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 Translated by
Dorothy E. Mosby

W E AT H E R E D
MEN

THE FOUR
MIRRORS
Two Novels of Afro-Costa Rican Identity
 Afro-Latin@ Diasporas

Series Editors
Natasha Gordon-Chipembere
Heredia, Costa Rica

Miriam Jiménez Román

afrolatin@ forum
New York, USA

Edward Paulino
Department of History
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
New York, USA
The Afro-Latin@ Diasporas book series publishes scholarly and crea-
tive writing on the African diasporic experience in Latin America, the
Caribbean, and the United States. The series includes books which
address all aspects of Afro-Latin@ life and cultural expression through-
out the hemisphere, with a strong focus on Afro-Latin@s in the United
States. This series is the first-of-its-kind to combine such a broad range
of topics, including religion, race, transnational identity, history, litera-
ture, music and the arts, social and cultural theory, biography, class and
economic relations, gender, sexuality, sociology, politics, and migration.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14759
 Dorothy E. Mosby

Quince Duncan's
Weathered Men
and The Four Mirrors
Two Novels of Afro-Costa Rican
Identity
Dorothy E. Mosby
Department of Spanish, Latina/o and Latin
American Studies
Mount Holyoke College
South Hadley, MA, USA

Translated by Dorothy E. Mosby

Afro-Latin@ Diasporas
ISBN 978-3-319-97534-4 ISBN 978-3-319-97535-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97535-1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018951044

Translation from the Spanish language edition: Hombres curtidos by Quince Duncan, © Cuadernos de
Arte Popular 1971, and Los cuatro espejos by Quince Duncan, © Editorial Costa Rica 1973. All Rights
Reserved.
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG, part of Springer Nature 2018
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse
of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and
transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by
similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt
from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein
or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to
jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Series logo inspired by “Le Marron Inconnu” by Haitian sculptor Albert Mangones

Cover credit: Stuart Pearce/Alamy Stock Photo

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 A mis ancestras—
a las que siempre llevo en la punta de la lengua
y las ancestras cuyos nombres se desconocen,
pero vibran en mi sangre.
 Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr.

Quince Duncan for his patience and generosity. I am grateful for his
permission to translate his work and the enormous trust and confidence
placed in me. This translation emerged from a humble request at the
end of 2011, and it is a joy to bring his work to a wider audience of
readers.
I am indebted to Natasha Gordon-Chipembere, whose encourage-
ment and belief in this translation helped make this dream a beauti-
ful reality. I am grateful for her determination to make sure that don
Quince’s work reaches an English-speaking public.
A generous sabbatical leave from Mount Holyoke College during
the Spring 2016 semester enabled me to complete first drafts of both
novels. I also thank my colleague Roberto Márquez for reading an early
and very rough draft of Hombres curtidos, and for his sage advice to a
novice translator. Additionally, I want to acknowledge the work of Dr.
Dellita Martin-Ogunsola who paved the way for me. As don Quince’s
first translator, she did a masterful job translating his short fiction into
English and I am thankful.

vii
viii   Acknowledgements

As always, deep appreciation for my US and Costa Rican fam-

ily, whose support has offered me more than I could ever express
with words, especially my parents, Helen and James Mosby, Sheridan
Wigginton, Franklin Perry, Dlia. McDonald, Gustavo Córdoba
González, and Karla Araya Araya. Thank you to my faithful writing
accountability buddies, Patricia and Madeline, whose words of reas-
surance and inspirational example kept me motivated through the
vicissitudes of department chairing, teaching, advising, promotion,
mid-career malaise, administrative work, and simply being human.
Finally, I would like to share my heartfelt gratitude for my spouse,
Carol Knight-Mosby. Carol has been my Jamaican Creole native
informant for almost twenty years and made sure the bills got paid dur-
ing prolonged sojourns in Central America. In the words of Miss Lou,
“Me darling love, me lickle dove,/Me dumpling, me gizada,/Me sweetie
Sue, I goes fa you/Like how flies goes fa sugar.”
 Contents

Introduction 1

Weathered Men 17
Part I 18
Chapter One: The Return 18
Chapter Two: The Dance 22
Chapter Three: Yesterday 29
Chapter Four: Knowing 40
Chapter Five: The Legacy 43
Chapter Six: The Vine 48
Part II 59
Chapter Seven: Incoherence 59
Chapter Eight: The Question 69
Chapter Nine: Brutus 70
Chapter Ten: In the Beginning 74
Part III 80
Chapter Eleven: The Conquest 80
Chapter Twelve: Something Important 88

ix
x   Contents

The Four Mirrors 91

Part I 92
I 92
II 115
III 135
IV 146
V 158
VI 178
Part II 193
VII 193
VIII 203
IX 213
X 228
XI 234
 Introduction

