Category Archives: Spain

by | 23 April 2009 · 8:39 pm

Ferguson on the Appeal of Fascism vs. Nazism

From The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West, by Niall Ferguson (Penguin Press, 2006), pp. 230-231, 239-240:

Considering the emphasis the new dictatorships laid on their supposedly distinctive nationalistic traditions, they all looked remarkably alike: the coloured shirts [German Brownshirts, Italian Blackshirts, Irish Blueshirts, Romanian Greenshirts], the shiny boots, the martial music, the strutting leaders, the gangster violence. At first sight, then, there was little to distinguish the German version of dictatorship from all the rest – except perhaps that Hitler was marginally more absurd than his counterparts. As late as 1939, Adolf Hitler could still be portrayed by Charlie Chaplin in his film The Great Dictator as an essentially comic figure, bawling incomprehensible speeches, striking preposterous poses and frolicking with a large inflatable globe. Yet there were in reality profound differences between National Socialism and fascism. Nearly all the dictatorships of the inter-war period were at root conservative, if not downright reactionary. The social foundations of their power were what remained of the pre-industrial ancien régime: the monarchy, the aristocracy, the officer corps and the Church, supported to varying degrees by industrialists fearful of socialism and by frivolous intellectuals who were bored of democracy’s messy compromises.* The main function the dictators performed was to crush the Left: to break their strikes, prohibit their parties, deny voice to their voters, arrest and, if it was deemed necessary, kill their leaders. One of the few measures they took that went beyond simple social restoration was to introduce new ‘corporate’ institutions supposed to regiment economic life and protect loyal supporters from the vagaries of the market. In 1924 the French historian Elie Halevy nicely characterized fascist Italy as ‘the land of tyranny … a regime extremely agreeable for travellers, where trains arrive and leave on time, where there is no strike in ports or public transport’. ‘The bourgeois’, he added, ‘are beaming.’ It was, as Renzo De Felice said in his vast and apologetic biography of the Duce, ‘the old regime in a black shirt’….

Contrary to the old claims that it was the party of the countryside, or of the north, or of the middle class, the NSDAP attracted votes right across Germany and right across the social spectrum…. It is true that places with relatively high Nazi votes were more likely to be in central northern and eastern parts, and those with relatively low Nazi votes were more likely to be in the south and west. But the more important point is that the Nazis were able to achieve some electoral success in nearly any kind of local political milieu, covering the German electoral spectrum in a way not seen before or since. The Nazi vote did not vary proportionately with the unemployment rate or the share of workers in the population. As many as two-fifths of the Nazi voters in some districts were working class, to the consternation of the Communist leadership. In response, some local Communists openly made common cause with the Nazis. ‘Oh yes, we admit that we’re in league with the National Socialists,’ said one Communist leader in Saxony. ‘Bolshevism and Fascism share a common goal: the destruction of capitalism and of the Social Democratic Party. To achieve this aim we are justified in using every means.’ It was a mark of Goebbels’ skill in making the party seem all things to all men that, simultaneously, dyed-in-the-wool Prussian Conservatives could regard the Nazis as potential partners in an anti-Marxist coalition. Thus were political rivals lured into what proved to be fatal forms of cooperation. The only significant constraint on the growth of the Nazi vote was the comparatively greater resilience of the Catholic Centre party compared with parties hitherto supported by German Protestants.

Other fascist movements, as we have seen, depended heavily on elite sponsorship to gain power. The Nazis did not need to. For all the attention that has been paid to them, the machinations of the coterie around Hindenburg were not the decisive factor, as those of the Italian elites had been in 1922. If anything, they delayed Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor, an office that was rightfully his after the July 1932 election. It was not the traditional elite of landed property that was drawn to Hitler; the real Junker types found him horribly coarse. (When Hitler shook hands with Hindenburg, one conservative was reminded ‘of a headwaiter closing his hand around the tip’.) Nor was it the business elite, who not unreasonably feared that National Socialism would prove a Trojan horse for socialism proper; nor the military elite, who had every reason to dread subordination to an opinionated Austrian corporal. The key to the strength and dynamism of the Third Reich was Hitler’s appeal to the much more numerous intellectual elite; the men with university degrees who are so vital to the smooth running of a modern state and civil society.

For reasons that may be traced back to the foundation of the Bismarckian Reich or perhaps even further into Prussian history, academically educated Germans were unusually ready to prostrate themselves before a charismatic leader.

(*A list of all the treasonous clerics who flirted or did more than flirt with fascism would be a book in its own right. If only to give an illustration of how widespread the phenomenon was, dishonourable mention may be made of the writer Gabriele D’Annunzio, who established his own tinpot tyranny in post-war Fiume; the poet T. S. Eliot, who wrote that ‘totalitarianism can retain the terms “freedom” and “democracy” and give them its own meaning’; the philosopher Martin Heidegger, who, as Rector of Freiburg University, lent his enthusiastic support to the Nazi regime; the political theorist Carl Schmitt, who devised pseudo-legal justifications for the illegalities of the Third Reich; the novelist Ignazio Silone, who shopped former Communist comrades to the fascists; and the poet W. B. Yeats, who wrote songs for the Irish Blueshirts. Thomas Mann, who had made his fair share of mistakes during the First World War and only with difficulty broke publicly with the Nazi regime, was not wrong when he spoke of ‘the thoroughly guilty stratum of intellectuals’.)

Leave a comment

Filed under Austria, democracy, economics, education, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, nationalism, Portugal, Romania, Spain

by | 28 May 2008 · 6:34 pm

Inciting Backlash in Spain, 1931

From: Sacred Causes: The Clash of Religion and Politics, From the Great War to the War on Terror, by Michael Burleigh (HarperCollins, 2007), pp. 128-129:

The newly elected left-Republican and Socialist coalition in June 1931 further provoked the religious with controversial articles in the new Constitution, Spain’s first experiment in democracy. This went much further than a legal separation of Church and state. It extruded the Church from education, restricted its property rights and investments, and dissolved the Jesuits, who played a role in liberal and leftist mythology equivalent to that of freemasons, Jews and Marxists in the demonology of their opponents. This last measure was a bitter pill to swallow in the homeland of St Ignatius Loyola. Civil marriage and divorce were legalised, while the agreement of the authorities was henceforth necessary for any public celebration of religion – another indigestible measure in a society where religious processions were a highly developed art form. A supplementary law in 1933 nationalised all Church property, including secularising the cemeteries by putting them under local authority control and dismantling the walls which separated the dead religious from their non-believing fellows. Having nationalised Church property, thereby ignoring the wishes of those who had donated it, the government then taxed the clergy who used it. Measures against Church charities simply hurt poor people. The government also closed all religious schools, which since they educated 20 per cent of Spanish children, and were not replaced by secular alternatives, sat oddly with the Republic’s expansion of education.

Although these measures were implemented with varying local intensities, there can be no doubt that preventing the ringing of church bells, removing religious symbols from classrooms, and bureaucratising the procedures for those wanting religious funerals grievously irked many Catholics. Officious insistence that dying people fill out forms to get the send-off they wanted failed to charm their friends and relatives. These measures were condemned by Pius XI in the forceful 3 June 1933 encyclical Dilectissima nobis, which, while carefully professing indifference to forms of government, stressed the hypocrisy of these measures in terms of ‘those declared principles of civil liberty on which the new Spanish regime declares it bases itself’. These laws were the product of ‘a hatred against the Lord and His Christ nourished by groups subversive to any religious and social order, as alas we have seen in Mexico and Russia’. Republican Spain had become part of a ‘terribile triangolo’ whose object was the eradication of religion. Anticlericals in the Cortes responded in kind, with snide remarks about the ‘Mercantile Society of Jesus’, while the Socialist leader Azaña crowed that with these 1931–3 measures Spain had ceased to be Catholic.

