Folk-lore from the Dominican republic / by Manuel J. Andrade.

Folk-Lore from the Dominican Republic

349

pinto, pirolindo, pitisanto very probably reflect a desire to
accumulate adjectival elements in a playful manner. I shall list
the following examples from the riddles, without attempting to
explain them: bombolito, bombol6n (174), Ali Cantico (181), tengue
tengue (187), tingli tingli (229), guindele guindele (229b), formed on
the verb guindar, colloquial for to hang; Burbi (252), bufa (253),
mendosas, tolosas (296), pujabdn (296b), moribole (305), Chilindre
(313), vastumentos (171).
Sometimes we perceive that the irrelevant elements are fossilized parts of other riddles, or words which were misunderstood by
one who is less cultured than the original riddler. The phrase "un
platico de avellanas" in 150 is extremely incongrous with the
concept "chickens", but is rather a good metaphor for stars in 145,
the concavity of the plate symbolizing the apparent dome of the
sky, and the nuts suggesting the countless stars. It is obvious that
150 is an adaptation of 145, leaving this irrelevant phrase intact,
presumably for the sake of the poetic form. Likewise 269 contains
two metaphors that remain in a modified form in 160b, although
they are absolutely irrelevant to the theme "guitar". As misunderstood words, we may cite the examples of 230 and 309. In the latter
we see the words sin segundo, a rather poetic phrase, a bit too
cultured for a peasant's vocabulry. These appear in 230 as a person's name, Juan Segundo. A better illustration is encorvado or
encorvao (247), which becomes melao (247b) when the whole riddle
is misunderstood. Of the same nature is the transformation of toro
joco (115) or torito joco (265) to Torogoca in 219.
There is another class of irrelevant elements which are obviously
due to what we might call inert associations. In riddle 89, having
likened the bell to an egg, the concept "white" creeps in, presumably out of pure inertia. In 116 the sky is said to be a sheet; then, the
qualification "white" follows mechanically. In 302, the candle
is said to be an old woman, in harmony with the qualities larga y
seca. The variant version 302b presents another case of the same
nature. The concept "fat" is substituted for "long and scrawny",
though inapplicable to the average candle, evidently because "la
manteca" is colloquially used for 6besity in all Spanish-speaking
lands. Similarly, the adjectives verdes y secas, which occur in all
the Spanish versions, although they are irrelevant to the concept
"fingers" (135), are drawn into the riddle by inert association with
varillas. Other instances may be found in 23, 49, 70, 71, 165, 207,
211, 216b, 244, 287.
There is another class of irrelevant elements more complex than
the preceding, but responding perhaps to the same principle of
inertia. In this case the fixed association is not so much between
specific concepts expressed in the riddle, as with typical situations
and with the function of riddling itself. It is somewhat arbitrary to
separate some of them from the stylistic units mentioned above.