Friday, July 3, 2009

Duppy know who fi frighten!

A duppy is a ghost. Sometimes we use the word to mean a stupid person, or an ugly person, but mostly we mean ghost. Duppies feature prominently in our folklore, the most famous of them being Annie Palmer the white witch of Rose Hall.



Then there is a whole legion of them that arose from the wreckage of the train crash at
Kendal in 1957. My mother tells this story of one of her cousins- and part of the story is this study in genealogy, for she digresses by habit, and she loves to trace our family tree. But anyway the cousin in question was a taxi driver in Kingston in the 1950s and he told her that one day he picked up a lady and carried her to a certain upscale address. Upon arrival the lady asked him to wait while she went inside to get the fare. He waited ten minutes and Miss Lady did not return so he honked, at which time someone came out to talk to him. Well you can imagine the rest... no body had entered the house, and the description mom's cousin gave of the woman suited someone from that house who had died in Kendal crash.



My mother has lots of duppy stories up her sleeve, even now I enjoy listening to them. My favourite ones are of the pranks she played on her scaredy cat older sister when they were children. Like the time she and Aunt Pearlie were coming from Hillsborough late one moonlight night, and mom stopped under a cotton tree (a favourite hangout spot for duppies) and started screaming in terror. Aunt Pearlie grabbed on to her and nearly went mad with fright, screaming louder and more frantically than her wicked sister. Mom had to stop the nonesense when she realized that Aunt Pearlie might squeeze the life out of her.



Just so you know, man duppy and woman duppy do not laugh the same way. Man duppy laugh 'ha-ha', and woman duppy laugh 'cre keh keng keng'. So says Ernie Smith (I believe). I wanted to find you that song, but only found this one:







If you see a menacing duppy, the way to scare the daylights out of him is to hurl a slew of expletives at him, and I don't mean the mild ones like 'dyam' or 'rahtid'. You have to give him the hard core ones like 'bumbo-rass claat' and he will flee in terror. There are easier, less profane ways of scaring a duppy; like wearing your clothes on the wrong side, or wearing red underwear.



So you see, duppies aren't all powerful, they have to choose the weak and the helpless, otherwise they might find themselves spooked out of their wits. That's why in Jamaica we say "Duppy know who fi frighten".



But when we use that saying we really aren't talking about ghosts. We are talkning about bullies or anyone who would exploit others if given the chance, such as in the case of a supervisor intimidating an employee who doesn't know his rights, an onlooker might say "duppy really know who if frighten, eenh?"



14 comments:

Will said...

loved this post... v. entertaining...

apropos of annie palmer, when i was in UDAS we did a production of the white witch of rose hall... was hilarious... you know actors - we were all running around screaming that the play was haunted and annie was coming after us...

good times...

J.M said...

teehee, you all got a chance to play duppyman one last time.

ruthibel said...

duppy know who fi frighten...
yep. and they do.

Daisy Soap Girl said...

I love the legend of the white witch. I used to buy a perfume named White Witch whenever I visited Jamaica. I wonder if they still make that.

J.M said...

Ruthi, yeh man, once they know they can scare you, dem tek set.

Daisy,
I had no idea they had such a perfume, I bet it had a certain.. bewitching quality?

Unknown said...

Duppy stories were the order of the day back in the days when I was young and lived in the country.

But the saying is true, people only do things to people who they know will allow them to do it.

Now for duppy story, one of the photographers on the trip I went to last Sunday took this photo. No one knows what caused that light orb in the picture. See it here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33330892@N05/3694812888/in/pool-onelove

Abeni said...

Lol,yeah cussing dem real bad was always thought to work. My granny used to say com ein the house backways so that they won't folllow you in

Jdid said...

like this post.

always liked that saying duppy kno who fi frighten.

J.M said...

Stunner,
Ooooh, that picture is eerie man.

Abeni,
I spent last week in the country -well actually where I live is rural, but we call anywhere west of St. Catherine country. Really nice - nuff relatives and thing, plenty roast breadfruit, fried fish, sand/sea, board games and yes, duppy stories sprinkled in between. I gathered that duppies don't like seasoning, especially not garlic!

JDID,
Cool

Anonymous said...

Love all your blog posts Jackie, I am glad Ruthibelle brought my attention to you in her Comic Rant, Part 1.

As for Ghosts, my view, they are very real, but I guess I'll have to blog more about that when I find some time.

You need the "eye" fi see them though, not everyone can.

J.M said...

Delighted to meet you Logix! I've skipped over to your place and I like what I see! You can expect to see mee over there from time to time!

I don't think ghosts are real, but I do enjoy a good duppy story. So you think they are real? I'm intrigued, give me a shout if you ever do a post on it.

Kaya said...

Love di vibes...wha bout Shirley?

J.M said...

Hi Kaya, I don't know the story behind Shirley Duppy, but I've heard references to her. Who she again?

Greg said...

It was Flip Kay talking about how man duppy and woman duppy laugh:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaOkhXzpnuA

Also one about duppy bawling.

Thank you for your post!