Roots Archives Forum

'throw me corn" is an old Jamaican saying:

me throw me corn, me nuh call nuh fowl means you are who you show yourself to be, also perhaps a way of saving face if you say something that's not taken too well ....

kind of like the "who the cap fit" saying.

Yeah, not directed specifically at any 1 person...impartial...

If you wana pick up the corn, its your bizniss!! If the cap fits.....

The term Piyaka means to cheat, to hustle; to do a bad thing. The etymology of the term originates with the once popular Jamaican food Ackee Pie. Ackee is one of the national foods of Jamaican, and at old carnivals and fairs it was sold in what was then called a pie but is now called a patty. Since the inside ingredients were hidden from view the sellers would substitute or water-down the precious ackee with other stuff. They were cheating their customers, so people began to use the term "ackee pie seller" to put down anyone who was a cheat or trying to do you harm. The term eventually became shortened to just ackee pie, and somewhere along the line was reversed to "pie ackee." WIth time, and changes in accent and pronunciation, the term eventually became what we know today: "Piaka"

In the Wailers song "Bus Dem Shut" they urge "Bredda [brother] Pyaka" to "cut out (put down?) Pyakaism"

[The Wailers Pyaka] (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eugQ3vfQOK8)