You could point at the high incidence of Renaissance paintings, plaster saints, zucchini, frescoes, nuns, tricolor pasta, Day-Glo cyclists, olive trees, leaning towers, old women, equicidal horse races, two-lane motorways, bridges, dogs, geranium mini-gardens, Madonnas and Davids, baptisteries, and tiramisu ice cream—and much of this would be true.

Provincial English papers still carry their “smalls” — want ads — on the first page.

surpassing common faith, transgressing nature's law

Following the birth of a baby, Tainos would perform a naming ritual where the child would be pronounced as a Taino and a human being (Keegan, 1997).