Cucuza

To be a woman with the heart of a man and the drive of a stallion but having the bad luck to be born in an era when women were nothing more than property was the most frustrating and devastating situation for my grandmother. To say she was a strong woman is an understatement.

Diana Emilia Pichardo Martinez, Diana, like the name implies, was an amazon. This was a woman without fears and without moral control. I say that with all the love, but my grandmother didn’t ever consider that maybe, just maybe, she didn’t need the next man or the next adventure. She never married–explaining that “a woman who married a man deserved anything she got”, but, with this freedom also came great loss and pain. No one can go through life just following their impulses and not get hurt. This is the story of a woman born a century too early who had an extraordinary life.

Mama Diana was born on the 23rd of December of 1893, in the province of Bani, in the southern area of the Dominican Republic. Her father, Alfredo “Firo” Pichardo , was the governor of the Bani province when Diana was small. He was a very powerful man who ended up having to leave the island and hide in Curacao for a while due to politics. Firo came from a long line of very strong men whose descendants arrived in the island in the early 1600’s. This is a family abounding with heroes, generals, diplomats, and many artists from pianists to sopranos, poets and historians. Mama Diana’s Mother was Emilia Pimentel. We don’t know much about her or her family.

Her father walked out on her mother and her at age six. They never married and Mama Diana’s birth certificate states it was an out of wedlock birth. In fact, he didn’t marry any of the women
and all the birth declarations say “natural” which means out of wedlock. Some where born in Curacao. That lady then went on to get with my uncle Manolito Baquero’s mother’s father and had all the Ricarts, so they are all half brothers and sisters of my grandmother’s half brothers and sisters. (Manolito Baquero was my aunt Josefina’s husband.) (my other aunt, Ivelise Nadal Dalmau was married to Enrrique Ricart, one of my grandmother’s half siblings, half siblings.) I know, that is the D.R.

From there on she was in charge of her mother and grandmother who were women of the time –not being able to survive without the authority of a man. Her mother was a great seamstress and I believe her mother also. This is how my grandmother got the sewing gift. She was amazing.

In her late teens, she fell in love with Octavio (Tavito) Castillo. She got pregnant and had her first daughter Diana Castillo Pichardo. Three other children followed: Celeste, Rafael Octavio Castillo (Fefé) y Encarnación (Cachón). Mama Diana told us a story that Tavito had not declared Celeste. (she thought that he felt that it wasn’t important, maybe because she was a girl). But when tio Fefé was born he wanted to go a declared him. When they were at the registry she made him declare Celeste. I have a screenshot of the registry, Celeste is declared on the left page as born the year before, and Fefé is on the right page saying he was born just a few days before..

Tavito and Mamá Diana were together for a few years. But, at some point he got Mamá Diana’s friend pregnant and she had a family that made him marry her. So that is how that came to an end. This woman also went out of her way to make sure that he didn’t have anything more to do with Mamá Diana and she had a very hard time raising the children without much support from him. My grandmother’s kids always ended up with her mother and grandmother. It was just a thing. Then she would go out to make the money and send it to them. Then she would meet another man and have another kid. And so on. 
(Because everyone is related, my first cousin Vinicio Arvelo  was married to one of these people’s daughters.)

My aunt Celeste was known in the area for being the most beautiful woman in the Southwest. Even as a teenager she was already standing out. She, like my mother, was very tall, had light eyes and beautiful chestnut hair.

When Celeste was 15, Tavito had a huge party for her birthday and invited Rafael Trujillo Molina, the dictator, who had a thing about young girls. It is said that Tavito offered him Celeste. The fact is that Trujillo took her and she was his “mistress” (whether she wanted to or not) for about 3 years until she got too old for him. No one know exactly how, but she tried to kill herself with a gun and somehow failed. She was taken to the Military hospital where Trujillo gave orders to do whatever it took to save her life. They did. After this she was basically given to a military that was close to Trujillo and he married her. This was Trujillo’s usual disposal method for all the girls he took and then tired of. He would find someone to gift them to. Usually someone in his personal guard or close. I know my mother knew his name, but I can’t remember it. They had one child, Celeste, who my mother visited every once in a while. I went with her a few times. Specially when I was younger, before my grandmother died. Then, Celeste got pregnant again, and apparently, injuries from the attempted suicide came back up and she died along with her child. Very young. I believe she was 25 or so.

