A term in many Hispanic cultures for a person who wears especially splendid hats. It originates from the Marquesa de Anamaria, a noblewoman renowned throughout Spain for her seemingly endless collection of fantastical head garments.
Also,
slang for "morning" in some Puerto Rican neighborhoods in
Chicago, as in, "Ai, I had to wake up at five in the anamaria today just so I could have some
peace and quite before Hector woke up!"
With the setting sun streaming through the egret plumes atop her head, the condesa waved away her eighth suitor of the evening. Letting out a
heavy sigh, she reflected on the days of her youth, years spent in filth, years of rolling in muck with the family
hog and eating unwashed boniatos for dinner. How had she risen to such great heights, in a matter of only four years, no less? Catching her own reflection in the mirror opposite her, she gazed at the silk, the velvet, the pearls. What had changed? She may have grown up in squalor, but her
parents had always made sure that she was clothed in the finest garments. She was certainly cleaner, but she was no more
beautiful than she had been when she lived in her family's hovel in the chicken yard. And yet ... something WAS different. As she struggled to put her
finger on the change, a tiny feather drifted down from above her head and settled precariously upon the
tip of her nose. Of course! she exclaimed, Back home I wore a
hat made of straw, until the day I found the overturned carriage and took the feathered
hat from the
dead lady's head! That's what is different, that's why the men dote on me so!
With that, the condesa flung her gem encrusted slippers from the balcony and turned, setting off toward the awaiting jungle, toward the future that awaited her, Condesa de Cuidad de México, Ana
Maria of New Spain.