Of course, things had been tending that way far longer than the wave of measures introduced in 1931–3 may suggest. In 1881 the Churches had lost control of the universities. In 1901 religion had become optional within the curriculum leading to the school leavers’ certificate. In 1913 non-Catholic parents could exempt their children from religious instruction. With a few exceptions, the arts and intelligentsia were dominated by secular-minded people. The Catholic presence among the urban working class and the southern rural poor was also exiguous. In 1935 a Jesuit calculated that, taking the eighty thousand parishioners of a Madrid working-class suburb, 7 per cent attended mass on Sundays; 90 per cent died without the benefit of the sacraments; 25 per cent of children were unbaptised; and of couples marrying, 40 per cent could not recite the Lord’s Prayer. Similar levels of indifference and ignorance were revealed in studies of Bilbao and Barcelona. The Church was also like an alien presence in the villages of Andalucia, with anarchist and Socialist activists converting peasant indifference or quasi-pagan superstition into outright hostility. Churches were falling into disrepair, when they even existed, and priests were poorly paid with government stipends equivalent to the lowest grade of janitors. The priesthood was not an attractive career option, with recruitment for seminaries falling by 40 per cent between 1931 and 1934.

Is the lash or the backlash the driving force of history? Who was the Prime Lasher?

1 Comment

Filed under democracy, religion, Spain

by | 20 March 2008 · 9:41 pm

On the Origins of Stalin’s Great Terror

From The Whisperers: Private Lives in Stalin’s Russia, by Orlando Figes (Metropolitan, 2007), pp. 234-236:

Extraordinary even by the standards of the Stalinist regime, the Great Terror was not a routine wave of mass arrests, such as those that swept across the country throughout Stalin’s reign, but a calculated policy of mass murder. No longer satisfied with imprisoning his real or imagined ‘political enemies’, Stalin now ordered the police to take people out of the prisons and labour camps and murder them. In the two years of 1937 and 1938, according to incomplete statistics, a staggering total of at least 681,692 people, and probably far more, were shot for ‘crimes against the state’ (91 per cent of all death sentences for political crimes between 1921 and 1940, if NKVD figures are to be believed). The population of the Gulag labour camps and colonies grew in these same years from 1,196,369 to 1,881,570 people (a figure which excludes at least 140,000 deaths within the camps themselves and an unknown number of deaths during transport to the camps). Other periods of Soviet history had also seen mass arrests of ‘enemies’, but never had so many of the victims been killed. More than half the people arrested during the Great Terror were later shot, compared to less than 10 per cent of arrests in 1930, the second highest peak of executions in the Stalin period, when 20,201 death sentences were carried out. During the ‘anti-kulak operation’ of 1929-32, the number of arrests was also very high (586,904), but of these victims only 6 per cent (35,689 people) were subsequently shot.

The origins of the Great Terror are not easy to explain. Nor is it immediately clear why it was so concentrated in these two years. To begin to understand it, we must look at the Great Terror not as an uncontrolled or accidental happening, a product of the chaos of the Stalinist regime that could have erupted at almost any time – a view occasionally put forward – but as an operation masterminded and controlled by Stalin in response to the specific circumstances he perceived in 1937….

The key to understanding the Great Terror as a whole lies perhaps in Stalin’s fear of an approaching war and his perception of an international threat to the Soviet Union. The military aggression of Hitler’s Germany, signalled by its occupation of the Rhineland in 1936, and the occupation of Manchuria by the Japanese, convinced Stalin that the USSR was endangered by the Axis powers on two fronts. Stalin’s fears were reinforced in November 1936, when Berlin and Tokyo united in a pact (later joined by Fascist Italy) against the Comintern. Despite his continuing support of ‘collective security’, Stalin did not place much hope in the Soviet alliance with the Western powers to contain the Axis threat: the Western states had failed to intervene in Spain; they appeared committed to the appeasement of Nazi Germany; and they reportedly gave Stalin the impression that it was their hidden aim to divert Hitler’s forces to the East and engage them in a war with the USSR rather than confront them in the West. By 1937, Stalin was convinced that the Soviet Union was on the brink of war with the Fascist states in Europe and with Japan in the East. The Soviet press typically portrayed the country as threatened on all sides and undermined by Fascist infiltrators – ‘spies’ and ‘hidden enemies’ – in every corner of society.

‘Our enemies from the capitalist circles are tireless. They infiltrate everywhere,’ Stalin told the writer Romain Rolland in 1935. Stalin’s view of politics – like many Bolsheviks’ – had been profoundly shaped by the lessons of the First World War, when the tsarist regime was brought down by social revolution in the rear. He feared a similar reaction against the Soviet regime in the event of war with Nazi Germany. The Spanish Civil War reinforced his fears on this account. Stalin took a close interest in the Spanish conflict, seeing it (as did most of his advisers) as a ‘valid scenario for a future European war’ between Communism and Fascism. Stalin put the military defeats of the Republicans in 1936 down to the factional infighting between the Spanish Communists, the Trotskyists, the Anarchists and other left-wing groups. It led him to conclude that in the Soviet Union political repression was urgently required to crush not just a ‘fifth column’ of ‘Fascist spies and enemies’ but all potential opposition before the outbreak of a war with the Fascists.

Leave a comment

Filed under Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Spain, USSR, war

by | 16 March 2008 · 8:42 am

First Catholic Church in Qatar

The first Catholic church, Our Lady of the Rosary, has opened its doors in Qatar, but lacks any external signs of being a church.

“The cross should not be raised in the sky of Qatar, nor should bells toll in Doha,” wrote Lahdan bin Issa al-Muhanada, a leading columnist in Doha’s Al-Arab newspaper.

But Abdul Hamid al-Ansari, the former dean of the Islamic law school at Qatar University, disagrees. He wrote that having “places of worship for various religions is a fundamental human right guaranteed by Islam.”…

In Doha, the call to build a Catholic church has grown as waves of migrant workers from South Asia and the Philippines arrived in the Gulf, answering the call for cheap labor to fuel the region’s runaway economy.

But the Christian immigrants have sometimes collided with the native Qatari population, which practices Wahhabism, a strict interpretation of Islam.

Native Qataris account for only 200,000 of the country’s population of 900,000.

The Vatican estimates there are 100,000 practicing Catholics in Qatar. They attended underground services until seven years ago, when Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the country’s current ruler, granted permission to five denominations to open churches.

I’m old enough to remember when new Protestant churches in Franco’s Spain were prohibited from displaying the usual church architecture, opening schools, or evangelizing in public.

Nowadays there’s a big shortage of mosques in Spain.

via Belmont Club

Leave a comment

Filed under Middle East, migration, Philippines, religion, Spain

by | 10 December 2007 · 6:12 pm

Telefomin, Barcelona, and Bulmer’s Fruit Bat

From Throwim Way Leg: Tree-Kangaroos, Possums, and Penis Gourds—On the Track of Unknown Mammals in Wildest New Guinea, by Tim Flannery (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1998), pp. 153-154 (NYT book review here):

Afektaman is a pretty little village overlooking the range which lies to the south of Telefomin. It is situated at the entrance to the Sepik Gorge, and is only about thirty kilometres in a straight line from Luplupwintem, which had been, until 1977, the sole roosting place of Bulmer’s Fruit-bat.

On our arrival at Afektaman we immediately asked whether anyone called Woflayo lived there—and were led straight away, so easily, to a man of late middle-age who lived in a tiny collection of huts a kilometre or so from the village itself.

Woflayo invited us into his house, and offered us a cup of tea. As we talked, it became clear that Woflayo’s Pidgin was rather limited. He was a conservative Telefol who clung fiercely to his traditions. He did not deign to learn the new lingua franca.

After we had explained the purpose of our visit, Woflayo commented that it was a good thing we had arrived that day, for later in the week he was leaving for Batalona. I was at first nonplussed as to where exactly Woflayo might be going. Batalona did not sound like any Telefol place name I had heard. After some more discussion it became apparent that Woflayo was off on a very long trip indeed. He was headed for Barcelona, where he would lead a Telefol dance troupe as part of the 1992 Olympic Games celebrations!

Woflayo’s careful observance of tradition had clearly paid off. Of all Telefol, he was renowned as the one who knew the ancient dances best, and was thus the natural choice as leader of the troupe. What, I often wonder, did the good citizens of Barcelona make of Woflayo, bedecked in penis gourd, cane waistband and feathered head-dress, chanting and swaying to his Telefol rhythms?

