Tag Archives: Glossary Entry #15

REGALIA

Regalia (What You Pawn I Will Redeem)
noun
Pronunciation: re-gah-lia

-Special clothes and decorations (such as a crown or scepter) for official ceremonies.
-Special clothing of a particular kind.

Context: -“But the strangest thing of all was the old powwow dance regalia I saw hanging in the window.”
-“But it sure looked like my memory of it, and it had all the same color feathers and beads that my family sewed into our powwow regalia.”
-“Because they don’t want to be perfect, because only God is perfect, Indian people sew flaws into their powwow regalia.”
-“My family always sewed one yellow bead somewhere on our regalia.”
-” I took my grandmother’s regalia and walked outside. I knew that solitary yellow bead was part of me. I knew I was that yellow bead in part. Outside, I wrapped myself in my grandmother’s regalia and breathed her in.”

Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/regalia

regaliaExample of a Regalia

Image Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/132222939034377968/

 

Bereft

Bereft (adjective): 1 a: deprived or robbed of the possession or use of something b: lacking something needed, wanted, or expected; 2: suffering the death of a loved one (Merriam-Webster)

Found on Page 78, paragraph 2 of Beloved–>“This girl Beloved, homeless and without people, beat all, though he couldn’t say exactly why, considering the colored people he had run into during the last twenty years. During, before and after the War he had seen Negros so stunned, or hungry, or tired or bereft it was a wonder they recalled or said anything.”

I believe this word in the quote means when Paul D observed Beloved’s nice dress and shoes, he was suspicious of her being homeless because the slaves Paul D encountered were either hungry, robbed, or deprived of something. This meant that Beloved did not look hopeless and she did not look like she was lacking anything according to Paul D’s assumptions.