As I know it, pork-knockers can serve as a methaphor for rugged,Caribbean-style resilience and just plain toughness. These independent prospectors common to the inhospitable interior of Guyana have been bringing out gold and diamonds from rivers and earth for more than 100 years. Of course, as these things go, and depending on who you talk to, many a pork-knocker could be said to suffer from something or the other of a reputation for one thing or the other: a bad reputation for rum drinking, fighting and women; and a good reputation for rum drinking, fighting and women.
Now, as I know it, the activity of pork-knocking (which I've heard mispronunced poke-knocking) isn't derived from at least one of the more flamboyant activities of pork-knockers, which one in the general know of such things might suppose. In short, pork-knockers came to be known as such because of being hungry eaters (or knockers) of pickled pork, and after a hard day's work using pick and shovel and pan . . . and showing grit.
And grit would be needed when confronted by natural elements such as Moongazer or Bush Dai-Dai, the latter a known protector of mineral and natural resources, and so likely a natural enemy to pork-knockers.
"I had the odd and interesting pleasure to meet up with an old pork-knocker named Woody of questionable or praiseworthy reputation for fighting, women, rum-drinking, song, and story-telling, and in no particular order; and, naturally, my curiosity was aroused, or especially aroused, by talk of song and story-telling. Of my time spent with Woody, of which I can only admit to song and story-telling, I came to find out that his reputation was very well deserved.
And, as to Woody's songs, I was treated to such as a bawdier than I've ever heard rendition of Sanko, and Woody was on cue amused when I inquired as to the reason or reasons for the lickin' that Sanko's lover got on the dam. And as to Woody's story-telling, which he readily admitted was as to events and things some as he heard tell of, some as he just knew, and some as he claims to have actually seen, my favorite certainly has to be his recounting of the time that he personally witnessed a fight between a Moongazer and Bush Dai-Dai, and events leading up to and after that epic encounter, and none of this seemed strange or curious at the time of the telling."
As I know it, pork-knockers are a rugged and tough breed of individuals, independent prospectors for gold and diamonds in the rivers and earth of Guyana's Bush, traiditionally equipped mainly with shovel, pick and pan, and at least at one time or another sure to haave ended a hard day eating pickled pork after facing the prospect of such as malaria and the natural and supernatural wild with grace and grit, as the stories are told.
Do you know about pork-knockers? What do you know?
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