Reading Quince Duncan’s first two published novels, Weathered Men

and The Four Mirrors, almost fifty years after they were first published
in Spanish, readers may be struck by the timeliness and currency of the
issues raised by the Afro-Costa Rican author and intellectual. The con-
text of Costa Rica in the late 1960s and early 1970s is one that still
holds resonance and relevancy in the twenty-first century for not only
Costa Rica as a nation, but for other parts of the Western Hemisphere
and beyond. Two of the greatest challenges raised in Duncan’s novels are
the forces of migration and coming to terms with exclusionary notions
of national identity. Readers in the United States will be familiar with
debates over the intense political divide over immigration from Latin
America, the Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia, as well as
the fate of undocumented immigrants including the almost 800,000
young people called “Dreamers.”1 These debates have heightened the
anxieties of a segment of the dominant white, Protestant population

1“DACA has shielded nearly 790,000 young unauthorized immigrants from deportation,” Pew
Research Center, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/01/unauthorized-immigrants-
covered-by-daca-face-uncertain-future/.

© The Author(s) 2018 1

D. E. Mosby, Quince Duncan’s Weathered Men and The Four Mirrors,
Afro-Latin@ Diasporas, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97535-1_1
2   D. E. Mosby

in the United States who are witnessing their privileged status as the
nation’s majority vanish with each passing year. This disquiet has caused
the powerful nation in the North to examine its history of immigra-
tion, its construction of national identity, and how Americanness
includes some but excludes many. Costa Rica, not unlike the United
States, is a nation constructed by a complex history of conquest, col-
onization, exploitation, and immigration.2 After the Spanish conquest
and subsequent extermination of many indigenous peoples, Costa Rica
relied on the labor of oppressed Indians and enslaved Africans. As the
country entered into the global market, it looked to the labor of peo-
ples from elsewhere to build its economy: indentured Chinese immi-
grants, contract laborers from the British West Indies, invited waves of
white Americans and Western Europeans, workers from Nicaragua, El
Salvador, Colombia, Venezuela, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic
who were seeking both peace and prosperity in a new land. Costa Rica
has had to reckon and reconcile with the past as it was once imagined
by the founding national elite with the lived historical experience
of indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples. Quince Duncan’s work has
been quintessential in bringing attention to the exclusionary nature of
national myths of identity and the challenge these narratives pose for a
sense of belonging, particularly for the descendants of Afro-Caribbean
immigrants who helped build the modern nation.
Before the tendency in Costa Rican intellectual circles in the late
1990s and early 2000s to interrogate the national myth, which iden-
tified the country’s whiteness, Europeanness, and absence of a past
history of chattel slavery as paramount to its exceptional economic pro-
gress and stable democratic institutions, Quince Duncan was among
the vanguard of Costa Rican intellectuals who questioned the veracity
of these notions and who engaged in conversations about the power
of narratives of national identity. Beginning in the 1960s, Duncan
asserted his claim to a Costa Rican national identity that also embraced
blackness and West Indian cultural identity with his celebrated works

2“There’s no such thing as a pure Costa Rican,” Tico Times, http://www.ticotimes.net/

Immigrationcr/.
 Introduction    
3

of fiction, collections of essays, and recompilations of Afro-Caribbean

folk tales. The two novels presented in translation in this volume,
Weathered Men and The Four Mirrors, are the first novels published in
Costa Rica—and perhaps even the first in Central America—written
in Spanish by an author of West Indian heritage about the experience
of Jamaican migration to the region and affirmation of Afro-Costa
Rican identity. Together, both of these “novels of identity”3 work to
dismantle the myth that to be a tico de pura cepa (of pure Costa Rican
stock) means being white, of European descent, Spanish-speaking, and
Catholic with a nostalgic affinity for the country’s peasant roots. These
novels also bring to the forefront greater awareness of the contradictions
and idiosyncrasies of exclusionary notions of national belonging when it
comes to blackness, Costa Rican history, and democracy.
Duncan was born in San José, Costa Rica in 1940 to Eunice Duncan
Moodie and Adolfo Robinson and grew up in Estrada, a small town
along the railroad in the Caribbean province of Limón. During an
interview I had with the author in 1997, Duncan jokingly stated that
he was “born twice.”4 This notion of being “born again” is not in ref-
erence to some religious awakening, but rather in reference to the fact
that although he was born to a Costa Rican-born mother, his birth cer-
tificate declared that he was Jamaican because the nation had yet to fully
embrace the possibilities of citizenship for people of Afro-West Indian
heritage. Later, when his mother became a naturalized citizen, he was
then given a birth certificate that recognized him as Costa Rican.
Duncan spent his formative years with his Jamaican immigrant
grandparents, James Duncan and Elvira Moodie, in a household and
a community that valued literacy and education. When granting
interviews or speaking with students, Duncan frequently talks about
how The Gleaner, one of Jamaica’s most revered periodicals, was a fix-
ture in his household growing up and that his grandfather kept a per-
sonal library of classic books under lock and key. His early forays into

