Ole Ya

Apprenticeships aren't very common in Jamaica any more, or maybe they are under a different name or in a different form. But it used to be routine that a young person could go "learn a trade"- and this meant working as an apprentice to a tailor or mechanic or so. Case in point, Marcus Garvey left his home in St. Ann and went to work as an apprentice for a printer in Kingston. Nowadays you learn a trade in high school or at a post secondary vocational institution, most often something under the umbrella of HEART Trust/NTA.

Well, back in the day, some unscruplous persons would take an apprentice under their wings, with the sole purpose of extracting as much cheap labour from them as possible. The way to drag out the training period was to teach the poor apprentices little or nothing, so what they would do was just have them do tasks that required no skill at all, like hand me this tool, or deliver that package, or hold this thing. Yes, "Hold this" is standard English for ole ya.

Over time, "ole ya" became rich with meaning. For instance a person who spent ages as an apprentice but never actually acquired mastery of the trade got called Ole Ya. If someone underestimated your ability by constantly assigning you tasks that did not require much intelligence, you might begin to think they were taking you for Ole Ya.

I'm laughing but it's not funny. Lots of talented people never really scale any great heights, and end up as Ole Ya for years and years and years, sometimes a whole lifetime. The reasons must be complex and depend on all sorts of situations, but still take a shot at it and tell me why.

Tek Kin Teet Kibba Heart Bun

Kin teet is Jamaican for laughter.


Kibba means cover.

Bun stands for burn.



When translated you get someting like 'use laughter to cover pain'.



This is by no means saying be a stoic. Not at all. We Jamaicans are open and unabashed where grief and distress are concerned. We are not ashamed to let it all out. Even on national TV. Especially on national TV.

'Tek kin teet kibba heart bun', is not a saying that intends for you to live in denial and not come head on with whatever it is that is emotionally distressing.

Instead, its just a way of saying comedy and laughter are good for soothing sorrows.

So look for comedy, create merriment, laugh nuff.

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?"

Pitcherie Inna Hawk Back

That's the best I could do with the spelling of pitcherie. I'm told that it's called the kingfisher in other places. It's a small bird that looks almost exactly like the mocking bird (which I'm told is the same as the nightingale) except it has a longer beak and a devilish look (I swear) about the eye, and some spiky feathers on the back of his head that makes him look like a gangster. We have plenty of both up here, much to my neighbour's displeasure. My neighbour is not a bird hater, but he's a bee-keeper. And bee-keepers and pitcheries are natural enemies because pitcheries eat the bees you see. Nightingales on the other hand only sing their hearts out for you. It's a true thing I'm telling you, Harper Lee didn't make it up. They echo the melody of other birds with their own little embellishments; it's the sweetest sound to wake up to. We mostly hear them in the spring time here.

But I'm telling you about the pitcherie. That is a tallawah bird, boy. I've seen them attack hawks. There will be this huge commotion in the azure world and when you come out to see what's going on, lo and behold this pitcherie will be wreaking havoc on a hawk, a bird two or three times its own size. A bird that country people hide their chickens from, for hawks enjoy a good chicken meal as you might well know. It is such an awe-inspiring thing to see the pitcherie out manuevering the hawk and sinking his formidable beak into the back of shrieking, tormented bird that someone made a proverb out of it.

Whenever a smaller, seemingly weaker person dominates another, or whenever someone pesters another person to distraction, in Jamaica we say to that person, "you come in (you're like) a pitcherie inna hawk back".


Tallawah: "sturdy, strong, not to be underestimated; tough, stubborn." Dictionary of Jamaican English; second edition edited by F. G. Cassidy and R. B. LePage; Cambridge University Press 1967, 1980; page 436.

When Plantain Want Dead him Shoot

I'll have to hazard a guess as to what this well known Jamaican proverb means. Shoot means to put out fruit. Plantain is a cousin to bananas, it can be fried, boiled, roasted or used as a filling in pastry - not usually a pie, more likely plantain tart. It is sweet when ripe and has a mellow flavour. When green it is starchy and bland and the flavour is usually enhanced with salt, pepper, onion or garlic.

After a plantain plant bears and you harvest the fruit, you generally cut the plant down because it will eventually die anyway. If you are too lazy to cut the plant down, you are merely encumbering the ground and having this useless plant compete with productive ones for space and nutrients.

Now, to map an interpretation of the proverb directly to this, I'd have to say that when you feel you've lived long enough, just put on your best show. But strangely that's not how I've heard this saying used. Here is a context in which it might be used - young Susan is blossoming, vivacious and confident, maybe laughs too much in her granny's mind. Granny is worried that some man is is going to come along and pick her cherry (and as far as Granny can see) blight her whole future. So Granny seeing this, hrumphs and issues the cryptic warning; when plantain want dead him shoot.

Or here is another scenario Marlon is extra energetic today and he is up to all sorts of mischief and making a complete nuisance of himself. Pappa is quickly losing patience and will reach for a strap in a moment, but before he does so he prepares Marlon; when plantain want dead him shoot. If Marlon gets the message he will stop the tomfoolery.

Do they say anything like this in your neck of the woods?

Jackass seh de worl no level

Jackass is not widely known for his mental acumen, in fact somewhere along the line his name became synonymous with 'idiot' as in the famous quotes below.


“Every woman should have four pets in her life. A mink in her closet, a jaguar in her garage, a tiger in her bed, and a jackass who pays for everything.” Paris Hylton

"Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one” Sam Rayburn

But as Mark Twain suggests, poor Jackass has been maligned; “Concerning the difference between man and the jackass: some observers hold that there isn't any. But this wrongs the jackass.”

Now take this astute observation by Jackass; "de worl no level". Jackass is simplifying the Orwellian remark that "all men are created, equal but some are more equal than others". As far as Jackass can see, disadvantage and privilege are both as much part of life as hill and gully are part of the natural terrain here in Jamaica.

We use this expression when we come across unfairness, depending on the context we might also say "Puss and dog nuh have the same luck".

When time hard mango bear nuff

Photosource

Julie, East Indian, Bombay, number 11, sweetie com brush me, Milly, Tommy Atkins, reddie, robin, blackie (known in some parts of the island as greenidge or fine skin), and of course the goodly stringy (a.k.a common mango or hairy) weigh down mango trees all over Jamaica right now. This year all our industries except agriculture have seen a decline, the government has imposed new tax measures, and Jamaica is all around feeling the effects of the global economic downturn and we so happen to be having a bumber crop of mangoes this year. Or is there something to the implied folk belief in Providence? When time hard mango bear nuff, so dem sey in Jamaica.

Piss in the pot or get up

Pot here refers to what you might know as pottie, chamber pot, chimmy, jordan, john, poe. I grew up with a plain white enamel chimmy with the pretty red flowers on the side. The older folks used a larger variety or sometimes a pail. These were essential amenities, especially at night, as the latrine was a good several feet to the back of the house. Modern life has pretty much done away with all that but in rural areas you will still find a plastic pot underneath many a bed.

The old time saying piss in the pot or get up is a lil old lady's way of saying you should make up your mind, be decisive, take action, do not vacillate.

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