Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/161

 io« 8. iv. Arc. 12, iocs.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 129 ninny at her back, as merry a soule as any is there: Some women, whose Pickaninnies are three veers old, will, as they worke at weeding, which is a stooping worke, suffer the hee Pickaninnie, to sit astride upon their backs, like St. George a horse- back ; and there spurre his mother with his heeles, and sings and crowes on her backe, clapping his hands, as if he meant to flye; which the mother is so pleas'd with, as shee continues her painfull stooping posture, longer then she would doe, rather than discompose her Joviall Pickaninnie of his pleasure, so glad she is to see him merry."—R. Ligon, 'Trve & Exact History of the Island of Barbadoes,' 1657, pp. 47-8. " Almost half of the new imported Negroes die in the Seasoning, nor does the Polygamy, which they use, add much to the Stocking of a Plantation. Every Pickaninny, or Child, is valued at 51., and the Commodity in general rises or falls like any other in the Market."—'New History of Jamaica,' 1740, p. 312. To southern climes the shipping flew, And anchored in Virginia, When Champe escaped and join'd his friends, Among the picininni. From a ballad written in 1780, in F. Moore's 'Songs and Ballads of the American Revolu- tion ' (1856), p. 327. "A negro fellow, being strongly suspected to have stolen goods in his possession, was taken before a certain Justice of the Peace of this city [Phila- delphia], and charged with the offence. The fellow was so hardened as to acknowledge the fact, and, to add to his crime, had the audacity to make the following speech : 'Massa Justice, me know me get dem tings from Tom dere—and me thinke Tom teal dem too—but what den, massa? dey be only a picca- ninny corkscrew and a pickaninny knife—one cost sixpence, and tudder a shilling—and me pay Tom for dem honestly, maxm.' "*A very pretty story, truly. You knew they were stolen, and alledge in excuse you paid honestly for them—I'll teach you better law than that, sirrah !—Don't you know, Csesar, the receiver is an bad a» the thief' You must be severely whipt, you black rascal you !' "' Ver well, massa !—If de black rascal be whipt for buying tolen goods, me hopee de white rascal be whipt for «ime ting, when me catch him, as well as Cassar.' 'To be sure,' rejoined his worship. ' Well den (says Cresar) here be Tom's massa— hold him fast, constable—he buy Tom as I buy de piccaninny knife and de piccaninny corkscrew. He knew very well poor Tom be stolen from his old {adder and mudder; de knife and de corkscrew have neider.'"'—Mawachmettn Centinel, 35 October, 1788, x. 4»'l. "A negro, who had been some years in the country, happening one day to meet an elderly slave who had just been purchased from a slave- trader recently arrived, he recognised him as his father—who, it seems, had sold him to the European. Without explanation or preface, he addressed to him a speech, in his country dialect, which he thus translated to the bystanders: ' So, yon old rogue, dem catch you at last—no. Buckra" do i/ood—you no care for your pickinnic (child)—but the;/ will make you fed work pinch too.' "—J. Stewart, 'View of the Pa»t and Present of Jamaica,' 1823, pp. 255-fl. "The Lieutenant, observing that the Indian men had been quiet and submissive ordered his men to dismount and give their horses to the women, who mounted ' a la cavalier,' two on a horse, with apicaniany in front."—1838, G. A. McCall, 'Letters from the Frontiers' (1868), p. 349. "The poor little piccaninny [a negro baby just born], as they called it, was not one bit uglier than white babies under similarly novel circum- stances."—1839, Fanny Kemble, 'Journal of a Residence in Georgia' (1863), p. 188. Ligon visited Barbadoes in 1647, and his book, though not published until 1857, was written as early as 1653. Here, then, we find the word in the West Indies a century and a half earlier than in the East Indies. A remark made by S ted man, but not quoted by Prof. Skeat, is worth repeating. He says :— "But as to that spoken by the black people in Surinam, I consider myself a perfect master, it being a compound of Dutch, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and English. The latter they like best, and consequently use the most. It has already been observed that the English were the first Europeans who possessed this colony, hence probably the predilection for that language, which they have still retained."—II. 257. Did piccaninny originate in the East Indie or in the West Indies'! The new evidenc certainly points to the West Indies. It wil perhaps, be asserted that a word is mor likely to have gone from the East Indies t the West Indies than in the reverse direc tion. A genuine instance, however, of the contrary process may be pointed out. The word mm, meaning the liquor, was first used in Connecticut 6 April, 1654 ('Connecticut Colonial Records,' i. 255); but it unquestion- ably arose in Barbadoes, where it was first manufactured, and theuce spread all over the world. If this is also what happened in the case of piccaninny, is not its probable origin from the Spanish pequeno 1 In ' The Stanford Dictionary,' by the way, we are told that the word is " Eng. fr. Cuban Sp. piquinini." The story related above in 1788 may have been manufactured by some white aboli- tionist ; but if it really represents genuine negro talk at that time it is interesting, because it shows that the word was then applied by the negroes to various objects, and not merely to babies or children. ALBERT MATTHEWS. Boston, U.S.A. Castilian and Portuguese being originally the same decadent Latin, it is a small point philologically, but of interest historically, to determine whether the negroes gotjieekeen or peekeeneenee from the Spaniards or from the Portuguese who civilized them. An English
 * White men.