3Mosby, “Novels of identity: Hombres curtidos and Los cuatro espejos,” Quince Duncan: Writing
Afro-Costa Rican and Caribbean Identity (2014): 50–103.
4Personal interview with the author. For a more detailed explanation, see ibid., 5–6.
4   D. E. Mosby

storytelling may have been influenced by Anancy stories, which are

tales about the wily trickster spider derived from the traditions of the
Ashanti peoples of West Africa. British slavers imported large numbers
of Ashanti to Jamaica and the stories of how the tiny spider was able
to use his quick wit to outmaneuver larger, more powerful creatures­
provided an essential survival tool for oppressed peoples. Duncan was
also influenced by Miss Rob, one of his neighbors in Estrada who
encouraged Duncan to read as a boy and retell the stories he had read.
Many of those early influences as well as his own witness to Afro-Costa
Rican history and culture in Limón are woven into Duncan’s writing.
Duncan grew up during a significant juncture in Costa Rican history
when the nation was slowly recognizing its black citizens and also strug-
gling with the meaning of blackness. Although there have been peoples
of African descent in Costa Rica since the colonial period, this popula-
tion was already culturally assimilated and their identities, such as the
Afro-descendant population of Guanacaste province, were resignified
as mestizo, cholo, or indigenous.5 A distinctive black culture did not
emerge again until the arrival of thousands of free West Indian work-
ers, primarily from Jamaica, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. Like Duncan, many contemporary Afro-Costa Ricans are the
descendants of these West Indian workers who were called to the coun-
try beginning in 1872 to build the railroad that linked the coffee-rich
Central Valley with the Caribbean port city of Puerto Limón. The Costa
Rican government contracted North American railroad builder, Henry
Meiggs and his nephews, Henry Meiggs Keith and Minor Cooper
Keith. After unsuccessful efforts to recruit Costa Rican nationals and
foreign labor from Italy, China, and the United States, Minor Keith
actively sought out English-speaking labor in the West Indies. The
majority of these workers were literate and skilled Jamaican men who
clung to a dream of making enough money to return home and buy

5The Guanacaste province is located in the northwest of Costa Rica and borders Nicaragua.

During the colonial period, this region used enslaved African labor primarily in cattle produc-
tion. Mestizo means “racially-mixed,” generally Spanish and indigenous. Cholo is sometimes
used to describe people from rural areas with darker skin. It is typically seen as a pejorative term
because it is also used to describe individuals or groups as “backward” or “uncultured”.
 Introduction    
5

property, support families, and supply school fees to ensure that their
children had the opportunity to move into the professional class. The
work of constructing the railway through 100 miles of dense rainforest
was arduous and the men were subjected to dangerous working condi-
tions, days of work without pay, and tropical diseases like malaria and
yellow fever.
After nineteen years, the railroad was completed in 1890 at the cost
of the lives of 4000 workers, including that of Henry Meiggs Keith.
Eventually, Minor Keith determined that the transport of coffee and
passengers between the Central Valley and Limón did not render the
profits he expected. He ordered the mass planting of bananas along
the rails and began to export the fruit in large quantities to the United
States. In 1899, Keith merged his Tropical Trading and Transport
Company with the Boston Fruit Company to form the United
Fruit Company. That infamous brand became a defining example
of the modern multinational corporation and as a monopoly wielded
such wide-reaching power that it determined the path of Central
American governments and economies for much of the twentieth cen-
tury. The United Fruit Company encouraged the migration of more
Afro-Caribbean workers to Costa Rica to provide labor for the increas-
ing demands of the banana industry. Among the thousands of men and
women from the West Indies who arrived in Puerto Limón were Marcus
M. Garvey and Duncan’s own grandparents.6 In spite of the challenging
conditions of the tropics, poor sanitation, inequitable pay, and suppres-
sion of workers’ attempts to organize and advocate for themselves, the
West Indians managed to recreate their home cultures in a new envi-
ronment through “English” schools, Protestant churches, mutual aid
­societies, and cultural organizations. Their lives were not only different
from the national population but also geographically isolated from it.

6Marcus M. Garvey (1887–1940) was an important Jamaican visionary. His sojourn in Costa
Rica (1911–1912) was brief but impactful. His denouncement of working conditions in a
self-published tabloid lead to the termination of his employment as a timekeeper for United
Fruit and eventually his expulsion from Costa Rica. However, Garvey’s experience in Costa Rica
provided significant fodder for the founding of the Universal Negro Improvement Association
(UNIA) in 1914. The organization amassed a following in the USA, England, Canada, Jamaica,
Cuba, and Central America.
6   D. E. Mosby

