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Pickaninny (also picaninny, piccaninny or pickininnie) is a racial slur for African-American children and a pejorative term for Aboriginal children of the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand. The origins of the term are disputed. Along with several words for children in pidgin and creole languages, such as piccanin and pikinini, it may derive from the Portuguese {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} ('boy, child, very small, tiny').Template:R
In the United States, the pickaninny is also a derogatory caricature of a dark-skinned African American child, often depicted with unkempt hair, bulging eyes, and large red lips.Template:R Such characters were a popular feature of minstrel shows into the twentieth century.Template:R
Origins and usageEdit
The origins of the word pickaninny (and its alternative spellings picaninny and piccaninny) are disputed; it may derive from the Portuguese term for a small child, {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Room 1986">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term evidently spread through trade networks using Portuguese-based pidgins during the 17th century, especially the Atlantic slave trade.<ref name="OED Online">Template:Cite OED</ref> It was apparently used by slaves in the West Indies to affectionately refer to a child of any race.<ref name="Herbst 1997">Template:Cite book</ref> Pickaninny acquired a pejorative connotation by the nineteenth century as a term for black children in the United States, as well as aboriginal children of the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand.<ref name="Bernstein p34">Template:Cite book</ref> The term is now generally considered offensive.Template:R
Similar terms in Pidgin and Creole languagesEdit
The term piccanin, derived from the Portuguese {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, has along with several variants become widely used in pidgin languages, meaning 'small'.<ref name="Hughes 2015">Template:Cite book</ref> This term is common in the creole languages of the Caribbean, especially those which are English-based.<ref name="WordReference.com">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In Jamaican Patois, the word is found as {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, which is used to describe a child regardless of racial origin.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The same word is used in Antiguan and Barbudan Creole to mean "children",Template:Cn while in the English-based national creole language of Suriname, Sranang Tongo, {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} has been borrowed as {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} for 'small' and 'child'.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
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The term {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} is found in Melanesian pidgin and creole languages such as Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea or Bislama of Vanuatu, as the usual word for 'child' (of a person or animal);<ref name="Crowley 2003">Template:Cite book</ref> it may refer to children of any race.Template:Citation needed For example, Charles III used the term in a speech he gave in Tok Pisin during a formal event: he described himself as {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (i.e. the first child of the Queen).<ref name="Prince of Wales Visits">Template:Cite news</ref>
In Nigerian as well as Cameroonian Pidgin English, the word {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} is used to mean a child.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> It can be heard in songs by African popular musicians such as Fela Kuti's Afrobeat song "Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense" and Prince Nico Mbarga's highlife song "Sweet Mother";<ref>Mbarga, Prince Nico & Rocafil Jazz (1976) Sweet Mother (lp) Rounder Records #5007 (38194)</ref>Template:Primary source inline both are from Nigeria. In Sierra Leone Krio<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> the term {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} refers to 'child' or 'children', while in Liberian English the term pekin does likewise. In Chilapalapa, a pidgin language used in Southern Africa, the term used is {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}. In Sranan Tongo and Ndyuka of Suriname the term {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} may refer to 'children' as well as to 'small' or 'little'. Some of these words may be more directly related to the Portuguese {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} than to {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}.Template:Citation needed
United StatesEdit
The pickaninny became the dominant racial caricature of black children in the United States, and typically depicted untamed, genderless children with unkempt hair, bulging eyes, large mouths, and red lips, often stuffing their mouths with watermelon or fried chicken.<ref name="Olson p83">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Pilgrim 2000">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The child was often depicted as being threatened or attacked by animals, and resistant or immune to pain.Template:R The first famous depiction of a pickaninny was the character of Topsy in Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, presented as a poorly dressed and behaved, neglected girl, untamable and corrupted by slavery.<ref name="Pilgrim 2000" /> These characters were a popular feature of minstrel shows into the twentieth century.Template:R
Journalist H. L. Mencken (born 1880) wrote that "in the Baltimore of my youth, pickaninny was not used invidiously, but rather affectionately."<ref name="Mencken 1945">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Primary source inline
Commonwealth countriesEdit
Piccaninny is considered an offensive term for an Aboriginal Australian child.<ref name="Partridge 2006">Template:Cite book</ref> It was used in colonial Australia and is still in use in some Indigenous Kriol languages.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Piccaninny (sometimes spelled picanninnie) is found in numerous Australian place names, such as Piccaninnie Ponds and Piccaninny Lake<ref name="Piccaninny Lagoon">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> in South Australia, Piccaninny crater and Picaninny Creek in Western Australia and Picaninny Point in Tasmania.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>Template:Original research inline
The term was used in 1831 in an anti-slavery tract "The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, related by herself" published in Edinburgh, Scotland.<ref>Documenting the American South</ref> In 1826 an Englishman named Thomas Young was tried at the Old Bailey in London on a charge of enslaving and selling four Gabonese women known as "Nura, Piccaninni, Jumbo Jack and Prince Quarben".<ref>The Times, 25 October 1826; Issue 13100; p. 3; col A, Admiralty Sessions, Old Bailey, 24 October.</ref>Template:Primary source inline The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English says that in the United Kingdom today, piccaninny is considered highly offensive and derogatory, or negative and judgemental when used by other black people.Template:R It was controversially used ("wide-grinning picaninnies") in a letter quoted by the British Conservative politician Enoch Powell in his 1968 "Rivers of Blood" speech.Template:Citation needed In a 2002 column for The Daily Telegraph, Boris Johnson wrote, "It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies."<ref name="Brown 2021">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Bowcott 2008">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Johnson 2002">Template:Cite news</ref>
In popular cultureEdit
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LiteratureEdit
- 1911Template:DashIn the novel Peter and Wendy by J. M. Barrie, the Indians of Neverland are members of the Piccaninny tribe. Writer Sarah Laskow describes them as "a blanket stand-in for 'others' of all stripes, from Aboriginal populations in Australia to descendants of slaves in the United States" who generally communicate in pidgin with lines such as "Ugh, ugh, wah!".<ref name="Laskow 2014">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
|CitationClass=web }}</ref>
- 1936Template:DashIn Margaret Mitchell's best-selling epic Gone with the Wind, the character Melanie Wilkes objects to her husband's intended move to New York City because it would mean that their son Beau would be educated alongside "Yankees" and "pickaninnies".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
|CitationClass=web }}</ref>
TelevisionEdit
- 2015Template:DashSeason 1 Episode 14 of Shark Tank Australia featured Piccaninny Tiny Tots which has since changed its name to Kakadu Tiny Tots.Template:Citation needed
- 2020Template:DashEpisode 8 (Jig-A-Bobo) of the HBO television series Lovecraft Country features a character chased by Topsy and Bopsy, two ghoulish monsters depicted as "pickaninny" caricatures.<ref name="Hill 2020">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Smail 2020">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
See alsoEdit
ReferencesEdit
Further readingEdit
External linksEdit
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- Online exhibit of stereotypical portrayals of African Americans, Haverford College
Template:Ethnic slurs Template:African American caricatures and stereotypes