COMMENTS by David Powell PhD Australia
G’day John,
A few comments. It was not uncommon for slaves to take the surnames of their masters. This was before the civil war, obviously. I know of several afro-american Estes lines which have no Estes blood but got the name because an ancestor was a slave to an Estes at one stage. To follow from that it is quite possible that a slave owner may have chosen surnames for his slaves and sometimes the choice may have been sarcastic or out of humour. The name meaning “secret lover” in Spanish COLLINS dictionary Querindongo may have come about cuz the slave owner (a Spanish gent?) knew of a particular slave’s amorous adventures and gave him the name in jest.
Good point but we can’t take Curacao and juxtaposition it with the USA except as a curiosity and a possible scenario.
You also cite the IGI a lot. I prolly dont have to tell you that the IGI as a refernce contains both good and bad material. If you stick to the parish registar extracts, they are generally reliable, tho’ there are typographical errors. However the information which includes “about” dates needs to be taken as the guesswork that it is. It may be reasonably close to the unknown truth, or it may be a long way from it.Some of my UK lines go back to mediaeval times and the ‘about’ dates in the IGI can vary a lot for the one individual .. sometimes by 200 years or more. Also, not just the ‘about dates’ are sometimes dubious, so too are the relationships. In one medieval line the same family group is grafted into the extended family in the IGI in at least three places, two of which are more than 200 years apart.
Good point. IGI is at times faulty.
I agree the african origin theory isn’t likely given that surnames there are a recent thing and the name in north america predates 1800. I suspect most pre-1863 ‘Black’ surnames in the US were given to the slaves by their owners, prolly to distinguish two slaves with the same forename.
You also have to be careful about seeming conincidences between similar sounding names and words. As in nature, parallel evolution takes place amongst surnames. The surname may mean something in Spanish (even archaic Spanish), but that does not mean that is the origin of the name. I mentioned before some Estes became Etheridges and some Etheridges became Estes. I’m not saying that the surname is not connected to the Spanish word .. it’s possible .. just that simply because it sounds the same, even spelled almost the same, is not proof of a connection. If that were the case then the d’Este and Estes link would be a proven fact. Which it isn’t. :)
With the earlist mention of the name being in the 1700’s, that does suggest a ‘modern’ origin for the name. Either a slave being given the name by his master or a newly freed slave choosing the name (possibly keeping in mind the Spanish meaning, or the Spanish may be a red herring).
The fact that the name doesn’t appear in spain suggests a new world origin, tho’ the KIRINDONGO appearances in Holland are curious. Has any attempt been made to look at the ancestry of those folk? Is their name a Dutch name that can be traced back 100’s years? Or are they descended from someone who emigrated from north america 100 years ago or so? Maybe even an american who settled in holland after ww2? That would be enuf time for the 10 (or more?) that you mention in Holland. The smaller number in Holland than in the US merely reflects the much larger US population.
cheers,
David
Hello David,
An excellent critique !
I corrected the Holland issue as all Quirindongo and various variations came directly from Curacao as migrants after WW II.
Cheers
John
Ps
The WILL mentioned in the LDS of Maria Sabina DIAS (died in 1818) is the one big hole in the presentation. Carmen QUIRINDONGO of Salt Lake City provided the names of Pedro QUIRINDONGO’s children. This is an indication to me that a WILL was involved in the LDS record and Carmen may have seen an abstract of it in Guía al archivo general de Puerto Rico from LDS. Carmen doesn’t remember the source of the information or if real estate in Curacao or PR was mentioned. I am unable to get the original WILL from PR nor CURACAO. It may not exist except in the LDS archives after all these yrs because there is no response from PR or Curacao by POST altho’ I wrote that I will pay any price required.
Hello John,
The will .. or
possibly a family bible .. may be squirrelled away somewhere in the LDS’ Salt
Lake archives. Or at least a copy of the will or bible. I don’t really do any
US research myself all my research is compiled from the research of others - my
areas of interest are the UK, Ireland and Australia. I have a reasonably good
idea of what resources are available for those areas and how to access them ..
not so the US, let alone elsewhere. I can only guess. :) cheers, David dragon@triode.net.au webpage
Comments from Luis QUIRINDONGO in
PR
It (surname QUIRINDONGO) probably has to do with the Spanish word “querendón” (a derivative of “querer” which means someone who is UNOFFICIALLY preferred. It does not always have a negative meaning, e.g. the “teacher’s pet” in a classroom could be the “querendón”. The suffix “go” or “ongo”, however, is added to such words as a negative modifier used to convey irony or disdain (this would be used for a man who is “unofficially preferred” (by a married woman). I think it originated in the new world.
