The Gueguence A Comedy Ballet in the Nahuatl-Spanish Dialect of Nicaragua Part 29

The Alguacil now begins his instruction, and repeats, for the benefit of Gueguence, the proper salutation which should be used in addressing the Governor. The old man pretends to misunderstand them, and makes use of other words, similar in sound, but of an insulting signification. I have not succeeded in showing, in the English text, this play upon words.

_Page 28._ _Asonesepa negualigua_, etc. This pa.s.sage has proved unintelligible to me, and the rendering is little more than a guess.

The phrase is the same as at the foot of p. 30.

In the midst of the conversation the Governor suddenly appears, and Gueguence turns to him with the customary and proper salutation, thus showing that his desire for instruction from the Alguacil was a sham.

On the phrase _te calas qui provincia real_, see the Notes to page 14.

_Page 30._ _Mesonero_, a person who owns or has charge of a _meson_, a house in which the poorer cla.s.ses of travelers sleep, providing their own food, and that of their beasts (Dr. Valentine). For _tupile_ see Vocabulary.

_Antepeque_ or Tecoantepeque, the seaport of Guaxaca. Thomas Gage, who visited it in 1625, wrote of it: "This Port of Tecoantepeque is the chief for fishing in all that country; we met here in the ways, sometimes with fifty, sometimes with a hundred mules together, laden with nothing but salt fish for Guaxaca, the City of Angels, and Mexico."--_A new Survey of the West Indies_, p. 195. (London, 1699.)

_Dulces_ are sweetmeats of various kinds, eaten usually between meals. Squier remarks: "The Spanish taste for 'dulces' long ago pa.s.sed into a proverb, but it rather surpa.s.ses itself in Nicaragua.

The venders of 'dulces', generally bright Indian girls, gaily dressed, and bearing a tray, covered with the purest white napkins, and temptingly spread upon their heads, pa.s.s daily from house to house; and it is sometimes difficult, and always ungallant, to refuse purchasing something from their stock."--_Nicaragua_, Vol. I, p. 275.

The punctuation toward the foot of the page should probably be, "_no seremos guancos; no; seremos amigos_," etc. The _guipil de pecho_ is the short upper jacket worn by the women. A _guipil de pluma_ is a skirt woven of feathers. In ancient times, these garments, skillfully constructed of the beautiful plumes of tropical birds, were esteemed as the most valued articles in the treasures of kings, and the most magnificent of royal costumes. The art of feather-weaving continued for some generations after the Conquest.

Indeed, as late as 1840 one family in Mechoacan preserved it. The reference to it in the text, however, is a sign of antiquity, as it has long since disappeared in Central America. See an interesting monograph on the subject by the eminent French antiquary, Ferdinand Denis.--_Arte Plumaria; Les Plumes, leur Valeur et leur Emploi dans les Arts au Mexique, au Perou, etc._ Paris, 1875.

_Page 32._ Much of this page is rendered with doubtful accuracy, as the text is very obscure.

_Page 34._ _Hay me sagua_, the same as _hoy melague_, p. 36; hoy, Spanish, now, to-day, _melaua_, Nah., to speak out, or openly.

_Page 40._ The reference to the star would seem to be that when the tent is opened a star is visible through it, which Gueguence offers to the Governor.

_Para tu cuerpo_, "an extremely filthy expression." (Dr. Valentine.)

_Page 42._ _Seran de arena._ "They may be of sand," _i. e._, they are of no value or importance.

_Yugos de papayo_, yokes of papaw wood, a soft wood, worthless for the purpose, as is also the wood of the tecomajoche, the _Plumeria_, for plows. The intimation is that Don Forcico was smart enough to cheat his customers.

The Nicaraguan plow is a wooden instrument of the most primitive construction. The following cut from Mr. Squier's work represents one.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A NICARAGUAN PLOW.]

_Page 48._ The tunes mentioned, the St. Martin, the Valona, the Porto rico and others, are still preserved in Nicaragua.

_Page 50._ _Sin tuno, sin tunal._ An obscure phrase which none of my advisers can explain. _Tuna_ is the p.r.i.c.kly pear, _tunal_, the plant that bears it, various species of _Opuntia_. _Tuna_, in the university slang, means beggarly, reckless; "estudiantes de la tuna," mendicant or vagabond students. (See Don J. Arias Giron, _Costumbres Salamanquinas_.)

_Page 54._ When the Governor uses the Nahuatl word _mocemati_, presumptuously, Gueguence feigns to understand him to say _desmonte_, which means, in Nicaraguan Spanish, a clearing, and also the worthless waste products thrown out of a mine.

_Page 56._ Gueguence leads in several girls, and presents them to Don Forcico, which gives the pair an opportunity for some coa.r.s.e jokes. _Pachaca_, stuffed up, here meant in the sense of being with child. _Iguana o garroba_, the latter the male of the iguana, a thick tree lizard of the tropics. _Aventada_, puffed up, taken in the same sense as _pachaca_.

_Page 58._ The _machete_, which I have translated "axe," is a long, heavy knife or cutla.s.s, in extensive use in Spanish America, for domestic and agricultural purposes. It is shown in the following cut.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MACHETE.]

_Una yunta de botijas de vino_, a yoke or brace of wine jars, probably so called from having been carried by a neck yoke, one suspended on each side.

_Page 60._ The Alguacil speaks to Gueguence of toasting, _brindar_, the Court, and Gueguence feigns to hear him speak of the _provincial_ or ecclesiastical officer in charge of the province. It is an example of a.s.sonance which is lost in the translation. Managua and Nindiri are towns in the Mangue district of Nicaragua. See the map on page xii.

The next affected misunderstanding of the old man is to take _una yunta de botijas_, a yoke of bottles, for _una yunta de bueyes_, a yoke of oxen.

_Page 62._ _Hacer amigo_, to make a friend. This is the phrase which is used by courtezans with reference to securing a male patron to pay their expenses, and for that reason Gueguence affects to be shocked by the employment of it by Don Forcico.

_Page 64._ The words of the Alguacil, "What a reputation, etc.," are with reference to the charge of Don Ambrosio, that Gueguence had taught his son evil ways.

The introduction of the mules, _i. e._, the actors dressed as mules, as described on page xlviii, is the occasion of several extremely obscene puns and allusions.

_Page 68._ _Potrero_, colt-yard, or pasture-lot, a play on the similarity of the word to _puteria_, a brothel. The estaca referred to is, of course, an obscene allusion, as is also the _fluccion por debajo de las piernas_, _i. e._, the s.c.r.o.t.u.m.

_Page 70._ _El tiempo del hilo azul._ This idiom has foiled all whom I have consulted. Dr. Valentine thinks it refers to the season of the year when the verdure reappears after the drouth. F. Diego Duran states that the village conjurors were accustomed to suspend charms to the necks of boys by blue and green threads. (_Historia de las Indias de la Nueva Espana._ Tom. II, p. 275.) Thus understood, the time of the blue thread would be equivalent to boyhood.

_Campos de los Diriomos._ The Mangue word _Diriomo_ means the hill of abundance, or of great fertility. The locality so named is shown on the map, page xii.

_Guayaba._ This is the fruit of the guayabo tree, the _Psidium pyriferum_. It is red in color, and about the size of a small apple.

_Page 72._ _A la gorra_, literally "for the cap," an idiom meaning that one receives something merely for taking off the cap; a gratuity. Dr. Valentine, however, writes me: "I understand _nosotros a la gorra_ to mean 'then we shall have to do without.'"