After we drank our tea, Woflayo took us to a garden at the back of his hut. There, he showed us the stump of a small fig tree. It was in this tiup tree, he said, that he had shot the bat which he had sold to ‘Masta Steve’ [Van Dyke of the Queensland Museum] in 1984.

I was flattened. What an anticlimactic end to a journey which had begun with such excitement months ago and thousands of kilometres away!

A bat which Woflayo had shot in his back yard and thought nothing of had brought strangers to his door from another continent… And in a few days, he would dance to a crowd of tens of thousands on a continent as foreign to him as the far side of the moon.

Leave a comment

Filed under Australia, Papua New Guinea, science, Spain

by | 17 October 2007 · 6:15 pm

Hogs, Ham, and (U.S.) History

Virginia hams hold a hallowed place in the culinary lore of my hard-eating heritage. During my childhood as a missionary kid in Japan, we would receive a smoked ham every Christmas from relatives back in Virginia and stretch out the eating of it as long as we could. The current issue of Common-Place now puts Virginia hams in fuller historical perspective in a fascinating article by David S. Shields entitled “The Search for the Cure: The quest for the superlative American ham“:

No food in colonial Anglo-America declared gustatory adequacy at the world table more forcefully than ham. Travelers to the English territories, such as Rev. Andrew Burnaby, declared American pork superior in flavor to any in the world. With the establishment of the republic, the ingenuity of a population of artisanal food producers fixed upon improving the most estimable of American products, ham. Eminence in the sociable world of the agricultural societies, distinction in the market place, and victory in the food contests at the burgeoning world of fairs stimulated innovation in the curing of hams. Here we will chronicle the articulation of two schools of ham production: the dry-cure sect, who would increasingly view themselves as purists and traditionalists, and the wet curists, who regarded themselves as experimentalists in taste, economy, and scientific agriculture, yet whose pork brined in a barrel was the staple of the common household.

Antiquity conveyed the ur-cure, the primordial method of preserving meat. Salting and drying meat prevented the decomposition of flesh because moisture is a requisite for most bacterial reproduction and salt (sodium chloride) draws moisture from flesh. Unfortunately, sweating meat in rock salt turned muscle tissue gray and tough. It was discovered, however, that certain types of rock salt—salt with impurities—kept meat red and somewhat moist. This impure form of salt—called saltpeter—was sought out and admixed with salt for meat preservation until the Middle Ages when smoking was added to salt and saltpeter to impart flavor and to counter insect depredations. The method practiced by Europeans at the time of the settlement of Jamestown—common to Westphalian ham and Jamon de Iberica—was the “three s method”: salt, saltpeter, smoke.

Ham modernity dates from the erection of what Wolfgang Shivelbusch has called the first global drug culture—the oceanic trading system that made the exchange of sugar, spice, tea, coffee, and chocolate the engine of the world system. Only after the explosion of the world sugar supply occasioned by the consolidation of the Brazilian cane plantations in the sixteenth century was the commodity cheap enough for trial and error in the kitchen and smokehouse. Indeed, there was decidedly a sugar moment in Western cuisine, when sucrose was added to everything as the pangustatory element. When added as the fourth s to the ancient cure, sugar mellowed the harshness of salted flesh. Sugar-cured hams became the bedrock of American porcine cuisine….

Ever since Hernando DeSoto brought his thirteen hogs into Florida, swine have flourished in North America. The earliest breeds did not resemble today’s industrial pink pig. Indeed, the first settled hogs, the Iberico Black hog, the Old English breed, do not resemble their breed descendents, the Spanish Black and the Hampshire. Of these early types there is only one extraordinarily rare example left in America: the Ossabaw Island pig, a mottled descendent of the pigs that Spaniards loosed on the islands of the Caribbean and along the southeastern coast. One population survived into the twenty-first century on Ossabaw Island off the coast of Georgia. Slow-growing, irritable, and the most efficient fat-producing mammal known to science, the breed has become the fascination of biologists working on obesity studies….

Testimonies about the quality of New World ham date from 1688 when Rev. John Clayton, reporting to the Royal Society his observations on the commodities of Virginia, declared the meat as good as any to be had in Westphalia. This is a far more informative claim than it might appear on the surface, for it reveals much about the mode of preparation. Traditional Westphalian ham is made from hogs fattened with acorns from the oak forests of western Germany and then dry cured and smoked over a cold fire of beechwood and juniper boughs. The original Virginia ham derived its flavor from an acorn mast and dry curing. It was smoked. This is worth noting because during the eighteenth century there would be disagreement about the proper feeding of pigs and a related alteration in the method of curing….

William Byrd (1674-1744), the Virginia gentleman who championed an ethic of agricultural improvement, criticized the habit among country farmers (typified, for him, by the lazy North Carolinians described in his Histories of the Dividing Line) of letting hogs roam free in the forests to graze on roots and acorns. The semi-wild hog developed stringy muscle from its robust wandering life, and the farmer lost the benefit of its manure. Byrd would keep his pigs penned and fed on dung heap scraps. But with this diet, the meat of his animals, while more tender, risked becoming less palatable. What mattered more, taste or economy?… Feeding hogs on corn was pioneered in Pennsylvania at the end of the eighteenth century. In Virginia, where the taste of the mast-fed pig haunted the gustatory imagination, traditionalists followed the old country practice of letting swine loose in the woods. The practice continued until the early twentieth century when peanut mast was found to instill in pork something like that piquant yet mellow flavor infused by acorns….

Saltpeter, while essential for the preservation of hams, proved equally if not more important as an ingredient of gunpowder. In June 1642 the General Court of Massachusetts ordered every town to erect a shed and “make saltpeter from urine of men, beastes, goates, hennes, hogs and horses dung.”…

Putting chilled, freshly butchered hams in salt was the only part of the process that did not suffer alteration in any of the schools of dry-cure preparation. European tradition usually had the slaughter of winter meat occur on St. Martinmass Day, November 11. But because of the importance of cool weather in the curing of hams, it took place substantially later in the American South: December in Virginia; January in the Carolinas. The fresh-butchered meat had to be cooled to about forty degrees Fahrenheit when salting was begun. Traditionalists would follow salting with the other two s‘s of the “dry cure”: saltpeter and smoke. The proportions varied, but J. Q. Hewlitt’s formula of one thousand pounds of meat, three pecks of Liverpool salt, and four pounds of saltpeter presented a norm. The hams were packed in tubs or casks. These were often perforated to allow liquid to drip out during the minimum of three weeks sitting. At the end of the salting period, during which fresh salt was often added to the tubs, the ham would be extracted and the salt coating washed off. Hewlitt then smoked the hams in a closed room using green hickory chips. It was important that the smoke be cool, so as not to cook the hams. Temperature in the smokehouse was not to exceed human body temperature. At the end of February the hams would be sewn up in bags for protection.

And that’s how they were shipped to us in Japan. We had to soak each ham about 24 hours before cooking and eating any of it.

via Arts & Letters Daily

Leave a comment

Filed under family, Germany, Spain, U.S., Virginia

by | 27 August 2007 · 9:27 pm

Missing Date in Philippines History: 31 December 1844

From A History of the International Date Line:

European explorers who approached the Pacific Ocean by sailing to the east such as the Portuguese, and in their wake the Dutch, the English and the French, naturally kept their ship’s journals and diaries according to the day count of their home land and this was of course also adopted by the colonists who settled along the Asian perimeter of the Pacific Ocean.

However, the colonisation of the Pacific Ocean by the Spanish occurred from the opposite direction and more specifically from the Spanish possessions in America. The Philippine archipelago was discovered in March 1521 by Ferdinand Magellan and Spanish dominion over the islands was first firmly established in 1565 by Miguel López de Legazpi (c. 1510 – 1572), the conquistador and first Spanish governor general of the Philippines….

Most of the shipping from the Philippines to Spain went over the Pacific Ocean to the Mexican port of Acapulco, was transported over land to the port of Veracruz, and then shipped to Spain. In order that the Spanish ships crossing the Pacific Ocean between the Philippines and the Spanish Americas would not have to adjust the dates in their journals whenever they sighted land, the Philippines observed the same day count as that of the Spanish Americas….