They maintained their communities without much need or desire to

integrate with the Hispanic culture or customs and the white and mestizo
Costa Rican nationals responded similarly to this black, “foreign
element” within their borders. This history played a crucial role in Duncan’s
upbringing and contributed to his vision of Costa Rican society, as well
as the direction of his literary production.
Weathered Men and The Four Mirrors, along with Duncan’s five other
novels, six collections of short stories, and numerous essays, have firmly
cemented his place in Costa Rican literature and culture as a writer
giving voice to the nation’s misunderstood and misinterpreted history
of Afro-Caribbean migration and settlement. Duncan is viewed as the
primary translator of West Indian culture and history for the Spanish-
speaking, white and mestizo-identified national population of Costa
Rica. His work also connects Afro-Costa Ricans of West Indian herit-
age to the cultural landscape of the African Diaspora and engages the
local history of Caribbean migration to Central America as part of
the larger story of the dispersal of peoples of African descent in the
Americas. Prior to Duncan, West Indian characters appeared in texts by
previous generations of Costa Rican writers, such as Joaquín Gutiérrez
and Carlos Luis Fallas; however, these earlier representations of Afro-
Caribbean peoples in Costa Rican literature written in Spanish, largely
reproduced and reinforced anti-black cultural stereotypes. The publi-
cation of Weathered Men introduced a human portrait of the lives and
cultures of the black inhabitants of Limón that put them into relief,
adding great depth and sensitivity to the portrayal of their history and
struggle to be considered as equal citizens. The first generation of Afro-
West Indian immigrants was weathered by adverse conditions but was
not destroyed by them. Those who decided to remain in Costa Rica
rather than return home to their islands of origin are not portrayed as
troublesome foreign elements in Duncan’s work, but rather as men and
women weathered by hardships who persevered to make the Caribbean
lowlands of Limón province a habitable place where they could provide
for their families and hope for a prosperous future for their descendants.
For some readers familiar with the African American texts, such as
Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, may also see literary resonances in themes
about citizenship, recognition, cultural resistance, and survival, and
 Introduction    
7

discrimination in Weathered Men and The Four Mirrors. Duncan’s nov-

els also connect to an Afro-Latin American literary tradition following
in the footsteps of notable figures such as Nelson Estúpiñan Bass and
Luz Argentina Chiriboga (Ecuador), Nicomedes and Virginia Santa
Cruz (Perú), Manuel and Juan Zapata Olivella (Colombia), Virginia
Brindis de Salas (Uruguay), and Nicolás Guillén (Cuba). Duncan’s
generation of Afro-Latin American writers includes Gerardo Maloney,
Carlos Guillermo Wilson, and Melva Lowe de Goodin (Panama),
Nancy Morejón (Cuba), Norberto James and Blas Jiménez (Dominican
Republic), and Lucía Charún Illescas (Peru). This group of writers
emerged after the Latin American literary “boom” that prominently
featured writers like Carlos Fuentes, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Gabriel
García Márquez who engaged with important issues of politics, impe-
rialism, and identity, but also neglected to profoundly engage with the
marginalized populations of the region, most notably indigenous and
Afro-descendant peoples. The post-Boom Afro-Latin American writers
address issues of blackness, identity, history, and the construction of
the nation, while also calling out the erasure and invisibility of Afro-
descendants, the historical impact of slavery and capitalism, neoliberal
economic policies, and imperialism in their creative fiction.
In Quince Duncan’s work, the concept of “Afro-realism” (afrore-
alismo ) is important in telling the stories of Afro-descendant peoples.
Afro-realism is a term he coined to describe how black writers incor-
porate an African-derived sensibility into creative work that high-
lights cultural resistance, the vindication of African symbolic memory
and neo-African belief systems, and challenges the distortion of Afro-
descendant voices by the dominant culture and affirms the concept
of an ancestral community.7 Duncan presents Afro-realism as a con-
trast to magic realism. According to author’s framing, magic realism
calls upon the fantastic as a stylistic element to advance the narrative,
whereas Afro-realism is rooted in Afro-descendant cultures and pur-
posefully incorporates aspects of neo-African belief systems such as

7Quince Duncan, “El afrorealismo: Una dimension nueva de la literatura latinoamericana,” Istmo
(January–June), http://istmo.denison.edu/n10/articulos/afrorealismo.html.
8   D. E. Mosby

those that recognize the spiritual coexistence of the living, the dead,
and the unborn. There are examples of this in both Weathered Men with
the ritual ceremonies of a priestess that recount the Ashanti War and
the powerful conversations between a dying woman and her deceased
father-in-law in The Four Mirrors.
In addition to Afro-realism, Duncan’s fiction also displays several
intertextual connections. In both Weathered Men and The Four Mirrors,
the author includes references to other texts, including Duncan’s own
writing. The Four Mirrors incorporates references to several stories
from Canción en la madrugada (Dawn Song ) and features many of the
same characters we see in Weathered Men, as well as mentions some
of the events that occurred in the novel. There are numerous cita-
tions of Jamaican folk songs, the Bible, the history of Jamaican migra-
tion to Costa Rica, including Marcus Garvey’s Pan-Africanist vision,
the African heritage of the Guanacaste region of the country during the
colonial period, and the legal prohibition of Afro-West Indian labor
from the Pacific coast United Fruit Company plantations. Both novels
are self-referential, especially Weathered Men where the protagonist is
also the author of the text we are reading, which is framed by his return
to the Caribbean town where he grew up.
Weathered Men was originally published in 1971 as Hombres cur-
tidos by a small press in San José, Costa Rica. It tells the story of a
thirty-year-old man who returns to the home he left when he was six-
teen. But this story is so much more than the tale of the “hero’s return,”
it is a story about reconciliation with the past and redemption. The
life of third-generation Afro-Costa Rican Clif Duke is our entry to
learning more about the struggles and triumphs of the earlier genera-
tions of Afro-Caribbean immigrants who labored and eventually settled
in Costa Rica. Central America has a complex social and political his-
tory; however, the history of black migration to the region from places
like Jamaica, Barbados, and St. Kitts is rarely foregrounded. These pat-
terns of Afro-Caribbean migration serve as a critical component to
understanding the labor and economic history of the Americas, as well
as the flow of black cultural capital as Afro-descendant peoples moved
between the West Indies, Central and South America, Cuba, United
States, and England.
 Introduction    
9