In gratitude for giving him his daughter, Trujillo gave Tavito many government contracts which made him a very rich man. This always hurt my grandmother. That he sold her to Trujillo in exchange for government contracts. All of this made my grandmother nuts. These were very dark years that she just had no say or control over since she was just a woman. When Celeste got sick and passed my grandmother tried to get Tavito to help and he wouldn’t even answer the door or letters. t was very maddening for my grandmother.

I knew my Mom’s other three half siblings my whole life. Tio Fefé lived most of the time with my grandmother (for free since my grandfather and my mother always sent her money). As far as I knew, he never amounted to anything, but had several kids whom I also knew. He was a nice guy when he was sober. He was the most Indian looking of the kids. I guess Tavito, as well as my grandmother, had a lot of Taino Indian blood. Diana and Cachón were also very Taino looking.

A few years later Cucuza went to Santo Domingo looking for opportunity as a seamstress. There she met a Dutch-Dominican baseball player named José María Pou Leyba. With him she had Graciosa Deidamia Pou Pichardo (Dedé). Tia Dedé always stood out being blonde and blue eyed in the DR. Also very tall like Celeste and my mother. Then, the inevitable happened, he got someone else pregnant and had to marry her. So my grandmother took Dedé with her to San Andrés. I believe she had a relative that lived there. She thought she could do enough sewing in the area to support her, but that wasn’t the case.

Alone and with no direction, she decided to try her luck in San Pedro de Macorís. It just so happened that my grandfather, Benjamin Alfredo Dalmau Rijo (Fello), was the head of the port of San Pedro de Macoris. By that time he was a young and handsome bachelor and somewhat wealthy from different business and investments. My grandmother was an amazon woman and my grandfather was mesmerized by both her beauty and strength. (Or so he told my mother.). He owned the passenger and cargo Ferry boat that connected San Pedro de Macorís to San Andrés. This is the only way my grandmother could get there. In those days it was very dangerous to travel by land. You might get robbed or worse. The island didn’t have very good roads either and it was still carriage days. It could take you a day traveling just from San Andrés to San Pedro.

In the 1920s San Pedro de Macorís was the cultural and commercial mecca of the island. It was going through what they called the “dance of the millions”. There were nine sugar mills in town with lots of businesses and foreign investors. You could get anything your heart desired from Europe and Asia. The main island post office, the main airport (PanAm airplanes landed on the river), a ship port, and anything else important were all there. There was an opera house, a very exclusive country club, and anything else you would expect in a boom town. My mother’s aunt, who was into all that, was one of the people traveling to Europe every year, involved in the country club and one of the supporters of the Opera House. It was a happening town.

The story goes that my grandfather happened to have been in the boat that time and that he noticed her right away. That by the time they got to the port, he gave the orders to gather all her things and not charge her for them. He then asked if she had a place to stay at which my grandma answered she didn’t, yet. There was a small house he owned, among others, to keep baseball players that he backed. Baseball was already starting to be huge in the D.R. and specially in San Pedro with the Las Estrellas Orientales team. He was always investing in different people. There was one player living there at the time and he had him move so he could put my grandmother there. She said it didn’t take long for them to become an item. It must have been quite a pair. Their relationship was very intense and always rocky since my grandfather was such a powerful man and my grandmother such a strong woman.

In no time they were living together in another house close to the beach. (When I was little these areas were still in existence and my mother took me to go see all these places.) According to both my grandfather and grandmother, my grandfather offered to marry her over and over. He even told his mother he was going to. But my grandmother just wouldn’t.

