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Comprachicos : how would you pronounce this word?
For context, here (with apologies) is wiki :
Comprachicos (also comprapequeños) is a compound Spanish word meaning "child-buyers".
The term refers to various groups in history and in myth who practised the art of changing the physical appearance of human beings by manipulating growing children, in a similar way to the horticultural method of bonsai or through deliberate mutilation.
It can be also used in reference to any group or body who seek to alter the minds of children through calculated manipulation.
The use of the word is first found prolifically in the seventeenth century, referring to groups of gypsies who engaged in such practices to meet the lucrative demand for "freaks" throughout that century and the next, if not longer, that were required as objects of amusement in both fairs and the households of nobility in Europe.
The Comprachicos' "arts" included stunting children's growth, placing muzzles on their faces to deform them (it was from this practice that Alexander Dumas took his theme for The Man in the Iron Mask), slitting their eyes, dislocating their joints, and malforming their bones. It is reported that James II of England hired comprachicos to kidnap the heirs of families whose lines he wished to extinguish.
Sophisticated methods had also been reported in China for a number of centuries. Chinese methods included the manufacture of "animal children" where skin was removed gradually from infants and replaced with animal hide (to varying degrees of success and survival).
Further to this, operations might be conducted on vocal cords to prevent speech and various contraptions were used to make the child walk on all fours. During the nineteenth century an American doctor named Macgowan recorded that another method of creating child-monsters in China was to deprive the children of light for several years so that their bones would become deformed.
At the same time they were fed certain foods and drugs that utterly debilitated them. Macgowan mentioned a priest who subjected a kidnapped boy to this treatment and then displayed him to incredulous observers, claiming he was a religious deity. The child looked like wax, having been fed a diet consisting mostly of lard. He squatted with his palms together and was a driveling idiot. The monk, Macgowan added, was arrested but managed to escape. His temple was burned to the ground.
Victor Hugo's novel The Man Who Laughs is a classic horror story of a young aristocrat kidnapped and disfigured by his captors to display a permanent grin. In the novel, Hugo gives his own account of the work of the Comprachicos who would obtain children by sale or kidnap:
"In China, since time immemorial, they have achieved refinement in a special art and industry: the molding of a living man. One takes a child two or three years old, one puts him into a porcelain vase, more or less grotesque in shape, without cover or bottom, so that the head and feet protrude. In the daytime, one keeps this vase standing upright; at night, one lays it down, so that the child can sleep. Thus the child expands without growing, slowly filling the contours of the vase with his compressed flesh and twisted bones. This bottled development continues for several years. At a certain point, it becomes irreparable. When one judges that this has occurred and that the monster is made, one breaks the vase, the child comes out, and one has a man in the shape of a pot."
Modern references
Comprachicos has also been adopted as pejorative term used for bodies or groups who, from the point of view of the person using the term, are manipulating the minds and attitudes of children in a way that will cause permanent effect or damage. The term "The Comprachicos of the mind" was used in reference to educators by twentieth century philosopher Ayn Rand [1]
Ahoax website claiming to do the equivalent with kittens,bonsaikitten.com, provoked outrage when it was published in 2001.
and, without apologies, Hugo :
A child destined to be a plaything for men—such a thing has existed; such a thing exists even now. In simple and savage times such a thing constituted an especial trade. The 17th century, called the great century, was of those times. It was a century very Byzantine in tone. It combined corrupt simplicity with delicate ferocity—a curious variety of civilization. A tiger with a simper. Madame de Sevigné minces on the subject of the fagot and the wheel. That century traded a good deal in children. Flattering historians have concealed the sore, but have divulged the remedy, Vincent de Paul.
In order that a human toy should succeed, he must be taken early. The dwarf must be fashioned when young. We play with childhood. But a well-formed child is not very amusing; a hunchback is better fun.
Hence grew an art. There were trainers who took a man and made him an abortion; they took a face and made a muzzle; they stunted growth; they kneaded the features. The artificial production of teratological cases had its rules. It was quite a science—what one can imagine as the antithesis of orthopedy. Where God had put a look, their art put a squint; where God had made harmony, they made discord; where God had made the perfect picture, they re-established the sketch; and, in the eyes of connoisseurs, it was the sketch which was perfect.
Victor Hugo, The Man Who Laughs
Also, I remember reading about this in a magazine which cited another Spanish word meaning "monster-makers". Any idea what that word might be?
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Carpal Tunnel
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com(sounds like comb)-pra(rhymes with bra)-CHEE-coes(rhymes with toes)
As far as the Spanish word meaning "monster-makers" goes, you'll have to wait for Marianna to check in. I've never heard that one. I have heard of "robachicos", people who steal babies.
Last edited by consuelo; 11/20/05 11:46 AM.
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i can help but to comment on the text.
some of this 'body forming' existed in all cultures, (the text above cited the extreme end)
many cultures had specific ways of (via hats, or other methods) of shaping babies head. Some native americans would keep a baby straped to a 'baby board' to make sure the back of the head was flat (something they thought looked very attractive)
In africa, ornate coils made 'necklaces' totally deformed the growth of the clavical and collar bones, (if the necklaces were ever removed, the woman would almost immediately suffer a broken neck, her bones were so deformed, that they would not be able to support her head)
in europe, (and US) just a few hundred years ago, woman wore corsets (starting at age 8 or so!) that deformed their ribs, (and often left them unable to walk up a flight of stairs with out fainting!)
and we all know the classic 'deformations' that were done to girls feet,(in china) to make them 'small and delicate (which basicly resulted in their toes (all but the big toe) being deprived of blood, getting gangrene and falling off, as well as actually bending their bones!)
today, (and while there are valid health reasons to do so, many times its for vanity) we often 'straighten teeth' with braces, and use plastic surgery (again, some is nessesary for health) is regularly used to reshape nose, chins, ears, and enlarge breasts.
We have established a "norm" and will often subject children surgery and other 'treatments' to achieve that norm. (there are children who get regular shots of human growth hormone, there parents want them to grow taller)
Sure there isn't a market today for deformed 'grotesques' but there also isn't a market today for 'hook noses' or jug handle ears, or pointed chins, or adults that are under 5 feet tall. many of these 'defects' are being 'treated' with plastic surgery on teens and preteens. (not to mention all the surgery that is done on children who are born with 'ambivient' sexual organs. )
nowdays, normal is grotesques, and only perfect is acceptable, and body sculping continues albeit to acheive different ends.
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google "body modification" for a trip into the surreal...
formerly known as etaoin...
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Thank you for the pronunciation tip consuelo, and of troy, for your perspective. Your qualification was necessary, largely because, let it be said in passing (since it has been discussed at length elsewhere) that Wikipedia is user-contributed and therefore tends to be human-interest orientated -- sometimes at the expense of academic detachment. But hell, where else will you find an article on the 23 enigma and the Mary Celeste not to mention -- as no other encyclopedia will -- the Outside Context Problem? But it should be remembered too (by certain AWADtalk posters who love nothing so much as bagging Wiki) that the Great Library of Alexandria was effectively an open-content information system insofar as the scrolls of all visitors to the city were seized by official scribes; the scribes made copies, which they gave to the itinerant scholars, and added the originals to the library. You can read about it here, at Wikipedia.
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Do you think this is real?
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> real
yes. that is one of the milder things that I have seen on some of those sites.
formerly known as etaoin...
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