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Actually, they sound more like
Mexicans.
If you can get it in your area, try to
watch a novela called 'Alborada". It's a historical novel about
Mexico during the early 1800s. It'll give you a good idea of Mexico during
that time. There are other historical novelas about Mexico you can either get on
tape or CD.
It covers costuming, vanilla plantations, duelos,
thieves, people with titles, religious orders, Jewish relations, Catholic
Church, commerce with central America, la Nao de la China, ports of call,
commerce with other latinamerican countries (ties were closer than we think),
cochinilla, horses, carruajes, swordfighting, births (how registrations
were not aways true), legitimate and illegitimate, morals, etc.
Regarding hermanito, manito: this terminology is
found throughout the Spanish speaking world because of the priests telling the
new converts that they were hermanitos, so is that
particular pronounciation of acequia in just the way described below.
Puerto Ricans and Cubans are not the only ones who pronounce it that way.
I think that particular affectation of speech -aspiration of sounds/vowels-
is traced to a specific area of Spain, the name of which escapes me right
now. There are some studies done by the University of Puerto Rico
documenting this. The same goes for the word colorao. That is rather
common throughout latinamerica.
Elvira
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, December 20, 2005 8:08
PM
Subject: Re: [ranchos] Given Names
They sound like Cubanos or Puertoriquenos to me.:) Marge
On
Dec 20, 2005, at 1:32 PM, Emilie Garcia wrote:
These people were
known as "manitos" (the priests had told them they were Hermanitos), and
their nasally speech was unique, an ancient 16th century Spanish, where they
dropped the first and last parts of words as in 'equia for acequia, and
'manito for hermanito, and colorao for colorado, and they had beliefs and
practices unique to them. Due to more mobility nowadays, that is all
gone.
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