Fungee, Chibble, Gooks, Spigs (1920)

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ROAMING THROUGH THE WEST INDIES
by Harry A. Franck
New York: Blue Ribbon Books
1920

   "Fungi" or "fungee" is still earlier.
   Harry Franck (1881-?) was a great American travel writer.  His books,
although without footnotes, are well detailed, and he's especially interested in
language.  His book about Panama, ZONE POLICEMAN 88 (1913), has "spigotty."
OED cites him only 10 times.  I haven't read Franck that much because I've been
concentrating on older stuff (1600s and 1700s and 1800s), but NYU has most of
his books.  I'll check soon to see if WALKING NORTH OF PATAGONIA (1921) has
"dulce de leche."
   It must be nice to be a travel writer.  I never get to go anywhere.


Pg. 28:  Baseball--commonly pronounced "bahseh-bahl" throughout the
island--has won a firm foothold in Cuba.
(Not "beisbol"?--ed.)

Pg. 66:  Musically the Cuban is best at the native _danzon_, a refinement of
the savage African _rumba_.
(OED has 1922 for "rhumba."  M-W has 1916--ed.)

Pg. 99:  There are lobsters also, and the finest of all Cuban sea foods is
the _congrejo moro_, a huge crab with a beautiful red and black shell.

Pg. 103:  Graft, known in Cuba as "_chivo_," is hereditary in the chief of
the West Indies.

Pg. 180:  The majority of our forces of occupation are so decidedly a credit
to their country that it needed the contrast of such types as these to explain
why the "Gooks," as the natives are popularly known among their class,
generally resent our presence on Haitian soil.

Pg. 203:  First of all there were the "chivo" cigars,--_chivo_ meaning not
merely goat but something corresponding to our word "graft" in the Spanish West
Indies--which never made any pretense of bearing a stamp.

Pg. 204:  "Big George" arranged that we should spend the first Sunday after
our arrival in the most typical Dominican style of celebration,--the partaking
of _lechon asado_.

Pg. 239:  I should like to see all those removed from our forces of
occupation who have not a proper respect for Dominicans; not an unbounded respect--I
haven't that myself--but who at least admit that our wards are human beings,
with their own rights and customs, and not merely "Spigs" and "niggers."

Pg. 297:  A more serious thing is the prevalence of "t. b."--which
missionaries on the island dub "tin box."

Pg. 306:  In local parlance a "five minutes' walk" means a block.
(Virgin Islands--ed.)

Pg. 308:  This is a plate of "fungee," a nauseating mixture of fish and
corn-meal, which to the local taste is preferable to the most succulent beefsteak.

Pg. 333:  There is no hookworm and little malaria; but much pellagra and "big
leg," or elephantiasis.

Pg. 334:  The doctors of "West End" found nothing unusual in the case of a
baby that was brought to the hostial already dead because the father had taken
it first to a native healer, who put "chibble" (pot herbs) under its nose to
cure it of acute indigestion.
("Chibble" is not in the OED--ed.)

Pg. 342:  This had magnified the constant enmity between the St. Kittens--or
whatever is the proper term--and the inhabitants of "that other country," as
they called it;...

Pg. 287:  Parasites and climbing lianas, that death-dealing vine called
_matapalo_ by the Spaniards and "Scotch attorney" by the Trinidadians, which
finally chokes to death the tree that sustains it, usurping its heritage of
nourishment, give the forest wall the appearance of a great carelessly woven tapestry.
(OED has "Scotch attorney" from 1864, but it's nicely described here.  Those
evil lawyers!--ed.)