'From saltfish used to shingle house top', 'from the devil was a bwoy', and 'from Whappie kill Phillup'.
These are three phrases we Jamaicans love to use to establish that something happened or has been happening from a long time ago. I use them. And I'm sure you have used at least one of them, even once in your life. But check it: all three phrases are kind of suspect in terms of logics and factual accuracy. I don't even need to do any research to know that nobody couldn't mad enough to use saltfish as shingle fi housetop. How dat woulda work? Dem woulda haffi find all the saltfish in the ocean or build some really small house. Wha yu think?
And as fi 'when di devil was a bwoy', dat nuh mek sense to me. I think the devil born big. If the devil was a bwoy who was him mother? And did he have a father? Those two expressions fail the logics test fi me. The one 'bout Whappie killing Phillup now; well, it's actually based on a real situation.
Interesting corruption
But the current use is an interesting corruption of the original phrase, because nobody named Whappie ever really killed anybody called Phillup. Is years now people been telling lie pon dat man Whappie. Whappie was a real man, and he was a murderer and a robber yes, but his victim wasn't anybody by the name of Phillup.
You want to know how this phrase start? Hear how di story go: Aston Jolly, whose nickname was 'Whappie King' attacked and robbed two people on the night of June 11, 1951. A Gleaner article on that incident had a line reporting that one victim survived the attack but the other died 'from a Whappie King fillip'. fillip in that context meant a snap or light blow, like the flip of a finger. So the original phrase referred to a 'how'. But over years of repetitive use and misuse, it has come to mean a 'when'. Interesting, eh?
So, how I know dem ting ya? Well, I discovered the 'Whappie kill Phillup' story and a whole heap of other fascinating stuff on www.chat-bout.net, a wonderful new website about Jamaican people and things. It's refreshing and heart-warming and chockfull of poems, proverbs, riddles, stories, historical anecdotes and contemporary happenings. It has news and views about Jamaican arts, heritage and entertainment with a very definite emphasis on the positive and uplifting aspects of our national life.
Little-known facts
I especially like the little-known-facts and trivia. For example, I learned that although that is what it means in Spanish, the name Ocho Rios, don't have a thing to do with any 'eight rivers'. The name actually derives from English mispronunciation of the Spanish word for waterfall 'Las Chorreras".
I also discovered to my delight and dismay, that the town of Falmouth had piped water before New York City. I'm delighted by one more example of how ahead of the rest of the world we can be, because we had piped water at Martha Brae in 1799.
But I'm also dismayed by the fact that with all of that, many people in Jamaica in 2008 still have to carry water in buckets on their heads and do their bathing and laundry at a nearby river - something we've been doing from time immemorial, long before anybody even imagined saltfish as shingle.
That was long before November 1951 when Whappie was convicted for murder, and executed about a month after. Whappie died from a hangman's fillip, but Whappie never killed Phillup!
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