During the early 1840s the commercial interests of the Philippine Islands turned more and more away from the Spanish Americas (which for a large part had severed their relations with the motherland Spain) and trading with the Chinese mainland (engendered by the ignominious but lucrative ‘Opium Wars’), the Malay peninsula, the Dutch East Indies and Australia became increasingly important.

In order to facilitate communication and trading with its western and southern neighbours, the secular and religious authorities of the Philippines agreed that it would be advantageous to abolish the American day reckoning and adopt the Asian day reckoning.

This was achieved in 1844 when Narciso Claveria, the governor general of the Philippines, issued a proclamation announcing that Monday, 30 December 1844, was to be immediately followed by Wednesday, 1 January 1845.

The 1867 conversion from Russian to American time in Alaska was much more complicated.

5 Comments

Filed under Mexico, Pacific, Philippines, Spain

by | 27 August 2007 · 9:10 pm

Suppression of Piracy in the Philippines After 1848

From Iranun and Balangingi: Globalization, Maritime Raiding and the Birth of Ethnicity, by James Francis Warren (Singapore U. Press, 2002), pp. 345-346, 363-364:

By the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the sea war in the Philippines between Spain and the Iranun and Balangingi had taken on a permanent and normal character of a stalemate in which each party recognized the other as an equal with authority generally limited to the territory each controlled. But in 1848 the combined forces of the Spanish navy and army laid waste to the Samal forts at Balangingi, dispersed the survivors, and forcefully relocated the prisoners of war. This was the decisive moment, the turning point in the history of the century-long conflict between Spain and the slave raiders. The Balangingi were on the brink of climbing out of their Samal identity after nearly half a century of constant upheaval, and, according to Frake, “establishing themselves as a different kind of people.” But, in the aftermath of the Spanish devastation of their island stronghold in 1848, they did not succeed. After that event the Balangingi, as ‘notorious pirates’ and a construed single ethnic group, disappeared from the pages of the historical literature and geographical reports. Balangingi fortunes changed in the 1840s and with them the pattern of maritime raiding in Southeast Asia. The destruction of Tempasuk and Marudu by the English in 1845 also forced Iranun groups to relocate on the east coast at Tunku. The loss of these confederate communities made it more difficult for the Balangingi to conduct slave raids in the western sector of the archipelago. This event, coupled with the founding of Labuan by James Brooke and the appearance of steam gunboats on the northwest coast of Borneo, forced them to gradually withdraw from that area and increasingly concentrate their activities on the Dutch possessions.

At the same time, the Spanish adopted a far more aggressive policy in the south. The new governor of the Philippines, Narciso Claveria, understood the strategic importance of the control of Balangingi which became the focal point of a new Spanish strategy. A daring naval attack aimed at the throat of the Sulu, namely Balangingi, was the key to cutting the sultanate in two and stopping slave raiding in the Philippines….

After the destruction of Balangingi in 1848, the Spanish first used the Samal women and children as hostages to force their husbands and kindred to surrender and make peace. The political ploy did not work. So after a short time, the Spanish assembled their steamers and regularly swept the Visayas and the Sulu archipelago from one end to the other. Repeated punitive campaigns ended with a series of major sea battles off the coasts of Samar and Mindanao and attacks on Taupan’s bases to the south. [Julano Taupan was war leader of the Balangingi at Tawi-Tawi.] Hundreds of Balangingi were killed during the six year long war, many of their ships captured, and others destroyed. Taupan sent his raiders to prey on shipping in less troubled waters in the Moluccas, the Banda Sea, the Java Sea, and along the Bornean coasts. But their activities were short-lived. The British and Dutch dealt with the Balangingi menace by joining forces across the region, stationing steamers in all the key straits of the archipelago at certain times of the year when the slave raiders traditionally appeared in those waters. The Dutch navy concentrated on Taupan’s Balangingi operations around Sulawesi and Bonerate, and the British, with James Brooke’s full support, stationed ships at Labuan to protect the Borneo coasting fleets in the South China Sea.

Leave a comment

Filed under Britain, Netherlands, Philippines, piracy, Southeast Asia, Spain, war

by | 28 July 2007 · 10:37 pm

Japanese and Other Loanwords in Palauan

I got a little carried away this weekend extracting Japanese, English, German, and Spanish loanwords from the New Palauan–English Dictionary, ed. by Lewis S. Josephs (U. Hawaii Press, 1990). The nature of the words borrowed from each language tells a lot about the nature of the interactions between Palauans and their successive colonizers: Spain until 1899, Germany until 1914, Japan until 1945, and the U.S. after that. By 1940, there were 3 Japanese colonists (including Okinawans, Koreans, and Taiwanese) in the islands for each indigenous Palauan.

The current Palauan orthography originated under the Germans, but has continued to evolve since then. There are only five vowel symbols, i u e o a, but e represents the eh sound when stressed and the uh sound (schwa) when unstressed. Vowel length is indicated by doubling the vowel. Palatal and velar glides are written with the vowel symbols i and u.

Consonants show much greater variation. The obstruents /b/ and /d/ are basically voiced, but are devoiced next to other consonants or in word-final position. The obstruents /t/ and /k/ and are basically voiceless, and are strongly aspirated in word-final position. Glottal stop is written with a ch. The fricative /s/ is slightly palatalized (in the direction of sh). There are only two orthographic nasals, bilabial m and velar ng, but ng is pronounced [n] before the dental consonants t, d, s, and r. The flap /r/ and lateral /l/ can each be doubled, and the /l/ corresponds to /n/ in other related and unrelated languages. The consonants h and z are only found in loanwords.

The underlying morphology of Palauan is very complex, but looks a lot like that of Philippine and other western Austronesian languages once you correct for a lot of strange behavior on the part of the nasals (like infixed -l- and the me- prefixes that end up as o- on certain stems). Perhaps I’ll provide a few glimpses in a future blogpost.

