Asturian-American Migration Forum

This is a string on the Asturian sociolinguistic phenomenon of 'cagamentos', a unique way to curse people and things, incorporating blasphemy, religious iconography, personal affront, objects of personal ownership, fluke geography and local zoology, always with the leitmotif of defecation.

Please contribute your samples so we can have a nice collection of Asturian folk wisdom, either in the Asturian language or in Castilian Spanish. Provide any contextual information, i.e., where and from whom you heard your 'cagamento'), as well as a few examples of usage.

A favorite of mine is Argimiru's 'Cagon Ros!'. Argimiro was a farmer of about 60 from the village of Argüeru in the county of Villaviciosa. My parents rented the top part of his farm the summer that our next door play buddy, Isaac, almost drowned down at Meron beach. He was a bad-tempered fellow with a red nose (he liked cider), but a nice man deep down inside.

Cagon Ros! was a way for him to bypass blasphemy and be on the safe side. Because what he really meant was 'Me cago en Dios!', which translates into English as 'I shit on God!'. Argimiru was aware that children were around, so when his cow-driven cart got stuck in a 'caleya' (unpaved country road) and he had kids up on the bales of hay, he would say 'Cagon Ros'.

Example: 'Cagon Ros! Baxaivos d'ehi rriba que vos voi deprender yo!'`
[I shit on Ros. Get down from up there or else I'll teach you a lesson.]

Example: 'Cagon Ros! Nun ves que tas estrapayando al probe gatin cola madreña, ho?'
[I shit on Ros. Don't you see you're squeezing the poor cat with your wooden clog?]

My uncle Eloy, a native of Colloto, which belongs to county Siero but is right at Oviedo's doorstep, expressed his frustration at things that went wrong by cussing "Cagún...la mar de Oviedo!", thereby giving vent to his aversion for everything related to Oviedo, but without hurting anybody's feelings, as Oviedo has no sea.

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Mi tío Eloy, natural de Colloto, que pertenece al concejo de Siero pero está pegado a Oviedo, desahogaba su frustración cuando algo no salía bien con un "Cagún...la mar de Oviedo", con lo que aireaba su aversión por todo lo ovetense, pero sin faltar al respeto, ya que Oviedo no tiene mar.

One of my favorite "cagos en" used amongst Cubans is: "Me cago en la hora que nacistes!" My Anglo friends were quite impressed with the translation: "I sh*t on the hour you were born!" Also, a mild substitute for "Me cago en Dios" would be "Me caso en Dies". Us kids could get away with this expletive but I never understood why someone would want to marry the number ten.

I couldn't resist writing this new cagamento down. My cousin Sonia, from La Calzada (Xixon), passed it on after an initial warning (those of you with religious sensibilities might want to pass...).

Her grandmother, Balbina (from County Tineu), uses this as a curse:

'Me cago en Cristo por nacer! Redios, que ye ho? Si nun nacio, nun ye pecau!'

[I shit on Christ for being born! God damn it, what's wrong? If he wasn't born, it's not a sin!']

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Nun pude resistir afitar esti nuevu cagamentu nel llistau. Mia prima Sonia, de La Calzada (Xixon), dixome que tenia un cagamentu que me diba gustar, pero que yera mui fuerte. Sua buolita, que ia del conceyu Tineu, de la que-y caen cousas no suelu, diz esto:

Me cago en Cristo por nacer! Redios, que ye, ho? Si nun nacio, nun ye pecau!

leaving aside the most inflamatory cagamentos ,,, I do like two all time classics ..." me cagun mi manto" ( I shit on my cloak/cape ? ) very popular all over the cuenques ( old mining valleys ) and me cagun mi madre , commonly used by the many (all of them of course DO love their mothers )

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mas alla de los cagamentos mas inflamtorios , a mi hay dos clasicos de toda la vida que me gustan "me cagun mi manto" my popular sobre todo en la cuenca y me cagunmimadre , usado por gente mucha gente ( no quiere decir que no quieran a sus madres )

Hey, I like those all-time classics too, Ayalgueru. But I had a hell of a time explaining 'Mecagonmimantu' to my friends on the swim team. Instead of a cape or cloak, I told them it might be a bedcover ('comforter' in American English). But then Leslie asked me: 'why would you shit on your own bedcover?' And I think she had a point...

Why do Asturians shit on their soul ('Mecagonmialma'), on their mothers ('Mecagonmimadre') and on their ocean ('Mecagonlamar')? Anybody can enlighten me here?

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A ver, que nun m'entero: por que la xente n'Asturias se caga nas cousas de caun envez de cagase nas de los demas? Los equivalentes a los cagamentos asturianos n'outras l.linguas davezu tan empobinaos a outros, non a un mesmu. Nun sou quien a desplicar por que you me cagaria nel miou mantu ou nel miou sacu de dormir, por exemplu, ya inda menos na mia mai ou na mia mar.