In the prologue to the original 1971 edition of Hombres curtidos,

Lia Coronado recognizes that this novel delves into the untold history
of West Indian immigrants who came to Costa Rica. Many of these
workers dreamed of returning home, but over time and after the birth
of another generation, they made the difficult decision to remain in
the host country. Over time, they also had to decide whether to con-
serve their ethnocultural heritage or assimilate the Spanish language and
Costa Rican national culture. Coronado writes, “The weathered skin of
the black people of the Atlantic region masks a drama that we Costa
Ricans still do not know.” She continues to observe in the prologue,
“Quince Duncan is one of those young blacks who has courageously
and enthusiastically stepped forward with the urgent task to make pub-
lic in an intelligent and profound way, the history of this ethnic group
that is soulful and proud of their heritage.” While celebratory and con-
gratulatory, Coronado’s prologue still underscores a notion of the irrec-
oncilability of blackness with Costa Rica’s dominant culture where
the unfolding narrative of Afro-Costa Rican history still remains to be
seamlessly woven into the fabric of the nation. The notion of blacks as
a foreign other is precisely one of the misperceptions the novel attempts
to address by demonstrating the contributions of multiple generations
of Afro-Costa Ricans.
Weathered Men also relates the story of three generations of the Duke
family in Costa Rica, told primarily from the perspective of Clif Duke,
a third-generation Afro-Costa Rican of West Indian descent. The gener-
ations face different challenges and choices. The first generation strives
to make a way in the midst of inclement conditions of the Caribbean
lowlands, as they struggle against floods and harsh work conditions.
This generation must choose whether to persevere in Costa Rica in
spite of their political and economic circumstances and the whims of a
national government that does not welcome their blackness or to return
to the island homes they left behind that are still subject to British colo-
nial rule. The second generation, some born in Costa Rica and others
brought as small children, have their own decisions to make as well.
They have the choice to embrace the nostalgia of the islands of their
parents, demand political autonomy from the Costa Rican state for the
10   D. E. Mosby

largely English-speaking province, or integrate into the national cul-

ture by learning Spanish and adopting some of the cultural practices of
the Costa Rican nationals that their parents rejected. This challenge of
the second generation is depicted in Chapter 6, “The Vine,” through a
conversation between Grace Duke and her boyfriend, Clovis about the
decision their generation must make about their relationship with both
Jamaica and Costa Rica.
Clif Duke represents the condition and hopes of the third genera-
tion of Afro-Costa Ricans. The third generation, which comes of age
shortly after the 1948 Costa Rican civil war and the eventual exten-
sion of the rights of citizenship to Costa Rican-born blacks, has the
difficult task of reconciling their ethnocultural difference with a
nation that identifies with its Spanish heritage, Catholic roots, white-
ness and the foundational myth of ethnic homogeneity. The protagonist
of Weathered Men finds himself in this situation. Clif is in a challenging
space of finding belonging in a nation that has finally recognized the
citizenship of the Afro-West Indians who contributed to its economic
development but also has difficulty accepting their blackness and cul-
tural difference. As he tries to reconcile his Jamaican heritage and his
national identity, Clif struggles to answer the question posed to him by
his grandfather, “Are you Costa Rican? Are you really?” He attempts to
find an answer by returning home to the small town of Estrada in the
Caribbean province of Limón with his family in tow. After leaving the
mainly Afro-descendant coastal region to move to San José, the nation’s
capital located in the mestizo-dominant Central Valley, as a sixteen-
year-old adolescent, Clif Duke makes a return home to his origin as a
thirty-year-old man with his wife and sons to write his Jamaican grand-
father’s history. While staking his claim to his rights as a Costa Rican
citizen, Clif connects to Jake’s memories of Jamaica while also doc-
umenting his grandfather’s struggle to make a home in the new land
for himself and his family. As part of this process of memorializing his
grandfather, Jake, and searching for his identity, Clif remembers conver-
sations he and Jake once had through flashbacks to his childhood.
Although Weathered Men is principally told from Clif ’s third-­
generation perspective, the narrative voices of his Jamaican born great-­
grandfather Jonas, his grandfather Jake (also called Jakel in the novel),
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 Coming Home.

