I think it’s to condition you into shaking out the sheets every night to remove the stone. You think you’re shaking the stone out, and the maid hopes you don’t notice that what you are really doing is shaking out the scorpions. :eek:
Next time it happens, the next morning put a rock the size of your fist in its place before you go out of the day. Or collect a handful of small stones and add them next to the stone the maid left.
Perhaps not … wouldn’t want her to lose her job over some misunderstanding - your question might be construed as a complaint, it may be seen as some ‘backward’ custom not welcome in their establishment.
Ok, one of the girls in the file room is from DR so I brought her in to review the OP. She says she’s never heard of stones in the bed, and it sounds like some voodoo crap. She also wants to know what hotel you were staying at.
Probably not related, but many of the Cuban immigrants examined in the STD clinic here have a small pebble inserted just under the skin on the top base of their penises (close to the pubic area).
Like, implanted under the skin? Or just tucked in a fold somehow? Just a pebble like you’d pick up off the ground? Why? Do you remove them?
Inquiring minds (or at least one) want to know!
That’s one STD that really needs to be avoided. Ouch!
I’m guessing it would be for clitoral stimulation.
Ah. I missed the bit about the size; I was imagining something the size of pea shingle.
That. Is brilliant.
Folklorist chiming in: my guess is that it is to avert bad luck. To quote David Pickering (Cassell’s Dictionary of Superstitions): “The business of making a bed is fraught with danger, according to superstition.” Some of the things that invite bad luck are:
- three people making a bed
- turning the mattress on the wrong day
- changing the bed within an hour of the guest’s departure
- sneezing while bedmaking.
I would think that being a maid would involve routine violations of numbers 2 & 3; allergic maids might violate 2 through 4, and if she’s also the sort of small, nervous maid who travels in packs in tropical resort hotels, she might be in severe danger indeed. I don’t know why a stone, but stones are often used in Haitian vodou, so the D.R. isn’t much of a stretch.
Isn’t the Dominican Republic a Spanish speaking country? If that’s so, you’re dealing with Santaria or Mucumbe, rather than Voudoun. Considering that the stone is in the bed closest to the window, my WAG is that it’s been placed there to protect guests. You never know what evil spirits will sneak in through the windows at night.
Did you notice anything by the hotels’ main entrance? Was there any kind of display or offering placed closeby?
Did you try replacing the rock with a note asking “what’s up with the rock?”
I’m not in a position to make any enquiries about the practice because I am home in good 'ole blighty now. The resort I was staying at is called Casa Marina Reef in Peurto Plata on the north coast, quite some distance from the Haitian border though we were told that many Haitians come to live in DR to get better paying jobs. I suppose it is possible that they brought certain practices with them, we were told that the main religion in Haiti is Voodoo so the stones could have had something to do with that.
I highly doubt it, the rooms were so hot we had to have the air conditioning on all the time and the stone was too small to serve such a purpose.
I don’t think it had anything to do with me being a fitful sleeper or anything because I actually switched beds with my brother after around a week (because I was always too hot and he was always too cold at night, switching beds put me closer to the air conditioning) and the stone was always in place regardless of who had slept in the bed. Also, both beds were clearly slept in, due to the way the bed was made it would be impossible to sleep in it without it being clear it had been slept in, the sheets were pulled very tight and had to be untucked from under the mattress to allow you to get in, this is when the stone was dislodged and sent tumbling onto the floor.
I guess it will remain a mystery, perhaps it will give me a good reason to go back for another holiday and that can’t be a bad thing!!
P.S. Incase anyone is interested you can see my holiday snaps here, no pictures of the stones though I am sad to say.
Yoruba practices and beliefs got spread over the Carribean a few centuries ago.
Which again leads me to believe that it’s purpose was spiritual protection. The stone keeps the bed empty of dubbies etc, until the guest gets in.
I doubt it. If nothing else works, many Dopers can just locate the nearest botanica and ask.