The legend of Dolores Rondón

Few meters near to the entrance of the Cemetery of the Santo Cristo del Buen Viaje, of the city of Camagüey, it is a supposed sepulchre in which appear these inscribed rhymes as epitaph that according to local historians, it appeared there in 1833.

Immediately, and until our days, the curiosity began to knit the history, denied by recent investigations, but once transformed into legend, it is part of the traditions, of the Camagüey’s heritage.

It is said that Dolores Rondón was a beautiful Creole, with grace and roguery, very cheerful, who ended up being the pride of the neighborhood where she lived, some assured that she was daughter of a Catalan, owner of a mixed store, and a Creole mulatta.
Near Dolores's house there was a barber's shop that had for owner a youth mulatto that was a versatile life survival, named Francisco Juan de Molla y Escobar who was crazy in love with the youth, the one that lavished him all types of cold shoulders, scorns and repulses.

The girl Dolores married a Spanish officer, who made it elevate her social distinction. But this condition didn't last much after her husband died early, being the youth practically in the anonymity.

Years later somebody identifies her among The Carmen's sick persons, existing hospital in the city for women, and when knowing of the lover's serious state, the barber Francisco took care of her until the moment of her death.

The funeral was of poor people, the sepulchre is the poor people, and the villagers attribute him the rhymes from the epitaph to the unfortunate gallant.

From then on, everybody who arrives to the place where it is said that the Dolores's rest remains, it will be wrapped by the mystery of the legend and the fragrance of the small bouquet of flowers that accompany to the cross and the epitaph. (by María Delys Cruz Palenzuela)

Foundation of Camaguey: an enigma lost in time

Camaguey, Cuba. When was founded the Village of Santa Maria del Puerto del Principe? Historians, archaeologists, and people in general have rekindled the controversy over the foundation date of this city, today Camaguey, and we can not redict clear up yet.

Built by the coasts of Nuevitas harbour, later moved to the indigenous village of Caonao and afterward, in 1528, to its current settlement, the tradition marks the origin of the city on February 2nd, 1514.

But this is only a tradition, because the official document, its copies or its further certification are nonexistent or missing, even when researchers have searched them in the Archive of the Indies, in Spain.

Did the wanted file disappear in the flames of one of the fires that devastated Puerto Principe, didn’t it? Did it ever exist? In 1986, the publication of the book "La fundación de las primeras Villas de la Isla de Cuba", (The foundation of the first villages of the Island of Cuba), written by PhD Hortensia Pichardo called into question the year 1514, as the time the town was founded.

After analyzing several documents like the correspondence exchanged between the King of Spain and Governor Diego Velásquez, she did not find the date when the cornerstone of this settlement was first set and inferred that it occurred on June or July 1515.

The new date, however, also lacks evidence and goes around in the hurricane of suppositions. Responses came fast and according to one of them, foundation did occur on February 2nd, 1514, but Velásquez didn’t tell the monarch for reasons presumably explained in that hypothesis.

Once again the supposition and the overwhelming lack of evidence. In 2005, the title "Cultura y costumbres en Puerto Príncipe. Siglos XVI y XVII" (Culture and customs in Puerto Principe. Centuries 16th and 17th) by local historian Amparo Fernández was published. It was another log thrown to the fireplace.

The book cites excerpts of the memoirs written by priest Ramón Antonio Miró in the 19th century. Based on documents and testimonies, the minister reflects how there were mortal remains in the shire since 1513.

Amparo Fernández also refers that the changes of places the village went through also included the moves of the dead to each site.

Another criteria surrounding the foundational year of Camagüey aroused, but also accompanied by objections: 1513, 1514 ó 1515? Who has the answer? No one, and the pros and cons fall like a diluvium rain.

Meanwhile, above all the contradictions, the people of Camaguey, faithful to their traditions, party the birth of Santa Maria del Puerto del Principe on February 2nd every year. (By Adolfo Silva)

The old Camagüey: historical review

by Manuel Villabella

Camagüey not only is distinguished for its very autochthonous architectural characteristics, there is a feature that it feels to each step and that it also identifies us: the daily speak. These peculiarities in saying come from previous centuries and they took root, fundamentally, in the XIX century.

Even nowadays we use the archaic “abur” when saying goodbye, frequently transformed into the diminutive “aburito”. This way the “goodbye” was substituted and the archaic “agur” of the Spanish Middle Ages was become into a local expression of Camaguey. To the homemade recipient, used nowadays to freeze the water and to transform it in ice, some called him “artena”, a copy perhaps of the “trough”, recipient where the barbers prepared the lather for shaving.

In architecture, we are practically inventors, in the XIX century, of the mid pilasters that are observed still in the facades of old colonial mansions, they are those columns that are split in the middle and they don't join to the floor, also of the “dust cover”, that eaves who stands out of the houses and due to them we wonder: From what dust did them really cover us? The entrance step of the houses is the “hinge” and those that had a considerable height and wide able to sit down the family to refresh in the hot afternoons or nights, they denominated them “platforms”.

Those who inhabited the periphery of the city, called marginal, they were named “Indians” and those areas were denominated “suburbs”, in a vulgar way. It is well-known the characteristic shout from Camagüey. The “vos” and the “vos sabéis”, they proliferated per centuries and people included them in its vocabulary and adapted it to its way of popular slang, the “vosabeí” was born this way, among other terms that became peculiar.

Which was the cause for these archaisms proliferated? The jurisdiction of Puerto Príncipe, distant of the sea, it also lacked terrestrial communication with the rest of the island. The city possessed a particular geographical unit. Puerto Príncipe opened up to the rest of the island, with the arrival of the railroad, in the middle of the XIX century, but for that time town expressions and words were already very marked in the form of speaking.