George is coming home, this letter tells me so,

From the camp so far away—how glad and cold I grow.
I have sat at even’, when the sun was bending o’er
The west; I can see him, still, go through the open door.

With tears in his eyes, a brave smile upon his face,

I’ll be back to you shortly, by His will and His grace;
And today I’ll begin to look and to hear
If his wandering feet are coming near.

My heart beats fast, for I hear a sound,

The walk is like his, over the old ground,
And a sound like one whistling—Oh, is it he?
I falter; no, no; it cannot be.

The days glided by slowly, one by one,

At last she hastens—dear son, my son!
The chair that was vacant, again is filled,
And the heart throbs again are stilled, are stilled.
 Colorado.

Great and mighty mountains high,

Piercing boldly through the sky;
With snow patched ridges here and there,
Solemn magnificance everywhere.

How majestic there you stand,

Your scenery so bold and grand,
Rivulets foaming, through deep ravines,
Throwing out green and silvery sheens.

Higher and higher up you go,

Where vegetation can never grow;
The snow lies sleeping the year around,
And deep glaciers on its bosom abound.

Great and mighty mountains high,

Piercing through the deep blue sky;
For palette or brush what need have we;
Look out of your window, a picture you’ll see.
 Mrs. O’Day.

Miss Sigrid Hiland went out one day,

And decided to change her name to Mrs. O’Day;
Mr. Minister tied the knot firmly and strong,
For together they must live—we hope very long.

To housekeeping she set her heart with a vim,

Not to please herself; oh, no, but to please him;
And she is so sweet for this good man to possess,
She is winsome and brave, and will a home bless.

We wish you all joy that this world can give,

And for many years together, happy will live;
Let His way be your way, don’t vary a bit,
Then your hearts forever will be by holiness lit.
 To My Beloved Parents.
In Memoriam.

On your resting place I spread today

Sweet blossoms on your bed of clay;
Alas, what more here can I do
But pray, dear ones, for both of you.

The sun is setting in the west,

With glowing colors you are blest;
Thus here I stand, the declining day,
With birds about you still at play.

At night the stars shine over your bed,

And silvery moonbeams over head,
To guide your souls to heaven above,
Where all is peace, eternal love.

The meek, weeping willow sings the requiem

To the birds that it shelters at night in their dream,
And the wind wails softly over head,
Sobbing and sighing—they are dead.
 Divorced.

My divorce has been granted this very day,

With no one to scold, I can do what I may;
My heart seems to flutter, how happy I feel,
It will take some time this great wound to heal.

My dear Mrs. Smith, good morning to you,

I have heard about a divorce, is it really true?
Well, I’m awfully sorry, now what can I do
To lessen your burden, for your children and you.

He seemed so proud of you, when you would go out

In the warm summer evenings, to ride about;
Such love looks he’d give you; now how can this be
To break up a home, I pray you, tell me.

It was this way, when I married him I didn’t know

How to cook or keep house, not even to sew;
My parents were old—so it fell to me
To help support them—now, do you see?

I toiled and worked early and late,

And nearly deplored my unfortunate fate.
When I laid them away, I was left alone,
Friends I had few—oh, how I did mourn.

Then after a year he came into my life,

All was peace and harmony, no thought of strife;
And blessings were added when our children came;
The harder he worked, so anxious for fame.

Then, after a time, he was so hard to please;

In his presence I scarcely could feel at ease,
For I didn’t do one little thing for him right,
Until I wished he was far out of sight.
U t w s ed e was a out o s g t.

And this thing kept on, it near drove me wild;

I felt so small—just like a wee child;
I resented his words and told him that I
Would not live with him longer—and sooner would die.

He sneered and he laughed; yes, work for pay

From early till late, the whole blessed day;
I gave you this home, what more can I do;
I have worked and worked for my children and you.

When I would mention a trip in the summer to go

Just anywhere, I’d say—you need it, you know,
What nonsense he’d say; I’m well as can be;
A vacation for me? Well, that I can’t see.

Well, that is the way we wrangled, till I

Was so unhappy I wanted to fly;
Perhaps this sounds trivial to you, but to me
It seems as big as the great open sea.

But I understand, my dear little friend,

That he’s been to call, and some gifts did send;
And the great loads of coal he sent you last week,
Surely you thanked him—some kind word did speak?

Yes, and he gave me this home; he provided well

For his little family—I can safely tell
We never suffered for a want or a care
When the time came around, it was always there.

Before I go, do call the children in,

It’s so long since I’ve seen them. Why, Minnie, how thin
You have grown; why, Charlie, how small
And pale you are; do have your doctor call.

