Lies My Immigrant Mother Told Me (And Other Deeper Truths)

Let me start by saying that my Mom (a minha Mae) is wiser than I can ever hope to compete with.  I went to schools and have degrees, but she can overturn any argument I have, anytime.

"That's too American,"

Mostly, it's things like ketchup, pickles, hamburgers, television, lawyers, politics, or buying anything that is supposed to "make your life easier".  Also, according to my Mother, everyone in Portugal eats fruit before meals.

These things exist in Portugal, too.  Somehow, presented in English, with an American accent, they appear overwhelmingly foreign to her.  She has lived in America longer than on Portuguese soil, and even my family in Portugal will agree with me, somethings are just my Mom's preferences.

But there are a few things I have discovered that are WRONG.

Nobody in my family, or anyone else in Portugal in my experience eats fruit (fruta) before meals.  Even at family gatherings, my Mom is the only one at the table, peeling her oranges, eating the "Portuguese Way".  Her argument includes inherited wisdom from her mother (my Vovo), who practiced this throughout her life.  Vovo was known for her herbalist/superstitous wisdom; she knew exactly what kind of plant to boil for tea to cure whatever ails you.  As the modern health narrative goes, the earth is a bounty of recognized vitamins.  That is to say, many modern studies actually support eating fruit before a meal: it slows digestions & helps absorption of vitamins.

So who am I to believe?  A Minha Mae (my Mother)? In short, yes.  I believe in the larger truth of what she tells me, even if she is mistaken about the actual source.

(Now if I can only stop using the made-up words my Mom used for bodily functions.  It turns out, those words are not actually Portuguese.  My cousins still make fun of me for it.)

Mouras Encantadas

I was talking to a friend (daughter of Sicily) and mentioned the notion of an "Evil Eye".

"Do you think it's real?" she asked.

I wasn't sure.  I'm not sure what inexplicable phenomena I believe in or not.

My grandmother, Vovo, was afraid of thunder & lightning.  She'd go around screaming & unplugging things & getting people off the phone & covering up the mirrors. (Mirrors?)

My mom still reflexively gets off the phone during a thunderstorm.  Even a cell phone.

And there is this article, about mysterious Portuguese women (Mouras Encantadas) building stone tombs, dolmens, megaliths-whatever you want to call them.  These stone monuments are dated from 4800 BC to 1200 BC.

"Portuguese sources that were written down in the late 19th century, people seek out mouras in midday, at midnight or in midsummer to help them with illnesses, infertility or with hard luck in love. The mouras may require a moral test before giving help. In these stories mouras are surrounded by rabbits, chickens and piglets, which they may give to people as gifts.

There is another category of story where mouras appear to people as a sign of approaching death or appear to women in difficult childbirth and may even decide the outcome of the birth—whether mother and baby survive."

The research comes out of the work of Henna Lindstrom, who studied the phenomena beyond Portugal:

She said linguistics connects the Portuguese mouras to many other European goddesses, including the Greek Moirae, or Fates, who held everyone's destiny in their minds and to whom even Zeus had to answer. The Fates, like the Mouras Encantadas, wove mankind's fate on their looms and then cut it at death.

“Linguistics gives also a hint about the tasks of these moura-mari-marion goddesses by connecting them to the themes of death and spirits, and folkloristics connect them to life, fertility, health and old wisdom,”  Lindström wrote.

My friend also asked if the Azores were thought to be the lost islands of Atlantis.  (A topic for another time!)