El mejor cagamento que escuche en mi vida se lo oi a un camionero de Teverga.

cago en la vi.... llorando

A pesar de lo fuerte que es tiene su sutil gracia, es una forma de evitar una blasfemia.

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The best cagamento I heard on my life was from a Truck driver from Teverga.

I shit on the persona I have seen crying

It is a subtle way of nearly saying a blasphemy.

I'll second Is' question. Why do Asturians seemingly insult themselves, their mothers, etc.? Perhaps it's a highly ironic sense of humor.

Granda, I don't get it. Who is the crying person? Mary, mother of Jesus?

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Secundo la pregunta de Is. ¿Por qué los asturianos aparentemente insultan a sí mismos, a sus madres, etc? Tal vez sea un sentido del humor muy irónico.

Granda, no lo entienden. ¿Quién es la persona que llora? ¿María, madre de Jesús?

Yes, correct. It refers to the Virgin
vi... llorando
Vi....rgen.

Realmente es un sentido del humor muy ironico el nuestro. Creo que el insulto es un caracteristica muy latina, y no anglosajona.
Nosotros nunca diremos que hay alguienc canta bien, sino que lo que diremos es
que bien canta el cabron.
Lo gracioso del caso es que los unicos momentos en los que realmente hablamos bien de una persona es en las necrologicas.

Really our sense of humor is very ironic and peculiar. The insult is very latin characteristic, no anglosaxon.
We would never say that somebody is a good singer. What we would say is somehting like:
This bastard is an excellent singer
Funnilly enough the only moment where we only say nice things about a person is in the obituaries

Thanks, Granda. I'll have to have you explain this to my family. They don't enjoy my ironic sense of humor as much as I do!

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Gracias, Granda. ¡Debo pedirte que lo expliques a mi familia! ¡No disfrutan mi sentido de humor irónico tanto que yo!

Well, I still don't know why Asturians tend to shit on their bedcovers ('mecagonmimantu') when they curse, but here is a theory by Steven Pinker on the origin of profanity in human language. These are a few excerpts from his new book 'The Stuff of thought: language as a window into human nature' (2007). Pinker, formerly of MIT and now a cognitive scientist at Harvard, is also the author of 'The language instinct'.

'The affective saturation of words is especially apparent in the strange phenomena surrounding profanity, the topic of chapter 7. It is a real puzzle for the science of mind why, when an unpleasant event befalls us...the topic of our conversation turns abruptly to sexuality, excretion, or religion. It is also a strange feature of our makeup that when an adversary infringes on our rights...we are apt to extend him advice in the manner of Woody Allen, who recounted, "I told him to be fruitful and multiply, but not in those words".'

'These outbursts seem to emerge from a deep and ancient part of the brain, like the yelp of a dog when someone steps on its tail, or its snarl when it is trying to intimidate an adversary. They can surface in the involuntary tics of a Tourette's patient, or in the surviving utterances of a neurological patient who is otherwise bereft of language. But despite the seemingly atavistic roots of cursing, the sounds themselves are composed of English words and are pronounced in full conformity with the sound pattern of the language. It is as though the human brain were wired in the course of human evolution so that the output of an old system for calls and cries were patched into the input of the new system for articulate speech.'

'Not only do we turn to certain words for sexuality, excretion, and religion when we are in an excitable state, but we are wary of such words when we are in any other state. Many epithets and imprecations are not just unpleasant but taboo; the very act of uttering them is an affront to listeners, even when the concepts have synonyms whose use is unexceptionable. The tendency of words to take on awesome powers may be found in the taboos and word magic in cultures all over the world...'

That's interesting, Is. But if Pinker is right that cursing invokes the taboo, then the question remains: why is cursing so prevalent in Asturian culture? It's as if the taboo is less taboo in Asturias.

Could it be that Asturians themselves are the taboo, and they mark or celebrate their otherness by transgressing the norms of the dominant culture that looks down on them? (That sounds awfully po-mo [postmodern].)

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Eso es interesante, Pero si Pinker tiene razón que maldecir invoca el tabú, entonces la pregunta queda: ¿por qué se maldicen tan frecuente en la cultura asturiana? Es como si el tabú es menos tabú en Asturias.

¿Podría ser que los asturianos ellos mismos sean el tabú, y que marquen o celebren su alteridad por transgredir las normas de la cultura dominante que menosprecia a los asturianos? (Eso me suena terriblemente po-mo [postmoderno].)

That's interesting, Is. But if Pinker is right that cursing invokes the taboo, why is cursing so prevalent in Asturian culture? It's as if the taboo is less taboo in Asturias.

Could it be that Asturians themselves are the taboo, and they mark or celebrate their otherness by transgressing the norms of the dominant culture that looks down on them. Well, that sounds awfully po-mo [postmodern].