The boy’s fever was high—he calls in his pain,

Oh, papa, dear, papa, come kiss me again.
The door softly opens, a lov’d voice in the hall,
 e doo so t y ope s, a ov d vo ce t e a ,
In his arms he clasps her, his best friend, his all.

Years have passed; yes, truly, they are happy now;

The glad days of youth are gone, somehow,
But on her face a sweet smile is lingering there,
And sweet contentment is found everywhere.

And Charlie has grown to be straight and tall;

And Min’s little one, the youngest of all,
Lies in his crib, such a sweet little lad
That is watched over happily by grandma and grand-dad.
 Mother.

Mother, you nursed me at your breast,

And gave of yourself, your very best;
Your anxiety, care and watchful nights,
When all was still you would turn on the lights
To see I was snugly covered in bed
Long after my little prayers were said.

When I went to school you would help me so much,

When my lessons were hard—but your soft touch
Would ease it all, for I leaned on your word,
It was always the dearest I ever have heard;
My heart beats fast, when I think how dear
You always were to your children here.

Truth and obedience was always your aim,

Mother, mother, how fair is your name;
How grateful I am I can scarcely say,
Though you are gone away, far away,
Singing the Miserere, I still see you there,
Rocking your child with tenderest care.

Mother love is strong, many a sorrow, many a tear;

When all else fails, her love is still there;
And she’ll go to the end of the earth for you.
So noble, so gentle—none kinder and true;
Yes, you were my first friend—why should I not love
To pray for your soul that is called above.
 Ascension Day.

We sailed away one fair March day,

From Norway’s shore so far away
To a new land; our hopes were high;
Oh, what have we done; oh, my; oh, my;
Left father and mother and dear friends on shore,
Perhaps never to see them more.
We sailed and sailed many miles over the sea,
And prayed God to protect my children and me.

The icebergs surrounded our ship one night;

The captain shouted no water in sight,
Like mountains around us, we are here to stay;
It may be a week, it may be a day.
We looked at each other in mute horror and dread,
Should the days go by, who would give us bread?
Nearly three weeks went by, no help in sight,
Each man was willing to do his mite.

At sunrise the captain called with a shout,

Out of these icebergs, we must get out;
I was up on the mast, I see water ahead;
The sun is high and looks quite red;
Today is Ascension Day, all come, kneel and pray
That we will be out of here before close of day.
Weeping and sobbing they knelt on the floor,
And prayed as they never had prayed before.

Now, my men, get an ax or a saw, cut the ice;

Make a path for our ship. To work, time flies;
They labored untiringly for hours; ’twas hard work,
It meant much suffering if this work they should shirk,
Then when they were through, all panting and cold;
They were drawn up by ropes into the ship’s hold.
 Now, my men, be steady; shove with all your might;
For, if it’s God’s will, we will be in the light.
The ship moves; what’s creaking; oh, what a roar;
Today it’s life or death; what can be done more;
Mothers clung to their children and clasped them real fast,
For this is a day of days, it may be the last.
The foghorn blows; I trembled with fear
For my little ones and my husband, so dear.

I hugged them closely to my heart,

We are saved, we are saved, I heard with a start;
Do my ears hear aright; I laugh and I cry,
For I was ready this day to die.
God heard our prayers; ah! can it be
That we are again sailing out on this wide sea?
Such laughing, such shouting, no time to weep;
Only to dance and sing; no time for sleep.

The dignified and glad captain took a hand in the game,

From hearty congratulations his right arm was lame;
But three hundred souls, with God’s help, he had saved
From the towering bergs and a briny grave.

This really happened in April, 1865, in the northern part of the Atlantic
ocean. The ship was an old fashioned sailing vessel and under ordinary
circumstances would have required three to four weeks time from Bergen,
Norway, to Montreal, Canada.
Passengers were compelled to carry enough bread for their entire
families, to last for the whole trip, which of course, would become hard and
dry. Many icebergs have nearly vertical walls, often more than one hundred
feet. These floating mountains of ice sometimes have very fantastic shapes.
It is not safe for a ship to come near one, and it is no uncommon thing for an
iceberg to suddenly turn upside down. How things have changed since then!
One can go the same distance in about twelve days. We were seven weeks
crossing at that time on account of the anxious and terrible stay in the
icebergs.
I’m glad to be here in this great land and to tell you this story of my
youth.
 Your Star.

How deep and wide the ocean;

No eye its depths hath seen
What secrets there are hidden,
Below the briny green.

There are numberless living creeping things,

Both great and small,
And mermaids, too, that sweetly sing;
It’s Him that made them all.

Should you up in the heavens gaze,

Their duplicates you’ll find;
The world is still a closed book,
Each living thing of every kind.

Yet do we ever think how weak,

How helpless, how small we are;
And as I sit and ponder,
Are we likened to a star?
 A Moth.

A moth flew into my room last night,

Where the flame turned all into gorgeous light;
It flew ’round about till it finally came
Too near; for it was a cruel flame
And never stopped till it fell to the floor,
Air seared and misshapen; it hopped to the door
There it lay, breathing its last,
For love of a flame its life was past.
 Lonely.