The phrase “negro olandes” (choppy Spanish for “negro holandés”) literally means “Dutch neger”. However, Curacao was a Dutch colony for a long time, and imported slaves who came from there were often designated like that (obviously, the slave was not even considered a person so his origin did not matter, it was the nationality of his masters or the place he was imported from). I believe the custom was applied as well to freed slaves who came from these parts
The “black cult” mentioned in one of the entries is most likely what we call “espiritismo”.(spiritualism), which essentially consists in worship of the dead. There are records of this in some of the older generations of Quirindongos (About 3 or 4 above ours). This was practiced in secret meetings across the island, primordially in towns around the center of the island which were isolated from the metro areas (Loiza would be a good candidate for that). Sometimes they made marches like the ones mentioned.
• The only plus I would see for the Sub-Saharan African theory is that Quirindongos (at least, all the ones I have seen in Puerto Rico, where I live) have a lot of physical traits which seem to be African in origin (pronounced lower lip, large cheeks, some particular facial traits, etc.). The fact that Pedro Quirindongo was a slave (his bloodline was originally African) would explain that, though.
The word Querendon
Here are the three definitions I found:
1) Lat. Am. Very emotive, loving or caring.
2) Fig., Slang. Loved or favorite one. (this would be the “teacher’s pet”—just an example, of course, it means any favorite, usually unofficially favorite)
3) Slang. Beloved or secret lover. (in Spanish, amante—literally means “lover” but in Latin America it almost always means lover as opposed to spouse)
The third would be the one that matches the “gigolo” meaning.
the other suffix “don” or “endon” which is added to other words aside from querer, is an augmentative. Querendon would mean “very loved”, “very loving” or “very desired”, and is not necessarily negative. The “go” and “ongo” are always negative.
“Querendongo” does not exist in Spanish (more specifically, it is not accepted by the RAE), but is probably a constructed word. The suffixes “go” and “ongo” were added to a lot of words—they still are—even when the final version is not a real word. The idea is to give the root word a negative tone.
It would be more feasible then that the name (KIRINDONGO) was a changed version of a different Amerindian word—or a town name, for that matter—that existed before the general acceptance of surnames.
Still, I think there is a possibility that Pedro QUIRINDONGO received it as a nickname first and then used it as a surname.
I’ll admit I thought for a long time that our surname was African. In fact, most Quirindongos I have talked to seem to think the same. There are two reasons:
1) as I mentioned before, most of us have African racial features, myself included. More African/Taino, actually, but predominantly African.
2) The name QUIRINDONGO or KIRINDONGO is made up predominantly by oclusive consonants, which is one of the distinguishing features of most Sub-Saharan languages. That is to say, it “sounds” African. [You may know this already but oclusives are those consonants that require a burst of air and some cheek action to pronounce: like the B, Q, K, D, etc.]
But then again, there were also words like that in Spanish, mostly words adopted by the European slave masters due to constant contact with the African slaves. Puerto Rico has several of those even today. (false cognates and/or false homonyms)
BTW, what caught my eye immediately was these “Taino chiefs”. Someone actually says that they run a Taino tribe in PR???? (from New Jersey ???) Sure their genes are there, but the Tainos do NOT have surviving “tribes” like the Native Americans in the US. Some groups of Puerto Ricans get special privileges and economic aids from the Feds by impersonating fake “tribes”, though, and I’ll bet that these guys are some of them.
I think it’s possible that KIRING DONGO means FRESH WATER in Amerindian but there may be some problems verifying it. For example:
1) There are several Amerindian dialects. You would have to figure out which one your father meant.
2) Keep in mind that the meaning of the words might be FRESH WATER even while the exact meaning is only SIMILAR to that. Words tend to lose or change part of their meaning when they have to be worded in another language, so FRESH WATER may only be a “close match” to what KIRING DONGO means specifically to an Amerindian, e.g. “clear lake”, “bright river” etc. etc. It sounds strange but linguistically speaking it’s probable that you’ll find that problem. The words might also reverse between langages, a simple example: FRESH WATER>>AGUA FRESCA in Spanish. Also when you have two languages what you see in writing in one may be different from what is actually pronounced in the other, for example, when a German says “ubersetzüng” he’s saying “oversetting”. When you think about it both are pronounced similarly, but the writing is totally different—what I mean to say is that KIRING DONGO may only be a rough estimate of “what the English speaker thought the Amerindian pronounced” so to say.
