Pulpería de la Viña is a large tavern-inn (pulpería) in the flags quarter of the port of Santa María de Torregrises, one of the city’s few neutral inns. It is run by the Viña, a flag chief.
| Type | Place (inn, tavern, gambling den, shrine) |
| Proprietor | The Viña |
| Spanish entry | Pulpería de la Viña |
The proprietor
The flags quarter is ruled by flag people (gente de bandera). The Viña, “a big woman who looks very tense”, is a flag patroness and chief and a recent widow. Her nickname comes from her marriage to Farrucho, who abandoned her. She took charge of a son, a mulatto pianist who opens the orchestra of the Teatro La Victoria. Cartagena favored her on coming to power; with Carmín’s rise six, seven or eight years later, she became a flag chief.
The house
- Upstairs: an inn and tavern open to all, serving juicio oscuro (“dark judgment”) in a horn.
- Basement: the former tavern, a known cavern where illegal card games are often held.
- The Viña’s room: full of santería objects — boxes of small bones, herbs — with bordeaux-draped walls and a syncretic altar (Virgin Mary, Virgin of Carmen, saints, candles, black cardboard). Incense covers something half-rotten in a jar; the ritual work is continuous.
The Viña brings her dream consultations to Muriel Umutessi, who worked with her there.
Neutrality and its violation
Flag politics are not settled there; the neutrality rests on the patroness and her altar, not on law. The Mazorca broke it: “they did not kill her but they just gave her a shove in her own establishment”. Later a Mazorca squad was massacred there. The house was wrecked and reopened.
Open questions
- The Viña’s real name, the building’s layout and the jar’s contents are not recorded.
- Whether the “Muriel healer” is Muriel Umutessi, and whether the pianist is the son she took in, is unresolved.
- What juicio oscuro is, and what a “flag” is as an institution (political, armed or both), is unexplained.
- The order of the shove, the massacre and the reopening is disputed, as is who wrecked the house.
- Whether the “cavern” is literal or figurative is disputed.