“Is it?” He poured her a glass of pipeño . “When you were five, you told me you heard your dead grandmother’s voice in the nothofagus forest. You said the trees were hablando etimologías . Speaking the first language.”
Luna felt a chill that had nothing to do with the Patagonian winter.
From Quechua: cura (priest) + caví (to see). But the people of the Maule say it comes from curi (black) + caví (lookout). A hill where the Spanish once hanged a female healer. Her last word became the name of the town. No one remembers the word. Only the shape it left in the air.
(the chilean horsefly). From onomatopoeia: chuch-oca (the buzz that precedes a sting). But a huaso in Rancagua insisted it comes from chu (to suck) + choca (to startle). “The fly is the devil’s teaspoon,” he said. “It stirs your blood to remind you you have some.”
From Mapudungun: chon (head) + chon (to fly). A sorcerer’s severed head with owl ears. The word’s true root is not anatomical. It is the sound of a secret leaving the body.
“Is it?” He poured her a glass of pipeño . “When you were five, you told me you heard your dead grandmother’s voice in the nothofagus forest. You said the trees were hablando etimologías . Speaking the first language.”
Luna felt a chill that had nothing to do with the Patagonian winter. etimologias chile
From Quechua: cura (priest) + caví (to see). But the people of the Maule say it comes from curi (black) + caví (lookout). A hill where the Spanish once hanged a female healer. Her last word became the name of the town. No one remembers the word. Only the shape it left in the air. “Is it
(the chilean horsefly). From onomatopoeia: chuch-oca (the buzz that precedes a sting). But a huaso in Rancagua insisted it comes from chu (to suck) + choca (to startle). “The fly is the devil’s teaspoon,” he said. “It stirs your blood to remind you you have some.” Speaking the first language
From Mapudungun: chon (head) + chon (to fly). A sorcerer’s severed head with owl ears. The word’s true root is not anatomical. It is the sound of a secret leaving the body.