My uncle Mincho Alfredo Dalmau Pichardo was born in 1923. My mother came three years later. Although they were the only children my grandfather ever had, they were, of course, out of wedlock and considered bastards by society. Even their birth certificates say so. This is something that would haunt my mother the rest of her life. Even though she grew up taller, smarter and prettier than everyone else around her, she was a bastard She was always insecure about this. Now it sounds absurd, but in those days bastard children didn’t enjoy the same privileges as their “legitimate:” counterparts. This would start changing after Trujillo changed the laws of the country giving equal rights to illegitimate children since he had his own son Ranfis out of wedlock.

At some point, Cucuza found out my grandfather was fooling around with someone and almost killed him. (She was a big woman and he wasn’t so big.) and the relationship came to an end.

It is said that she was, maybe, leaving town in a coach and he had a group of men intercept the coach and kidnap the kids. There was a mentor of my grandfather’s that found out about this and tried to convince him that this was not a good thing to do, specially for the kids. So, my grandfather then offered to get a house for my grandmother and the kids in San Pedro. But, being that my grandmother was who she was, she turned him down because she said she would always belong to him as long she was under a roof he paid for. Not even a small thought about the well being of the kids. Oh well, that’s who she was. So, she left, leaving the kids behind and went back to Baní.

My grandfather’s sister tia Marina’s husband had died of pneumonia, his matron sister Anacaona  (Mamá Caona), and his mother needed to be closer to him now, so he bought a big house for all of them. This is where my mother and uncle grew up with 5 cousins, two aunts and a grandmother in San Pedro de Macorís. The stories were never ending with all these kids under one roof and two women who didn’t worry about what the kids got into.

I don’t know at what point my grandmother’s grandmother and mother died, but, she was in Baní for many years after. She had a piece of land and a very rustic Dominican country house close to the Baní River for years. There was also a small stream closer to the house so she never hurt for water. I believe my grandfather bought her the land that house was on. And, of course, he sent her money every month for the rest of her life. I believe that he never stopped being totally in love with her and always took care of her well being. But, she was never going to give in and go back. Plus, she said she was done having Children. My mother, apparently, weighed 13 pounds at birth and my grandmother didn’t want to go through that again.

I did not mention from a young age she could talk with spirits. They guided her and were her companions until the day she died. It was not unusual while speaking with you to look away into space and come back to the conversation with a different take than before. (About a year before my husband Tommy got to the island, we were talking, she stopped, went into her mind, came back and told me that the man I was going to marry had not arrived at the island yet. This was absolutely true. He got there about a year later.) There were many moments like these in my life where Mamá Diana had some awareness about things in my or my mother’s life. As far back as I can remember, when Mamá Diana came to visit there was always a sense of security that I never felt any other time.

Because of this gift she was able to use this to heal people and lived the greater part of her life doing just that. Cucuza, as she was known, was the shaman of the area where she lived. People traveled to see her or she went to them. She told us that she would find out or feel that someone needed her, and, even in the middle of the night, she would grab her machete, a lamp and go. She was going to get there and heal them. She healed the body, mind and spirit. The old way. Candelo, a very strong Dominican Voodoo spirit, was who she would invoke to heal. It would enter her body and help her heal her patients.

She was a very adept herbalist and made all her own medicines Even when I was small it was common knowledge for your mother to prepare all sorts of remedies to heal her children. My parents took care of most of our medical needs at home with the exception of vaccines and anything more serious than childhood diseases and flues. But the rest was some herb or some concoction. When she visited she would bring little jars of things she had prepared or while she was there my mother and her would make some. People paid her if they could, usually with produce or meat they raised.

My entire life we went to Baní a few times a year to visit her. It was one of my favorite places on earth with that river close by. Her yard was just spectacular. She was an avid gardener and had some of the most beautiful roses I had ever seen. She could start them from cuttings. Nothing was impossible. She did everything herself. It was “her” garden. She also collected a lot of plants I had never seen before (probably a lot of healing plants, but every time we went to see her, we always came back home with baby plants or cuttings.)

At one point in 1959, after my father asked for asylum in Puerto Rico, my mother had sent her our monkey Cheetah. She had had her many years and the monkey was still alive and well. So, on top of everything else, this was another great treat for us kids every time we went to see her. I could never tire of Cheetah.

