Colombia: national ID system mocked indigenous people with made-up insult names

BB reader Guido D. Núñez-Mujica says,

Given that BoingBoing has posted a bit ago the Indian ID project, I saw this and thought to send it: a sad, outrage-inducing story about how the indigenous Wayuu people in northern Colombia were mocked, and received ID names like "Cosita Rica" and "Tarzán," and how the registrar still refuses to admit the responsibility of its bureaucrats.

Above: an indigenous man whose name was recorded as "pig-headed." Below, another whose name was recorded as "drunk guy." More here (Spanish), and here is an English language version of the story.

• [ranger_g]

  “pig-headed” or “big-headed” I’m honestly asking, I would have thought the latter.

  • [Xeni Jardin]

    It’s an insult. Not all insults can be translated literally.

    • [pjk]

      fwiw… wordreference.com agrees with you… http://www.wordreference.com/es/en/translation.asp?spen=cabezon

• [Guido]

  “Cabezón” is both a person with a big head AND also somebody stubborn or stupid. It is not a Wayuu name in any case.

  (Edited)

  • [PabloMartinezAlmeida]

    Guido is right on the meaning of ‘cabezón’. My guess is that ‘pig-headed’ is a misspelling of ‘big-headed’.
    Definitely insulting anyway.

    • [Xeni Jardin]

      No, actually I don’t agree. I’m familiar with the english-language insult and the spanish-language one, and it’s an apt translation (though not the only possible one). Literally it means enlarged head or whatever, but it is being used to imply thick-headed, pig-headed, stupid, and it’s racist in this context.

      • [ranger_g]

        I wasn’t questioning it’s intent as an insult, but it is good to know it has both those meanings.

• [Lobster]

  My friend Quete Miraspendejo told me about this. 

  We call him Q.

  • [pjk]

    oh that’s bad.

• [Mister44]

  In Mexico, the indigenous people (Indians? Native Central Americans?) do the jobs Mexicans don’t want to do.

  • [L Patricia Garcia]

    Oh like in the US, the Mexicans do the jobs the Americans don’t want to do…

    • [Mister44]

      Exactly like that. They’re treated like 2nd class citizens.

• [jamesg1103]

  I was once told that many years ago German bureaucrats inflicted “insulting” names on Jewish citizens who were then required to adopt Germanic surnames. Supposedly this included “Goldberg” (mountain of gold) and “Goldfuss” (feet of gold).    

  I have no idea if the guy telling me this was correct.

  • [John McKenzie]

    That’s interesting, would like to know more. In the US I come across German names such as Schweinefuss (pig foot) and wonder how a family would come by it.

• [Bevatron Repairman]

  Confirms my view of the universality of mankind namely, people with authority over other people can be assholes.

• [pjk]

  oh man, the video along with that article is very good if you speak Spanish… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrVm8aK3ja0&feature=player_embedded … that Colombian funccionario publico is a real piece of work. what an asshole.

• [thisisnotatest]

  I used to live in Spain where cabezón and cabezota are used to mean stubborn or pig-headed….burro (donkey) was similarly used.

  What has been done to these people is indecent.

  And the funcionario in that video is a gilipollas.

• [peregrinus]

  Unfortunately, ’twas ever thus.  The british army in India had the task of running censuses (sic?) of towns.  If they couldn’t understand the name someone gave them (or were just bad people), they apparently made one up.  Hence a friend of mine in modern day times coming across, in a legal deal, reams of peoples’ names like First Gear, Second Gear, Third Gear, Fourth Gear and Axle.

• [serpent]

  Lots of unusual (form our point of view) in Africa as well. My friend visited Malawi, where he met a dentist named Mobutu Adolfhitler. There were also lots of Stalins, Lenins and Che Guevaras around.

• [Dan Bam]

  the big pot calling the kettle black?