What I would recommend that you do to verify that is that you start with the noun (“water”), find what the root word for that is in the Amerindian dialect you want and see how similar it is to KIRING or DONGO. The root word is the basic form that all nouns similar to “water” come from, for example, in old Hebrew the root word for water is “yohm” (river or lake), and other word forms are “yam” (sea or ocean), “m’yum” (water per se that you draw from a well) and so forth. I’m using an example from a language that’s very different from any we know, but that’s because I’m guessing that Amerindian is very different from English or Spanish as well.
Once you’re done with the noun try the adjective “fresh”, which is tougher because it has a more abstract meaning and there may be several root words here. For example, when you talk about fresh water you might think of other things associated with “fresh”, like “clear” “beautiful”, “pure” etc. Try to find the Amerindian word for each of those, as well as words derived from those words, and compare with KIRING and DONGO.
Luis ljquirin@hotmail.com Tele 787-842-6587 Luis J. Quirindongo Ave. Constancia 4235 villa del Carmen Ponce, Puerto Rico 00716-2111 www.traduguide.com/tr/1889.htm
Hi,
Good critique and very perceptive. Your command in two languages is quite excellent for such a young person. I saw you were born in 1984. You could easily become a very good lawyer or other professional.
The word QUERENDON was a good find and I added it as is on this Webpage. Thanks.
The Black Cult parade in Loiza Aldea happens every year. Your explanation is too anecdotal. If “secret meetings” Why is it done in plain sight every year like the MARDI GRAS?
Your knowledge and perception of change in other foreign languages is quite excellent also. It approaches the GRIMM’S LAW (not a theory) model of European family of languages. Grimm proved for the most part with manifold proof that European languages emanated from Sanskrit therefore European languages are now called INDO-EUROPEAN.
Pedro QUIRINDONGO appears in the late 1700s as not a “slave” but a born free Black or mulatto, a “negro olandes” not an olandes negro or a negro libre natural de Curacao. If Pedro slave, he would have no surname.
Also ENGLISH as a language in which we are very influenced by today, had no importance in the 1700s CURACAO. SPANISH, PAPIAMENTO and to a smaller degree old-DUTCH were in vogue for the mostly 99% illiterate general population of the Caribbean.
Maria Magdalena KIRING DONGO was a Black slave freed in 1758 and was one of a very few which was given or requested a surname which in turn was or became a village place-name..
Johnq johnqu@aol.com johnqu@mindspring.com Tele 954 564 6624
John Henry Quirindongo 3000 ne 16 ave #310 ft lauderdale, FL 33334
Comments
from Marilu Mercalina in
Florida
Dear
Mr.Quirindongo,
I have read some of your articles about the Kirindongo surname.I don't know
about the origin of that name,but I can tell you that there are two towns with
that name in Curacao.Kirindongo Ariba and Kirindongo Abou.They are located near
the towns of Brievengat and Oost Jongbloed.I'm not sure but the former owners
of Oost Jongbloed were two Dutch brothers with the surname Sprockel or Sprock.
Many
people believe that the people of Curacao come from African slaves only.It's
not true.Most are mixed with African,European,Amerindian and Jewish.Also you
can't trust the surname everybody has.The surnames have been constantly
changing through the years.My family on mother's side for example are mixed
with African,Amerindian and European white.Their surname was Streedels,it was
later changed to Atimadora,which was the name of the wife of
Streedels.Atimadora was dark,I suppose she was of African origin.But all her
children had straight long hair and European and Amerindian features.Her
husband was of Amerindian and Dutch origin.She was not a slave,nor was her
mother and her aunt.I didn't find the surname Streedels on the internet on
Dutch website.But I did find it in New York,in the archives of the Dutch
Reformed Church.The name Stredels exists in the U.S.I also found the last name
Van Eps or Van Epps.The Van Eps on Curacao are family from the
Streedels in Curacao.
If
you want accurate information about your surname,you should consult the Jews.If
you search snoa Curacao you should find a website about the
snoa(synagogue).There you can find the emailaddress of the rabbi and you can
tell him your story.The Jews say that Papiamento is a mix of Spanish
,Portuguese,English,French,Dutch,Hebrew and Arawak.So they know.And the way of
life of the people of Curacao was similar to that of the Taino descendants.We
have their words cabuya,yuana for iguana ,maishi for mais.
I
hope I have helped you,
Sincerely,
http://home.mindspring.com/~johnqu/My%20CONCLUSIONS.htm