I remember most of those times we went to visit Cucuza. The smells, the feelings, the area. It was always special. I was always just mesmerized by her. Everything she said or did was important to me.

By 1969 or so, she was getting older and my uncle Fefé was by then an impossible drunk, out of control, who was taking advantage of her. The thing is that they had a fight and he hurt her. She got most of her stuff, got a truck and showed up at our house in Arroyo Hondo. My mother put all her stuff in our basement and set her up in one of the rooms. Then she went to my grandfather and told him what was going on. He immediately started looking for a house for her. It just so happened that a good friend was starting a new neighborhood in the Agustinas. So, he bought her one. He also upped her monthly allowance because it cost more to live in Santo Domingo. So that is how she came to be in the city. She had a really nice two bedroom house with another fantastic garden full of roses. She had to give away Cheetah to some US religious missionaries since she couldn’t bring her to the city, which was sad. They had been together for so many years. But, my grandma got this little dog that became her absolute companion.

My grandfather passed in 1973 and he left an account set up to continue her allowance and whatever she needed until her death. This is how it was done.

At some point, in the 1980’s she grew tired of the Agustinas and decided to move closer to the shore. I don’t know if my mother help her buy it or if it was a rental. But that is where she lived until she passed away. Again, roses in the yard, although it was a much smaller garden since she was so much older. By then some of my uncle Fefé’s kids were always around and mooching off of her. It was a big problem. But, there was nothing my mom could do and, at least she wasn’t alone all the time. She wouldn’t hear of having a nurse or anyone else to come around.

In 1983 I went to see her and took my daughter Avaryl who was around 3 years old. My grandmother and her had some kind of understanding from the get go. They got along just fine. My grandmother told me how special she was. And gave me advice on how to deal with her. (Apparently, she had the family trait of that incredible strength like her, my Mother and Jackie.) I really appreciated it. She wasn’t wrong.

In her youth she had taught herself the guitar, French and English, and she learned poetry as an art. (I imagine these languages were important to deal with the Haitians and the US invaders of 1916.) She was also quite a dancer. That day she recited poems to us and told us wonderful s stories about her younger years. About her wonderings around souther DR. About going in this cave that had been some kind of a special religious place for the Taino Indians and it had an altar of sorts that was made up of rock crystal or something like that.

Then she told us that the Spirit Candelo had been coming around again for a few months by then. Around her 60s she decided that it was too much for her body because, by then, it would raise her blood pressure. So she did some kind of ritual that made him leave her alone. But, he was now back. So, she thought he was coming to take her. I will never forget that visit.

That was the last time I saw her. A couple of months later she had a stroke and passed away. She was 93 years old. (I forgot to mention that she always smoked a pipe of Dominican tobacco and she still did then and had a hidden bottle of rum by her rocker all the time. My mother would bring the family doctor to see her. He would tell her to stop smoking and drinking. As soon as he left she would say, “as if! He probably leaves here to do the same at his house.”

My mother and tio Mincho did a big funeral at the Blandino Funeral Home and then had her buried in the Santo Domingo Cemetery. The family was quite large so it needed to be a big deal.

Just a note: on the way home from there, my mother and I went by my grandmother’s house to check it out, and make sure it was locked. When we got there, there was a truck out front and my mother’s half brother Fefé’s kids were taking all my grandmother’s stuff. Well, that didn’t happen. My mother stopped them, had a locksmith come to change the locks and took over the house. She eventually gave them a few things, but, we needed a new refrigerator and my mother had just bought a new one for my grandma, so we got that. The furniture wasn’t the super modern style my mother loved, so she gave that to them. But, after that fiasco, my mother distanced herself from that part of the family. I don’t believe she ever spoke to Fefé again after the whole fight that made my grandmother leave Baní. He sold all her stuff and lost the house or sold it without giving anyone else any of the money. She just “erased him”, like she used to say.

She did stay close with her Sister Diana until she left for the US in her 80s. She lived in New York City until her death.

My mom tried to keep up with Dedé but something happened and they weren’t as close.