babier ‘paper, letter, book’ (G)
badre ‘priest’ (S)
baeb ‘pipe’ (E)
baias ‘bias or slant (in sewing)’ (E)
baiking ‘disease, germs’ (J)
baket ‘bucket, pail’ (E)
bakudang ‘dynamite; bomb; explosion; air raid; bombardment’ (J)
bakuhats ‘explode’ (J)
bakutsi ‘gambling; card game’ (J)
balas ‘ballast’ (E)
bambuu ‘bamboo’ (E)
bando ‘belt’ (J)
bangd ‘bounce; rebound; suspension (of car)’ (E)
bangd ‘musical band; orchestra’ (E)
bangderang ‘flag, banner’ (S)
bangk ‘bank; safe; strongbox’ (E)
bangk ‘get punctured, blow out’ (J)
bangkeik ‘pancake’ (E)
bar ‘crowbar; coconut husking spike’ (E)
bar ‘bar, tavern’ (E)
bara ‘rose’ (J)
barb ‘valve’ (E)
barikang ‘hair clipper’ (J)
baror ‘table lamp’ (S)
barrill ‘wooden barrel’ (S)
bas ‘bus’ (E)
bas ‘bass (in singing)’ (E)
basio ‘place’ (J)
basket ‘basket’ (E)
Baskua ‘Easter’ (S)
bastaor ‘bath towel’ (J)
bastor ‘pastor’ (E)
bat ‘bat’ (E)
bata ‘butter’ (J)
baterflai ‘fickle’ (E)
batrol ‘patrol; guardian; supervisor’ (S)
batteri ‘battery’ (E, J)
beek ‘bake’ (E)
bek ‘sack, bag’ (E)
bengngos ‘lawyer’ (J)
benia ‘plywood’ (J)
benster ‘window’ (G)
bento ‘food eaten away from home’ (J)
bentobako ‘lunchbox’ (J)
benzio ‘toilet’ (J)
berangdang ‘veranda’ (E)
beragu ‘spark plug’ (J fr E)
berib ‘letter’ (G)
bet ‘bed’ (E)
biang ‘beer’ (E?)
bib ‘bib’ (E)
Biblia ‘Bible’ (S)
bid ‘auction, bidding’ (E)
bilt ‘holy picture’ (G)
bings ‘beans’ (E)
bioing ‘hospital’ (J)
bioingseng ‘hospital ship’ (J)
birhen ‘virgin’ (S)
Biskor ‘Peace Corps’ (E)
bisob ‘bishop’ (E)
bistong ‘piston’ (E)
blaks ‘cement blocks’ (E)
blangtalos ‘plaintain (bark used for cord)’
blasbabier ‘sandpaper’ (G)
blauang ‘flour’ (E)
blok ‘pulley’ (G)
bloridang ‘pomade’ (S brandname?)
boi ‘servant’ (J)
boi ‘buoy; property marker’ (E)
bokket ‘pocket’ (E)
boks ‘large wooden tray with legs’ (J?)
bokso ‘elephant grass (used as animal feed)’ (J)
bokungo ‘storage pit, air-raid shelter’ (J)
bomado ‘pomade’ (J)
bomb/bomk ‘pump; small boat engine’ (E)
bongd ‘pound’ (E)
bongkura ‘dull or slow-witted’ (J)
bor ‘ball (in baseball)’ (J fr E)
borhua ‘walk (in baseball)’ (J fr E)
boruu ‘(head) completely shaved’ (J)
bos ‘(motorless) boat’ (E)
bos ‘boss’ (E)
bost ‘post-office’ (E, G)
Bostol ‘apostle’
botang ‘button; flower similar to peony’ (J)
boteto ‘potato’ (E)
bozu ‘(head) completely shaved’ (J)
bresengt ‘present’ (E)
bud ‘booth’ (E)
budo ‘Panama cherry; capulin’ (J)
buk ‘book’ (E)
bul ‘(swimming) pool; pool (game), billiards’ (E)
bulis ‘police’ (E)
bumpo ‘grammar’ (J)
bung ‘minute’ (J)
bungsu ‘fraction’ (J)
buraia ‘pliers’ (E)
burek ‘brake’ (E)
burgatorio ‘purgatory’ (S)
bus ‘puss, cat’ (E)
bussonge ‘red hibiscus’ (J)
butabutabuta ‘way of calling pigs’ (J)
butiliang ‘bottle; glass’ (S)
buts ‘boots’ (E)

chabarer ‘get angry, get violent’ (J)
chabunai ‘dangerous’ (J)
chaburabang ‘fried bean paste bun’ (J)
chaburasasi ‘oil-can (with long spout)’ (J)
chaiamar ‘apologize to’ (J)
chaikodetsiu ‘tie [breaker] in game of ziangkempo’ (J)
chainoko ‘half-caste child’ (J)
chais ‘ice’ (E, J)
chaiskeeki ‘popsicle’ (J)
chaiskurim ‘ice cream’ (E, J)
chakimer ‘surrender; give up’ (J)
chaltar ‘altar’ (E)
chamatter ‘plenty; more than enough’ (J)
chambang ‘baked bean paste bun’ (J)
chambelangs ‘ambulance’ (E)
chameiu ‘wheat gluten?, coconut syrup?’ (J)
chami ‘screen’ (J)
chamonia ‘ammonia’ (E)
chanakangari ‘button hole’ (J)
changar ‘(salary) increase; (person) get excited or nervous; promote’ (J)
changari ‘rise; increase’ (J)
changhel ‘angel’ (S)
changko ‘bean paste’ (J)
changtena ‘antenna’ (E)
chansing ‘feel relaxed, at ease’ (J)
chanzang ‘add; do sums’ (J)
chanzeng ‘[safety] razor blade’ (J)
charai ‘strict or harsh sounding’ (J)
charuminium ‘aluminum’ (J)
chas ‘ace (in cards)’ (E)
chasagao ‘morning glory’ (J)
chasbering ‘aspirin’ (E, J)
chasiba ‘scaffolding’ (J)
chasuart ‘asphalt’ (J)
chatter ‘appropriate, suitable’ (J)
chauanai ‘inappropriate, unsuitable’ (J)
chausbengdik ‘know thoroughly; memorize’ (G)
chautomatik ‘automatic’ (E)
chauts ‘out (in baseball)’ (E)
chazi ‘flavor, taste’ (J)
chazinomoto ‘flavor enhancer; MSG’ (J)
chea ‘air (for tire)’ (J fr E)
cheisei ‘sanitation (inspection); hygiene’ (J)
chi ‘stomach’ (J)
chihukuro ‘(pouch of) stomach’ (J)
chikes ‘place for storing live bait or fish in boat’ (J)
chimi ‘meaning; implication (of one’s words)’ (J)
chiro ‘color’ (J)
chirochiro ‘many-colored; fathered by different men’ (J)
chomotenangio ‘territory outside of Japanese Pacific mandate’ (vs. utsinangio) (J)
chos ‘holding tight (when dancing); making a play for; getting too close’ (J)
chosarai ‘girls’ game juggling cloth balls filled with seeds’
chotemba ‘flirtatious; loose or fast (woman)’ (J)
choto ‘noise or sound (usu. mechanical)’ (J)
chotobai ‘motorcycle’ (J)
chuki ‘life-preserver’ (J)
chundo ‘physical exercise’ (J)
chundongutsu ‘athletic shoes’ (J)
chuntens ‘driver’ (J)
churi ‘muskmelon’ (J)
chusangi ‘rabbit’ (J)
chuts(i)us ‘take (photo)’ (J)

dai ‘platform; support’ (J)
daia ‘diamond suit (in cards)’ (J)
daikong ‘radish; turnip’ (J)
daiksang ‘carpenter’ (J)
dainamait ‘dynamite’ (E)
dainamo ‘generator’ (J)
daigak ‘university’ (J)
daitai ‘general; fine; all right; okay’ (J)
daiziob ‘fine; all right; okay’ (J)
dangs ‘dance’ (E)
datsio ‘disease of testicles aggravated by the cold’ (J)
dempo ‘telegram’ (J)
dengki ‘electricity’ (J)
dengkibasira ‘telephone pole’ (J)
dengkibu ‘power plant’ (J)
dengkiskongi ‘electric phonograph’ (J)
dengu ‘dengue fever; rheumatism’ (J)
dengua ‘telephone’ (J)
deser ‘diesel’ (G)
diab(e)long ‘devil; Satan’ (S)
diakon ‘deacon’ (S)
Dios ‘God’ (S)
Dois ‘Germany’ (J)
dokurits ‘independent; capable of taking care of oneself’ (J)
donats ‘doughnut’ (E)
dongu ‘tool’ (J)
doraib ‘drive around (in car)’ (E)
dorobo ‘robber; thief’ (J)
dosei ‘anyway; at any rate; after all’ (J)
dotei ‘rampart; terrace’ (J)

haburasi ‘tootbrush’ (J)
hadaka ‘bare-breasted; nude; naked’ (J)
hadasi ‘bare-footed’ (J)
haibio ‘tuberculosis; tubercular’ (J)
haisara/haizara ‘ashtray’ (J)
haisia ‘dentist’ (J)
haitsio ‘cabinet’ (J)
hake ‘paintbrush’ (J)
hall ‘Halt! Stop!’ (G)
hambung ‘half; half-witted’ (J)
hanabi ‘fireworks; firecracker’ (J)
hanahuda ‘Japanese card game’ (J)
hang ‘hamlet; part of town’ (J)
hangkats ‘handkerchief’ (J)
hansubong ‘(walking) shorts’ (J)
hantai ‘opposite; opposed or disagreeing’ (J)
harau ‘pay’ (J)
hasi ‘chopsticks’ (J)
hatoba ‘pier; dock’ (J)
hats ‘bee; wasp’ (J)
heya ‘room’ (J)
hanzi ‘answer’ (J)
hermet ‘helmet’ (E)
Hesus ‘Jesus’ (S)
himbiokai ‘fair; exhibition’ (J)
himits ‘secret’ (J)
hokori ‘dust’ (J)
homrang ‘home run (in baseball)’ (J fr E)
hong ‘book’ (J)
honto ‘Babeldaob (main island of Palau)’ (J)
hos ‘hose (of automobile)’ (E)
hosengka ‘garden balsam’ (J)
hotai ‘bandage’ (J)
hoter ‘hotel’ (J fr E?)
huda ‘identification or name tag’ (J)
Hu(i)ribing ‘Philippines’ (J)
Hurans ‘France’ (J)
huseng ‘balloon; condom’ (J)
huto ‘envelope’ (J)
hutsu ‘common; usual; ordinary’ (J)