More plausible, I think, would be that it is a remnant of the old Asturian hidalgo culture. It would be one way that a down-to-earth, self-reliant, resourceful, proud, agricultural and seafaring people could give voice to their awareness of being different from the more hierarchically-structured Castilian society.

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Eso es interesante, ¿Pero si Pinker tiene razón que maldecir invoca el tabú, por qué se maldicen tan frecuente en la cultura asturiana? Es como si el tabú es menos tabú en Asturias.

¿Podría ser que los asturianos ellos mismos sean el tabú, y que marcan o celebran su alteridad por transgredir las normas de la cultura dominante que menosprecia a los asturianos. Pues, eso me suena terriblemente po-mo [postmoderno].

Más plausible, creo, sería que se trata de un vestigio del antigua cultura hidalga en Asturias. Sería una forma de que un pueblo de agricultores y marinos, práctico, independiente, recursivo, y orgulloso podría dar voz a su conciencia de ser diferente de la más jerárquicamente estructurada sociedad castellano.

That's interesting, Is. But if Pinker is right that cursing invokes the taboo, why is cursing so prevalent in Asturian culture? It's as if the taboo is less taboo in Asturias.

Could it be that Asturians themselves are the taboo, and they mark or celebrate their otherness by transgressing the norms of the dominant culture that looks down on them. Well, that sounds awfully po-mo [postmodern].

More plausible, I think, would be that it is a remnant of the old Asturian hidalgo culture. It would be one way that a down-to-earth, self-reliant, resourceful, proud, agricultural and seafaring people could give voice to their awareness of being different from the more hierarchically-structured Castilian society.

That sense of being different continues today, perhaps with less reason or different reasons.

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Eso es interesante, ¿Pero si Pinker tiene razón que maldecir invoca el tabú, por qué se maldicen tan frecuente en la cultura asturiana? Es como si el tabú es menos tabú en Asturias.

¿Podría ser que los asturianos ellos mismos sean el tabú, y que marcan o celebran su alteridad por transgredir las normas de la cultura dominante que menosprecia a los asturianos. Pues, eso me suena terriblemente po-mo [postmoderno].

Más plausible, creo, sería que se trata de un vestigio del antigua cultura hidalga en Asturias. Sería una forma de que un pueblo de agricultores y marinos, práctico, independiente, recursivo, y orgulloso podría dar voz a su conciencia de ser diferente de la más jerárquicamente estructurada sociedad castellano.

Ese sentimiento de ser distinto continúa en la actualidad, quizás con menos razón o por razones distinctas.

Cagon ros, Art, paez que andas dando-y mal al teclau: ties 3 posts de seguio pal mesmu tema!

That said, I think you may be onto something with your po-mo theories. I kept reading Pinker's book (Chapter 7, on swearing) and have found a biological basis to the power of swear words, including blasphemy. To avoid paraphrasing him, I'll just add a few excerpts from the chapter, even though what I'd really like to do is invite him to Asturias to meet my cousin and her ex-husband, great practitioners of taboo words.

Here, then, are strings from Pinker's 'The Stuff of Thought':

"The persecution of swearers has a long history. The third commandment states, 'Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord they God in vain,' and Leviticus 24:16 spells out the consequences: 'He that blasphemeth the name of the Lord shall be put to death."

"The unprintable can become printable with a hyphen or asterisk, and the unsayable sayable with the flip of a vowel or consonant. Somethign about the pairing of certain meanings and sounds has a potent effect on people's emotions." [This reminded me of Granda's example of the truck driver from Teberga]

"Another puzzle about swearing is the range of topics that are the targets of taboo. The seven words you can never say on television refer to sexuality and excretion: they are names for feces, urine, intercourse, the vagina, breasts, a person who engages in fellatio, and a person who acts out an Oedipal desire. But the capital crime in the 10 Commandments comes from a different subject: theology, and the taboo words in many languages refer to perdition, deities, messiahs, and their associated relics and body parts."

"Religious profanity is common in other Catholic regions [Pinker uses Quebec as an example], as it was in England before the Reformation, when sexual and scatological terms started to take over." [I wonder if the thought behind this is that Catholic countries, when they go through an earth-shaking reformation, will divert and diversify their cursing energies to other subject matters]

"Taboo speech is part of a larger phenomenon known as word magic. Though one of the foundations of linguistics is that the pairing between a sound and a meaning is arbitrary, most humans intuitively believe otherwise. They treat the name for an entity as part of its essence, so that the mere act of uttering a name is seen as a way to impinge on its referent. Incantations, spells, prayers, and curses are ways that people try to affect the world through words, and taboos and euphemisms are ways that people try not [emphasis mine] to affect it."

"Are connotations and denotations stored in different parts of the brain? It's not implausible. The mammalian brain contains, among other things, the limbic system, an ancient network that regulates motivation and emotion, and the neocortex, the crinkled surface of the brain, which ballooned in human evolution and which is the seat of perception, knowledge, reason and planning. The two systems work together and are interconnected..."