ciadoncha; ¡cuántos recuerdos - Webpages at SCU - Santa Clara ...

The choosing of the child’s name has also changed over time. At first, the day
that the child was born the father would go to church to consult with the priest and the
name of that day’s saint was given to the child. Practically the priest read all of that
day’s saint’s names and one of those names was chosen.
There was also one time where the grandparent’s names were used. One
participant explained to me that in his era, it was very arrogant to give the child the father
or mother’s name and it was better to honor the grandparents by choosing their name.
Another participant told me that since they were looking for a beautiful name for
their child, they decided to open the bible and that is where they got the name for their
second child. Others have chosen their child’s name thinking of their relatives, either
uncles or aunts of the newborn.
One interesting case is about a participant that mentioned that when he arrived to
ask the priest to baptize his daughter, the priest told him that the child’s name sounded
Russian. Therefore, he was going to give her another name that sounded Spaniard in
front of the name that they had chosen. The participant told me that in the baptismal
papers, the newborn is listed with those two names, but in the civil registry she appears
with only the name that he and his wife had wanted to name her from the very beginning.
The childhood, the games, and the First Communion
All of the interviews for this piece of work were very special moments for me, but
perhaps one of the most intimate ones was when I sat down with one of the elders and I
listened to her tell me how her childhood had been. It touched me to see how in such a
tired body, those eyes shone more than ever upon remembering her childhood. Her
mouth constantly drew a smile and she even began to remember songs and names of
people that I had never her talk about before.
In the memories of the participants of this study, we went back to 1920 and 1930.
In this era life was very different. In the first place, it was not rare for a woman to die at
giving birth and leave a few children as orphans. Many children of that era grew up in
the homes of aunts and uncles or other relatives. Nevertheless, upon speaking of their
childhood many remember the nicer and more pleasant times, and it is as though their
childhood had been fully of happy times and a lot of excitement.
One participant told me how her and her siblings played with very simple things,
like their mother’s pins, matchboxes, branches from a plant, and the “tabas” (knee
bones). All of the toys were made by themselves. I wanted to understand more how they
played and I asked them to tell me about some of their hobbies and pastimes.
The game of needles consisted of getting dry dirt, covering the needles and
throwing a small rock on top of them to uncover the needles. The winner was the one
who uncovered the most needles.
99