iakiu ‘baseball’ (J)
iaksok ‘promise’ (J)
iama ‘raise hairdo at front of hair’ (J)
ianagi ‘Formosa koa tree; willow’ (J)
iasai ‘vegetable’ (J)
iasaibune ‘vegetable boat’ (J)
iasui ‘cheap’ (J)
iasumba ‘resting place’ (J)
iings ‘inch’ (E)
iings ‘hinge’ (E)
ikelesia ‘church’ (S)
Ingklis ‘England’ (E, J?)
iorosku ‘regards; greetings’ (J)
iosiharu ‘spring (season)’ (J)
iosiuki ‘winter’ (J)
iotei ‘schedule; plan’ (J)
iotsieng ‘kindergarten’ (J)
iudoraib ‘rent-a-car; U-drive car; loose woman’ (E)

kab ‘curve; curve-ball’ (J fr E)
kaba ‘armor; protective covering’ (J)
kabaiaki ‘broiled canned fish’ (J)
kabitel ‘captain’ (G)
kabur ‘flip someone over one’s shoulder (when wrestling)’ (J)
kadenia ‘gardenia; carnation’ (E)
kaer ‘return’ (J)
kahol ‘wooden box; coffin’ (S)
kai ‘shell’ (J)
kaisia ‘company; business’ (J)
kamang ‘sickle; twisted, crippled’ (J)
kambalang ‘bell’ (S)
kanadarai ‘large basin’ (J)
kanaria ‘gonorrhea’ (E)
kangdalang ‘candle’ (S)
kangkei ‘relationship; connection’ (J)
kangkeister ‘related to; connected with’ (J)
kangkodang ‘tourist’ (J)
kangngob ‘nurse’ (J)
kanibisket ‘Crab biscuit’ (J brandname)
kansok ‘meteorological survey’ (J)
kansume/kanzume ‘canned goods’ (J)
kantang ‘simple; plain’ (J)
karas ‘glass’ (J fr E)
kardina ‘cardinal’ (E)
kare ‘curry’ (J fr E)
kas ‘gas; gasoline’ (E)
kasinoma ‘cancer’ (E)
kasorin ‘gasoline’ (J)
kastera ‘yellow pound cake’ (J)
kat ‘playing cards’ (E)
kata ‘shape; form; body form; frame for weaving’ (J)
katangami ‘sewing pattern’ (J)
katai ‘stubborn, inflexible or unyielding’ (J)
kataki ‘revenge’ (J)
katate ‘dextrous; needing only one hand to do things’ (J)
katatsumuri ‘African (land) snail’ (J)
kateng ‘curtain’ (E)
katolik ‘Catholic’ (S)
kats ‘winner; win’ (J)
katsudo ‘movie’ (J)
katsudokang ‘movie theater’ (J)
katsuo ‘bonito’ (J)
katsuobusi ‘dried bonito meat’ (J)
katsuoseng ‘bonito-fishing boat’ (J)
kaua ‘leather’ (J)
kauar ‘change’ (J)
keik ‘cake’ (E)
keikak ‘(economic or political) plan’ (J)
keis ‘court or legal case’ (E)
keisang ‘calculate’ (J)
keizai ‘economics’ (J)
kelebus ‘jail, prison’ (S)
kembei ‘police’ (J)
kengri ‘right; privilege’ (J)
kensa ‘inspection; medical examination’ (J)
kerebou ‘cow; carabao; water-buffalo; beef; corned beef’ (S fr Philippines)
kerisil ‘kerosene’ (G)
keristiano ‘Christian’ (S)
kerus ‘cross; crucifix’ (S)
kes ‘erase; obliterate’ (J)
keskomu ‘pencil eraser’ (J)
kets ‘stingy’ (J)
kia ‘gear’ (E)
kiab ‘carburetor’ (J fr E)
kiabets ‘head cabbage’ (J fr E)
kiande ‘candy’ (J fr E?)
kil/kir ‘keel’ (E)
kilo ‘kilogram’ (G?)
kimots ‘feeling’ (J)
king ‘king (also in cards)’ (E)
kigatsakani ‘be unaware of; miss import or implication’ (J)
kigatsku ‘notice; be aware of; understand import or implication’ (J)
kingko ‘safe; strongbox’ (J)
kintama ‘testicles; exclamation uttered when batter strikes out’ (J)
kirioke ‘projecting eave of roof’ (J)
kiro ‘kilogram’ (J)
kisets ‘faint; lose consciousness’ (J)
kisu ‘scar’ (J)
kita ‘guitar’ (E)
kiter ‘effective or strong (words, medicine); convincing (argument); in working order’ (J)
kitsingai ‘crazy; obsessed with’
kitte ‘postage stamp’ (J)
kiubio ‘heart attack’ (J)
klab ‘club; association’ (E)
klas ‘class; classroom’ (E)
klas ‘drinking glass; eyeglass; diving glass’ (E)
klok ‘clock, watch’ (E)
kobito ‘midget; dwarf’ (J)
kohi ‘coffee’ (J)
koi ‘thick or strong (liquid); dark in color’ (J)
koibito ‘sweetheart’ (J)
kokubang ‘blackboard’ (J)
kolt ‘gold’ (E)
komakai ‘stingy; detailed; thorough; accurate’ (J)
komatter ‘inconvenienced or in trouble or hard-pressed financially’ (J)
kombalii ‘company; helpers in preparing food; food so prepared’ (E)
kombas ‘compass’ (E)
komeng ‘sorry; excuse me’ (J)
komi ‘trash, garbage’ (J)
komibako ‘trash can’ (J)
komisteba ‘trash dump’ (J)
komu ‘rubber’ (J)
komunion ‘Holy Communion’ (S)
komunoki ‘India rubber tree; banyan tree’ (J)
komuteib ‘elastic band for clothing’ (J)
kona ‘powdered soap; detergent’ (J)
Kongkong ‘Hong Kong’ (J)
kongro ‘kerosene stove’ (J)
korira ‘gorilla’ (J)
korona ‘crown’ (S)
kort ‘court of law’ (E)
kosi ‘buttocks; hips’ (J)
kosio ‘out of order; broken; get stuck; stop working; have a fit’ (J)
kosui ‘perfume’ (J)
kotai ‘answer (to math problem); (written) solution’ (J)
kotsiosensei ‘high school teacher’ (J)
koziak ‘bald-headed person’ (E name)
kozukai ‘spending money; pocket money’ (J)
Kristo ‘Christ’ (S)
Kristus ‘Christ’ (G)
ksai ‘bad-smelling’ (J)
ksari ‘neck chain (for holding keys, medal, etc.)’ (J)
kuabang ‘guava’ (S)
kudamono ‘passion flower; grandilla’ (J)
kukobokang ‘aircraft carrier’ (J)
kuma ‘bear’ (J)
kumade ‘rake’ (J)
kumi ‘rubber; elastic’ (G)
kumi ‘group; association’ (J)
kungreng ‘military training’ (J)
kurangd ‘playground’ (E)
kureiong ‘crayon’ (E)
Kurismas ‘Christmas’ (J, E)
kurob ‘baseball glove’ (J fr E)
kusarang ‘spoon’ (S)
kutsibeni ‘lipstick’ (J)
kuzira ‘whale’ (J)

