- Thread starter sayanora
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campo myth needs debunked
inshAllah
Muslims owned most of Iberia (Spain) for 800 years, 60% longer than Christendom.
The western capital of the 2nd Caliphate was C?rdoba, also the name presciently given to the ground zero mosque.
InshAllah is used everywhere in the Muslim world to guard against failure to fulfill commitments, recognizing an underlying cultural coyness toward individual responsibility, and thereby gaining forgiveness aforethought.
"Si Dios quiere" is simply a cultural legacy that pervades the Hispanic world.
I always knew that this awesome culture has some muslim component.
donP
Muslims owned most of Iberia (Spain) for 800 years, 60% longer than Christendom.
The western capital of the 2nd Caliphate was C?rdoba, also the name presciently given to the ground zero mosque.
InshAllah is used everywhere in the Muslim world to guard against failure to fulfill commitments, recognizing an underlying cultural coyness toward individual responsibility, and thereby gaining forgiveness aforethought.
"Si Dios quiere" is simply a cultural legacy that pervades the Hispanic world.
Do you remember this one? If all the hens cluck at the same time,there will
be a death in the family.
A campesino myth.
Martes 13 = Friday 13th
OTOH, it is a mistake to assume that all the 'myths' observed by some people in the DR are actually Dominican 'myths'...some may be Caribbean/Latin-American/Spanish/European 'myths' present in huge chunks of the world...case in point, the Tuesday 13th superstition...it is BY NO MEANS exclusive to the DR...it is extended through the Spanish-speaking world and it is the EQUIVALENT of the Friday 13th superstition in other cultures (you have seen the movies, right?...the title was translated as Martes 13 in Spanish)...And the fact that the number 13 is associated with bad luck or bad things is extended to multiple cultures...as well as the 'evil' association of the 66...and many other things.
Martes, ni te cases ni te embarques (Tuesdays: do not get married or travel (by ship))
I had never heard most of those, so perhaps they are also regional within the DR?
OTOH, it is a mistake to assume that all the 'myths' observed by some people in the DR are actually Dominican 'myths'...some may be Caribbean/Latin-American/Spanish/European 'myths' present in huge chunks of the world...case in point, the Tuesday 13th superstition...it is BY NO MEANS exclusive to the DR...it is extended through the Spanish-speaking world and it is the EQUIVALENT of the Friday 13th superstition in other cultures (you have seen the movies, right?...the title was translated as Martes 13 in Spanish)...And the fact that the number 13 is associated with bad luck or bad things is extended to multiple cultures...as well as the 'evil' association of the 66...and many other things.
Martes, ni te cases ni te embarques (Tuesdays: do not get married or travel (by ship))
Yes, Muslims/Arabs occupied most of Spain for centuries...the again, they were forcibly expelled, so their "cultural contributions" are not as strong as they could have been, since they took most of them as they fled Spain...Ojala does have an Arabic origin, meaning roughly "God willing"...
However the Spanish phrase "Si Dios quiere" is not connected to the Arabs..Other cultures not related to Arabs use similar expressions, for example "God willing", in English..."Si Dieu le veut" in Francais (If God wants it) is almost a word-by-word equivalent to the Spanish phrase.
What some of us are doing here is talking about myths or beliefs that are popular here in the DR , some that we've heard from older people or from people in the campos.
I am not questioning the origin of these myths nor am I saying they are exclusive to the Dominican Republic.
I didn't know that one!Do you remember this one? If all the hens cluck at the same time,there will
be a death in the family.
A campesino myth.
Oh, ?Si Dios Quiere? is often used like ?Hopefully?. It doesn't necessarily carry a strong religious connotation.
I always reply to this with an enthusiastic "Claro que El quiere". They look confused for a moment and then laugh.
I've never heard the one about new shoes on tables.
And even if Dominicans, campesinos or otherwise, believe such things, it's lame when compared to Harvard-educated politicians believing there is a god... a god who takes sides in international conflicts, determines the winners of elections, pageants, re-directs bullets, cures illnesses (except amputees), and all sorts of stuff.
Pete Stark for President of the World!
You mean vivaporu?
For the longest time I heard only "necesitas el Big Bopper-ooo" when I was congested.
That only drew to mind the image of a Genie with a huge mallet who would knock the snot out of me.
It was a year or two before I realized they meant Vicks Vapo-Rub. It sorta worked the same anyway.
I've suffered many of these temperature-variation induced ailments since I often (usually on the weekend) open the refrigerator to grab an ashy one after working in the yard at 110 degrees, barefoot, in shorts and shirtless. My wife has been warning me for the last 38 years that one day " te vas a pasmar ", she's Puerto Rican. She said the same thing when we lived in New York walking into the apartment at what seemed to be 120 degrees from a blizzard. Today my eyes focus in two different directions, I frown and smile at the same time and suffer from "shrinkage" when in cold water.
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I don't know if this myth is regional or spread throughout DR, but people in a rural part of the Monte Plata province believe that the praying mantis is venomous and would kill humans and beasts instantly. Every time we spotted a praying mantis they would warn us about this.