a great rudeness of feeling
Oct. 29th, 2024 05:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
naushikaAncestry DNA tests were on sale this past prime day, so Chris and I ordered one for each of us. I should have my results in about 2-3 weeks.
I am very curious to see the results, although I know through family history generally where my roots are from. I'm Italian, Portuguese, German on dad's side, and English, Welsh, Scottish, Swedish, French on mom's side. So we'll see how the DNA results come back to compare and contrast. All told, I am a typical American mutt, so the results don't matter all that much in the scheme of things. It's just for funsies!
I'm particularly interested in my Portuguese family thread, as my ancestors were specifically from the Azores, a set of islands far off the coast of Portugal. Both my great grandmother and my great grandfather were from there, and that's as far back as my family history goes - pictures of the boats they came on and the certificates they got at Ellis Island. Most of the rest of my family history goes back some with the documents available through ancestry.com. But records from the Azores are basically non-existent, at least that I can find. I understand there are church records there, on the islands, but uh, I won't be visiting anytime soon, lol.
I found this old blog post talking about a publication written ages ago (linked at the bottom of the page), profiling the Azoreans. It's horribly outdated and stereotypical, classist and bigoted, but it's still an interesting read. (As someone with a history degree, I love reading stuff like this. And some of it is surely based in fact - people in different areas act differently, talk differently, have different priorities and lifestyles.) The publication talks about the various regions of the Azores, and my family is from Sao Miguel (described as the Micaelense, which as I understand it is actually a dialect of Portuguese), and I just get a kick out of these descriptors:
The Micaelense (with the Mariense, from Santa Maria, as a related subgroup) is unique in several respects. Of all the islanders, he is without doubt the most different from the continental Portuguese. His entire being, from his speech to his rough features, is pervaded by an extreme insularity, an insularity so strong that it sets him rigidly apart from other men.
Perhaps he was shortchanged during Nature's parceling out of life's goods, and perhaps those goods were showered preferentially on the other islanders; for whatever reason, it is the Micaelense that raises the hoe highest in the digging, that carves the deepest furrow in the land, and that sows the waiting soil most vigorously.
and:
In jokes between men and women, in the recounting of old loves, in satire - in short, in everything, our peasants show a roughness of manners, a great rudeness of feeling. It is worth stressing this point, not because we would expect peasants to show a politeness that rarely exists in the upper classes, but because this rudeness distinguishes them at least from all other islanders, if not from continental Portuguese of the same social class. It stands in sharp contrast to the rest of the Azoreans, whose speech is, in the words of Te6filo de Braga,« quase contabile,».
That speech seems to us to be ridiculous and artificial, but it is actually consistent with a truly different way of being, which lends itself thoroughly to that soft melody of speech and delicacy of manners. .. Our peasants, nonetheless, are persistent in a way that makes them stubborn. Furthermore, they generally possess great courage and energy .
I just love that. A great rudeness of feeling. The pontification of historical posh academics writing about The Poors is always so funny to read. But I genuinely like that phrase. Feelings can be greatly rude, sometimes, and I enjoy thinking that I come from a line of people known for such. Hah.
Anyway, I can't wait to see the results! Maybe there will be some surprises in there, too.
I am very curious to see the results, although I know through family history generally where my roots are from. I'm Italian, Portuguese, German on dad's side, and English, Welsh, Scottish, Swedish, French on mom's side. So we'll see how the DNA results come back to compare and contrast. All told, I am a typical American mutt, so the results don't matter all that much in the scheme of things. It's just for funsies!
I'm particularly interested in my Portuguese family thread, as my ancestors were specifically from the Azores, a set of islands far off the coast of Portugal. Both my great grandmother and my great grandfather were from there, and that's as far back as my family history goes - pictures of the boats they came on and the certificates they got at Ellis Island. Most of the rest of my family history goes back some with the documents available through ancestry.com. But records from the Azores are basically non-existent, at least that I can find. I understand there are church records there, on the islands, but uh, I won't be visiting anytime soon, lol.
I found this old blog post talking about a publication written ages ago (linked at the bottom of the page), profiling the Azoreans. It's horribly outdated and stereotypical, classist and bigoted, but it's still an interesting read. (As someone with a history degree, I love reading stuff like this. And some of it is surely based in fact - people in different areas act differently, talk differently, have different priorities and lifestyles.) The publication talks about the various regions of the Azores, and my family is from Sao Miguel (described as the Micaelense, which as I understand it is actually a dialect of Portuguese), and I just get a kick out of these descriptors:
The Micaelense (with the Mariense, from Santa Maria, as a related subgroup) is unique in several respects. Of all the islanders, he is without doubt the most different from the continental Portuguese. His entire being, from his speech to his rough features, is pervaded by an extreme insularity, an insularity so strong that it sets him rigidly apart from other men.
Perhaps he was shortchanged during Nature's parceling out of life's goods, and perhaps those goods were showered preferentially on the other islanders; for whatever reason, it is the Micaelense that raises the hoe highest in the digging, that carves the deepest furrow in the land, and that sows the waiting soil most vigorously.
and:
In jokes between men and women, in the recounting of old loves, in satire - in short, in everything, our peasants show a roughness of manners, a great rudeness of feeling. It is worth stressing this point, not because we would expect peasants to show a politeness that rarely exists in the upper classes, but because this rudeness distinguishes them at least from all other islanders, if not from continental Portuguese of the same social class. It stands in sharp contrast to the rest of the Azoreans, whose speech is, in the words of Te6filo de Braga,« quase contabile,».
That speech seems to us to be ridiculous and artificial, but it is actually consistent with a truly different way of being, which lends itself thoroughly to that soft melody of speech and delicacy of manners. .. Our peasants, nonetheless, are persistent in a way that makes them stubborn. Furthermore, they generally possess great courage and energy .
I just love that. A great rudeness of feeling. The pontification of historical posh academics writing about The Poors is always so funny to read. But I genuinely like that phrase. Feelings can be greatly rude, sometimes, and I enjoy thinking that I come from a line of people known for such. Hah.
Anyway, I can't wait to see the results! Maybe there will be some surprises in there, too.
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