mado ‘window’ (J)
mael ‘mile’ (E)
mahobing ‘thermos’ (J)
mahongani ‘mahogany’ (J, E?)
mahura ‘muffler; scarf’ (J)
maikake ‘apron’ (J)
Maikronesia ‘Micronesia’ (E)
maingami ‘bangs’ (J)
mais ‘corn [maize]’ (S)
mak ‘fifty cents’ (G)
make ‘loser; loss’ (J)
makit ‘(produce) market’ (E)
mame ‘beans’ (J)
manaita ‘cutting board; chopping block’ (J)
mang ‘ten thousand’ (J)
mangnga ‘cartoon’ (J)
mangtang ‘black cloth’ (S)
mangtekang ‘lard’ (S)
manguro ‘yellowfin tuna’ (J)
manneng ‘fountain pen’ (J)
Marialas ‘Marianas’ (S)
Marsial ‘Marshall Islands’ (E)
mases ‘matches’ (E)
masku ‘mask; sanitary mask’ (J fr E)
mastang ‘master; leader’ (E)
matsi ‘capital; main town’ (J)
mauar ‘turn’ (J)
mauas ‘turn (something)’ (J)
mazegohang ‘rice mixed with vegetables, meat, etc.’ (J)
mazui ‘bad-tasting; unskilled or unsuccessful (in persuasion)’ (J)
mihong ‘sample; example’ (J)
milk ‘milk’ (E)
minatobasi ‘harbor bridge between Koror and Ngemelachel’ (J)
misang ‘Mass’ (S)
mitsumata ‘three-pronged farming implement’ (J)
miuzium ‘museum’ (E)
mokar ‘gain profit from’ (J)
mongk ‘complaint; criticism’ (J)
motsio ‘appendicitis’ (J)
musiba ‘cavity; rotted tooth’ (J)
musing ‘cooperative enterprise’ (J)

nakas ‘sink’ (J)
namari ‘lead weight; molded lead’ (J)
namer ‘challenge; hold in contempt; make a fool of’ (J)
nangiosakura ‘flame tree’ (J)
nappa ‘long cabbage’ (J)
nas ‘eggplant’ (J)
neibi ‘navy’ (E)
nengi ‘green onion’ (J)
nenneng ‘sleep’ (J baby talk)
nezi ‘screw’ (J)
nezimauas ‘screwdriver’ (J)
nikibi ‘pimple; acne’ (J)
niku ‘meat (esp. beef)’ (J)
nimots ‘baggage; luggage’ (J)
ningio ‘doll’ (J)
ninzin ‘sweet potato with orange flesh’ (J)
nitske ‘fish simmered with sugar and vegetables’ (J)
niziu ‘twenty’
nori ‘glue; paste; starch’
nurs ‘nurse’ (E)

oiakodomburi ‘chicken and eggs with rice’ (J)
okane ‘money’ (J)
okasi ‘candy; sweets’ (J)
oni ‘demon; “it” in games of tag’ (J)
osbitar ‘hospital’ (E)
osime ‘diaper’ (J)
osimekaba ‘diaper cover’ (J)
otsir ‘fail (a test)’ (J)
otsuri ‘change (from purchase); benefit; recompense; advantage’ (J)
otsuringanai ‘having no benefit’ (J)
ouasi ‘walk or go on foot’ (J)

raiskare ‘rice curry’ (J)
rakket ‘racquet’ (E)
rami ‘rummy’ (E)
ranningngu ‘tank-top’ (J fr E)
razieta ‘radiator’ (E, J)
razio ‘radio’ (J, E)
rekodo ‘phonograph record’ (J)
rimbio ‘venereal disease’ (J)
ringngo ‘apple’ (J)
roba ‘donkey; ass’ (J)
rosario ‘rosary’ (S)
Rosia ‘Russia’ (J)
rot ‘piston rod’ (E)
rrat ‘bicycle’ (G)
rrom ‘liquor; alcoholic drink’ (E)
rum ‘room’ (E)

sabis ‘bonus; special service; tip’ (J)
sabisi ‘lonely’ (J)
sablei ‘long knife; machete’ (S)
sabtbol/sobtbol ‘softball’ (E)
saidang ‘cider; soft-drink’ (J)
saing ‘sign’ (E)
saingo ‘last time; end (of relationship)’ (J)
saireng ‘siren’ (J)
sak ‘unit of measure; foot’ (J)
salad ‘salad’ (E)
saladaoil ‘salad oil’ (J, E)
sambas ‘dock with piers’ (J)
samui ‘cold’ (J)
sandei ‘week; Sunday’ (E)
sandits ‘arithmetic’ (J)
sangdiang ‘type of watermelon’ (S)
sangkak ‘triangle’ (J)
sangklas ‘sunglasses’ (E)
sangta ‘female saint’ (S)
sangto ‘male saint’ (S)
sao ‘pole for fishing or support’ (J)
sar ‘salt’ (S)
sarmetsir ‘liniment’ (J brandname)
sarumata ‘panties, underpants’ (J)
sasimi ‘sashimi; raw fish’ (J)
Satan ‘Satan’ (S)
sausab ‘soursop (tree or fruit)’ (E)
sbiido ‘speed (up)’ (J)
sbots ‘sports’ (J)
seb ‘safe (in baseball)’ (J fr E)
sebadong ‘Saturday’ (S)
Sebangiol ‘Spain’ (S)
sebel ‘shovel’ (E)
sebulias ‘green onion’ (S)
seikats ‘life’ (J)
seiko ‘succeed; prosper’ (J)
seinendang ‘youth group’ (J)
seizi ‘politics’ (J)
sembuki ‘electric fan’ (J)
semmong ‘expert; specialist’ (J)
seng ‘insulated wire; electrical wire; cable’ (J)
sengk ‘money gift’ (G)
sengkio ‘election’ (J)
sengko/katorisengko ‘mosquito coil’ (J)
sensei ‘teacher’ (J)
serangk ‘bookcase; cupboard; shelf’ (G)
seraub ‘screw’ (G)
Siabal ‘Japan’ (E)
siasing ‘photo’ (J)
siasingki ‘camera’ (J)
siats ‘shirt’ (J)
sib ‘sheep’ (E)
sidosia ‘car; automobile’ (J)
sikang ‘hour’ (J)
sikar ‘cigar’ (E)
simang ‘vain; boastful’ (J)
simpai ‘worry’ (J)
simbung ‘newspaper’ (J)
simer ‘strangle; choke; close; turn off’ (J)
Sina ‘China’ (J)
singyo ‘trust’ reputation’ (J)
sintsiu ‘brass, copper’ (J)
sinzo ‘heart (= internal organ)’ (J)
siobai ‘business’ (J)
siobang ‘loaf of bread’ (J)
siokumins ‘farm colony’ (J)
sionga ‘ginger’ (J)
sioning ‘witness’ (J)
sioningdai ‘witness stand’ (J)
siorai ‘future’ (J)
siraber ‘investigate or interrogate (someone)’ (J)
sirangkao ‘face feigning ignorance; innocent face’ (J)
sisiu ‘embroidery’ (J)
sister ‘nun; sister’ (E)
sits ‘(linen) sheet’ (J)
siukang ‘custom; (bad) habit; idiosyncrasy’ (J)
skak ‘square’ (J)
skamaer ‘confront; face; corner; catch; get hold of’ (J)
skareter ‘tired’ (J)
skarister ‘serious, conservative or self-controlled or strait-laced or not easily swayed’ (J)
skato ‘skirt’ (J)
skemono ‘pickles; condiments’ (J)
skeng ‘test; examination’ (J)
skidas ‘drawer (of desk, table, etc.)’ (J)
skoki ‘airplane’ (J)
skongki ‘(manual) phonograph’ (J)
skozio ‘airport’ (J)
skuul ‘school’ (E)
slibs ‘necktie’ (G)
sobdringk ‘soft drink’ (E)
sodang ‘discussion’ (J)
soko ‘storage area; shed’ (J)
soldau ‘soldier’ (S)
song ‘take a loss; waste time’ (J)
songngai ‘(financial) loss’ (J)
sorobang ‘abacus’ (J)
sos ‘sauce; soy sauce’ (E)
sotets ‘cycad [palm]’ (J)
sotsungiosei ‘graduate’ (J)
sotsungioski ‘graduation ceremony’ (J)
stamb ‘rubber stamp; seal’ (E)
stangi ‘underwear’ (J)
statmota ‘(engine) starter’ (E)
stengles ‘stainless’ (E)
stereo ‘stereo’ (E)
stoang ‘store’ (E)
stob ‘stove’ (E)
stob ‘stop’ (E)
sub ‘soup’ (E)
sudare ‘rolling bamboo curtain’ (J)
suester ‘nun; sister’ (G)
sukal ‘sugar’ (S)
suklatei ‘chocolate’ (S)
sumi ‘charcoal’ (J)
sumitsubo ‘carpenter’s tool for marking lumber’ (J)
sung ‘unit of measure (close to inch)’ (J)