One day Nicodemus lay down and died,

And his good little wifey cried and cried.
A few days after he was laid away
Under the sod—deep down in the clay.

The days were so long, how lonely was she,

For he died in the autumn; not a green tree;
She took out his clothes and brushed them so neat,
And patched his pants right over the seat.

Then she called in a neighbor, and opened the door,

And showed her the clothes Nicodemus “had wore;
And his poor old socks she broidered in brown;”
Such a good man was he—they weeping sat down.

When he was alive, I had so much to do,

The days were so short I never got through;
And when I get lonely, perhaps I have missed
To put on a button or a patch I have kissed.
 Playtime.

Old age is the time to watch and pray,

And to prepare for the coming day.

Your workday is over—rest and be glad,

This is your playtime—do not be sad.

Your hair is turned from brown to gray,

And the little ringlets softly play.

And hold a wee dear one close to your heart,

Singing a lullaby—this is your part.

And see the blue smoke curl over your head

From your golden meerschaum; gladness doth shed.

And the song of the birds, again spring is here,

Bringing to all the time we hold dear.

And old recollections your memory doth fill,

Of youth, full of fire—you remember still.

And the dear ones around you, full of love,

Are preparing the way to Heaven above.
 My Lillian.

My lovely, sweet Lillian, with eyes so brown,

And hair like the softest of thistledown;
I clasp you, my darling, close to my heart,
And pray that heaven will never us part.

My joy you are, truly, I love you so much,

And hope no rude winds will ever you touch;
My child, may God bless you, His tenderest care,
To watch over you gently, my dear one so fair.
 Swope Park.

Mother, dear, do let us go

Out to Swope Park; now don’t say no;
We love the green, the flowers, the trees,
The humming birds, the bumble bees.

The silvery lake, the running stream,

Last night I saw it in my dream;
The sky is bluer, the keen air
Is more invigorating there.

Oh mother, dear, it is such fun

Out on the grassy slopes to run
The birds sing sweetly in the trees,
And listen to the whispering breeze.

The frisky rabbits run around

For bits of food that’s to be found
Over land and meadow free
Where sweet blossoms and the bee

Boldly sucks the honey out,

From flower to flower they fly about.
And the Sun in golden streams
Over more than twelve hundred acres beams.

And the Zoo, mother, it’s free,

And intended for such as you and me.
At last a basket is filled with a lunch,
Under the waving trees to munch.
So happy, out in God’s pure air,
Is sweet, sweet joy for this dear pair.
 A Letter to a Friend.
My Dear Mrs. Gowey: How are you, pray? I can guess you are enjoying
the breeze from the bay, while we are most uncomfortable. Be glad you are
there, in your home in Seattle, where heat need not give you a care.
Daughter is all settled now in her home so neat, with her husband and her
two children sweet. They left for the country a few days ago, and left me
their son to care for, you know. But daughter got lonesome and wanted her
boy. So dad took his hopeful to her with great joy. Nothing has happened on
this dear little street since the day that you left it, at least nothing great. The
same neighbors sit on their porches at night, trying to find a breeze, perhaps
a stray one, real light. I’ll close now and hope that these lines will fall into
the hands of your dear self and all. We think of you often in your home far
away, and hope you’ll be well and happy; and say, here’s a kiss, and goodby,
and hope you will find the time to write me; now do be kind.—Very
cordially yours, D.
 Sweet Sixteen.

I feel quite old today, do you know;

Mother thinks it’s time I should learn to sew.
Then to the dry goods store I went,
Straight to the bargain counter bent.

Goods for a waist was hard to find,

Just what was suited to my mind.
At last I decided on some cloth of blue
With roses and violets of gorgeous hue.

Now home I did hasten, to cut it out,

And put my mind on what I was about;
My, but wasn’t it hard to work, to sew and to baste,
My sleeves went in wrong six times in my haste.

Mother praised my work, for a rest I might go

To a dear little neighbor, who lives just below;
And wasn’t I proud, when she said I looked grand;
That ’twas but a matter of time, I’d be quite a hand.
 A Soldier’s Son.

I’m going to be a man, now that father is called away;

I’ll begin to do as he did in our home this very day;
I’m only twelve years old, but I’ll do my very best
To make it happy day by day and give mamma a rest.

I’ll bring the wood and coal in, when I come home from school,
And go down to the spring and bring the water cool;
I’ll milk the cow, and feed the pigs, as father used to do;
I know he’ll say, when he gets back, “My son, I’m proud of you.”

Two miles to walk to school ’twill mean an early rise;

Folks seem to say I’m small yet—but work, I don’t despise;
Before Dad went away, he laid his hand upon my head,
“My son, take care of mother, sister Lillian and Fred.”

I’m glad I have a father, that is so brave and strong,

I’m going to be like him, the time will not be long;
I will not be a slacker, I’ll do all that I can;
It never will be my fault if I don’t grow up a man.