’t use them; we’ve lost them. Maybe because now we’ve become more rational or whatever and we don’t have to rely so much on what the collective thinking had to say on things. They feel probably that they don’t need to fall back on what the collective thinking has to say because all these sayings are collective thinking on anything and everything. On the weather. There was a time when people relied on those things more to interpret daily life, both in the natural world and in human relations and on other levels. I remember them talking a lot about the weather and using sayings. They were constantly using sayings to interpret everything going on around them. That’s my point. That has been lost. People don’t do that anymore.”

The item that has been collected here is the saying, “Ojos que no ven, corazon que no siente.” But what I found most compelling about this conversation was my fathers reasoning for why many of these sayings or “Refranero Popular” have been lost. Western society focuses more and more on science, the official and the logical. Some sayings still exist, but as he explained this is not what people nowadays rely on to interpret the world around them. These sayings were not just whimsical sentences, they were modes of interacting with their surroundings and explaining phenomenon. Now, we tend to base our thinking and statements on what the latest study has discovered or the newest schools of thought.

It was interesting for me to watch my dad tell me this story. He was kind of sad. And not only because he was nostalgic, thinking about his grandmother and their times together, but also because he was realizing that a part of the culture he grew up with is disappearing.