tabasko ‘tabasco’ (E)
taber ‘blackboard’ (G)
tabi ‘canvas shoe’ (J)
tada ‘free of charge’ (J)
taem ‘time; occasion’ (E)
taia ‘tire’ (J fr E)
taib ‘typewriter’ (E)
Taiheio ‘Pacific Ocean’ (J)
taiko ‘drum’ (J)
Taiuang ‘Taiwan’ (J)
takai ‘expensive; high status’ (J)
taki ‘waterfall’ (J)
tama ‘marble; fried dough ball; ball bearing’ (J)
tamanengi ‘onion; shaved head’ (J)
tamango ‘egg’ (J)
tamangodomburi ‘rice topped with egg’ (J)
tamangongata ‘egg-shaped’ (J)
tamangoudong ‘noodles topped with egg’ (J)
tana ‘shelf’ (J)
tane ‘seed’ (J)
tangk ‘water tank or drum’ (E)
tansiobi/tanziobi ‘birthday’ (J)
taor ‘towel’ (J)
taorer ‘faint; collapse’ (J)
tarai ‘large basin’ (J)
tatami ‘tatami’ (J)
tatemai ‘action of building frame of house’ (J)
tauas(i) ‘scrubbing brush’ (J)
te ‘ability; skill; style’ (J)
tebel ‘table; desk; chair’ (E)
teb(u)kuro ‘glove; mitten’ (J)
teng ‘grade; point; score’ (J)
tengki ‘weather’ (J)
tengus ‘cat-gut; plastic fishing line’ (J)
tenis ‘tennis’ (E, J?)
tenor ‘tenor’ (E)
tento ‘tent’ (J fr E)
tenzio ‘ceiling’ (J)
teppo ‘hand of cards in hanahuda’ (J)
tibi ‘television’ (E)
todai ‘lighthouse’ (J)
tokas ‘make (something) melt’ (J)
toker ‘melt; die of embarrassment’ (J)
tokoia ‘barber’ (J)
toktang ‘doctor’ (E)
tokuni ‘especially; particularly’ (J)
tomato ‘tomato’ (J fr E?)
tongang ‘squash’ (J)
torak ‘truck’ (J fr E)
torangk ‘trunk; suitcase’ (E)
toseng ‘ferry-boat’ (J)
Trinidad ‘Holy Trinity’ (S)
trombetang ‘trumpet; bugle’ (S)
tsesa ‘chaser; snack to accompany beer’ (E)
tsiok ‘chalk’ (E)
tsiokkolet ‘chocolate’ (E)
tsios ‘condition’ (J)
tsitsibando ‘brassiere’ (J)
tsiub(u) ‘inner tube’ (J fr E)
tsiui ‘be careful; warn (someone)’ (J)
tsizim ‘shrink’ (J)
tsubame ‘barn swallow’ (J)
tsuingam ‘chewing gum’ (E)
tsunami ‘tidal wave’ (J)
tsurubasi ‘pick-axe’ (J)
turm ‘church tower; steeple’ (G)

uaia ‘wire’ (E)
uaks ‘wax’ (E)
uata ‘cotton’ (J)
uatasibune ‘ferry-boat’ (J)

zeitak/seitak ‘luxurious; high-class; select’ (J)
ziabong ‘pomelo; shaddock’ (J)
ziakki ‘jack (for car)’ (J fr E)
ziangkempo ‘game [paper-scissors-rock]’ (J)
zibiki ‘dictionary’ (J)
ziteng ‘dictionary’ (J)
ziu ‘gun; rifle’ (J)
ziu ‘freedom (to do as one wishes)’ (J)
zori ‘rubber slippers’ (J)
zubong/subong ‘trousers’ (J)
zunga/sunga ‘picture; drawing’ (J)
zurui/surui ‘sly; sneaky; shrewd’ (J)

17 Comments

Filed under Germany, Japan, language, Micronesia, Spain, U.S.

by | 18 June 2007 · 10:11 pm

New Madrid: Spanish Influence at the Confluence

The Mississippi at Trail of Tears State Park, MissouriThe name of New Madrid is but one indication that the Spanish once controlled the Mississippi River as far north as its confluence with the Ohio. A plaque erected by the Missouri Marquette Tercentenary Commission at Trail of Tears State Park on the river between Ste. Genevieve and Cape Girardeau reminds us of why Marquette and Joliet turned around near that point on the river.

In 1672, Louis Joliet and Father Jacques Marquette were commissioned by King Louis XIV to discover the course of the Mississippi River. On June 17, 1673, the expedition entered the Mississippi via the Wisconsin river and began their descent by canoe.

On July 4, 1673, the seven-man expedition passed the mouth of the turbulent and later observed the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi. On reaching an Arkansas Indian village near present Helena, July 17, they were certain that the Mississippi flowed into the Gulf of Mexico. Fearful of the Spanish if they continued southward, at this point Father Marquette and Joliet turned back.

A dedicated and gentle priest, Father Marquette first brought the Word of God into the Mississippi Valley, gave the world an account of its lands and, with Joliet, laid the basis for France’s claims to the area.

Born in Laon, France, June 1, 1637, Father Marquette died April 18, 1675, on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan from the hardships of his missionary life.

The Spanish were still influential at the time of the Meriwether Lewis and William Clark expedition in 1804–1806, as a State Historical Society of Missouri signboard at the Trail of Tears State Park notes.

Writing in 1803, Nicholas de Finiel, a French military engineer, described the Shawnee villages along Apple Creek that Lewis mentioned: “These villages were more systematically and solidly constructed than the usual Indian villages. Around their villages the Indians soon cleared the land, which was securely fenced around in the American style in order to protect the harvest from animals. The first of these villages is located five or six leagues from Cape Girardeau, along the road to Ste. Genevieve…”

Shawnee presence in the area was a matter of international politics. Shawnee and Delaware Indians from Ohio were invited to Cape Girardeau in the 1780s by Spain’s district commandant, Louis Lorimier, who had traded with those tribes in Ohio. Spain, which governed the Louisiana territory then, welcomed the “Absentee Shawnee” with ulterior motives. It believed they would be a buffer against the Osage and against American ambitions to expand their borders. Coincidentally, Gen. George Rogers Clark, William Clark’s older brother, had burned Lorimier’s Ohio post because Lorimier sided with the British during the American Revolution.

An historical marker on the levee at New Madrid calls it “The first American town in Missouri”:

Founded in 1789 by George Morgan, Princeton graduate and Indian trader, on the site of Francois and Joseph Le Sieur’s trading settlement, L’Anse a la Graise (Fr. Cove of Fat). Flood and caving banks have destroyed the first town site.

Named for Madrid, Spain, the town was to be an American colony. Morgan was promised 15 million acres by the Spanish ambassador, eager to check U.S. expansion with large land grants. Spain did not confirm his grant but gave land to colonists. Morgan left but he had started American immigration to Missouri.

French and American settlers contributed to town growth. Here were founded a Catholic church, 1789; a Methodist church, 1810; and here was the southern [northern?] extent of El Camino Real or King’s Highway, 1789. There are over 160 Indian mounds in the county, two near town.

“Boot Heel” counties, including a strip of New Madrid, are said to be part of Missouri through efforts of J. H. Walker (1794-1860), planter at Little Prairie (Caruthersville), Pemiscot Co. In nearby Mississippi Co. is Big Oak Tree State Park, a notable hardwood forest.

2 Comments

Filed under France, Spain, travel, U.K., U.S.