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.