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From: Bobbie Hall <>
Subject: [MABARNST] Cape Cod Pilot, Ch. 11, part 1
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 22:41:58 -0600
References: <200112191104.fBJB48Q10270@lists2.rootsweb.com>


======================================================================
Cape Cod Pilot, by Jeremiah Diggs, American Guide Series, published by
Modern Pilgrim Press, Provincetown, MA, 1937. This was a work
underwritten by the Federal Writers Project, Works Project
Administration (WPA) for the State of Massachusetts.
======================================================================

Chapter XI - PROVINCETOWN I [part 1]

Last time I took a pair of boots in to Joe Halfdollar, the old
Portuguese fisherman who has gone into cobbling, I stopped to admire a
new window display he had set out.

At the left side he had a big old shark-bitten seaboot, which he must
have picked up off the beach, frayed and stringy around the top and
showing a great gaping hole in the forepeak. Under this he had placed
the legend, "BEFORE." At the right side, over a card printed "AFTER,"
a silver high-heeled dancing pump glittered in immaculate daintiness.

When I went in to congratulate old Joe on this achievement, he seemed
shy. Then he gave me a wrinkly smile and explained - as he had heard
so many others in Provincetown explain - it was just "his art."

Provincetown, whatever the summer may bring it, is a fishing town, and
its people are fisherpeople. In July and August, when the population
suddenly triples, there is some tendency to forget this. I have read
wonderful descriptions of the town, from which one would gather that
it is principally an art colony, festooned with nets and "picturesque"
Portuguese fishermen who presumably have been planted for the
convenience of the artists who paint them.

In the Cape-end eddies of summer traffic, which work into a dizzy
whirlpool here, it is true that for two months of each year the town
practically loses itself. One might add that it is beside itself. The
tourists are now the most numerous, the artists and writers by long
odds the most articulate. Hence it may come as a surprise to the
visitor, when he is told that of the more than four thousand residents
of the town - "year-round people" - three-fourths are Portuguese,
seeking their livelihood in the fishery or indirectly from its earnings.

They are an engaging people. I do not see how Provincetown can be very
life-like to writers who treat the Portuguese as incidental. Cape Cod,
of course, has a rich historical interest without them, because the
Cape's history goes back beyond their time; but the Cape today is very
much with them, and has been so since the last quarter of the
Nineteenth Century, when large numbers came to New England, attracted
by success stories of pretty much the same stamp, that all fish
stories bear.

I find that to crowd Provincetown into one chapter would be like
throwing all the exhibits of a menagerie into a single cage. Even if
they don't start clawing at one another, such jamming together
obstructs the view. Before touring about the town for details, let us
have a squint at it "with eyes half-closed," as the painters say, for
a few broad effects. Let us meet these Portuguese, and listen to them
talk of their fishing; let us wander through that scattered, elusive
realm which the town calls its "art colony;" and let us glance
backward, through a couple of centuries, towards the hazy beginnings
of the "Province Lands." Then we can tour the town in another chapter.

The large majority of the Portuguese have come from the Azores, or are
descended of Azoreans; a small proportion are from Lisbon; and the
remainder are descended of the 'bravas,' a race brought into New
England in whaling days from the Cape Verde Islands. The Cape Verdes,
which belong to Portugal, are off the west coast of Africa, and the
bravas are a mixture of Portuguese and native African, and are so
called after the island of Brava.

Because of brutal treatment they met with aboard ship, the crews of
the whalers often deserted. Many of these men had been "crimped" in
the first place - lured by false promises or even drugged in the
waterfront dives, to find themselves well out to sea when they
regained consciousness. Desertion was therefore a matter of course,
and whaling captains usually charted their voyages by way of the Cape
Verdes, for there they could pick up crew replacements.

The bravas were good whalemen, and their descendants are good
fishermen. They are thickest in New Bedford, though some were brought
to Cape Cod and have made their homes here. The Azorean and Lisbon
people agree that the 'bravas' are their inferiors, but they disagree
heartily as between themselves, which faction is the superior.

In introducing them, one must use their nicknames. For they have an
odd custom of bestowing nicknames on one another - not in a spirit of
levity, but in dead earnest. They practically forget their real names.
Sometimes the sobriquets are not very delicate, but always they are
highly descriptive; and once a man comes by his nickname, there is no
escape. As it is always the surname that is replaced, whole families
must abide by the practice. There is the "Rat family," for instance;
there are the "Codfishes" - Manuel Codfish, Maria Codfish, and all the
little Codfishes; there is the fisherman who lost both his legs - "Tom
Low;" and there are Mike Molasses and Mrs. Jazzgarters. With good
grace, the Rats, the Codfishes and all the rest accept what they
cannot reject; cheerfully they answer to the names. Some have been in
use so long that in the course of generations the real family names
have become obscured, and legal problems have arisen.


[more to come]
transcribed by and all errors attributed to
Bobbie Hall







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