Some interesting observations:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/ppj/ppj001.htm
THE Reverend William James Gardner, a Congregational Minister, came to Jamaica in 1849, and after nearly a quarter of a century of observation and research published in 1873
A History of Jamaica, which is characterized by its scholarly and dispassionate treatment of the domestic affairs of the island...
Moreover, the generic term for the black man in Jamaica, in contradistinction to the Bockra, or white man, is even now Quashie, the designation of a male Sunday-child, and I could not help noticing on more than one occasion, that Quaco was a common nickname, and one that was not at all relished by the recipient. But why a Wednesday-child should be a term of reproach, I could not determine, and the more I questioned, the more embarrassed the victim became and the more his tormentors enjoyed his discomfiture. They themselves simply did not know the origin or real signification of the term. Captain Rattray now calls my attention to the fact that in Ashanti folklore, Anansi, the spider, is usually referred to as Kwaku Anansi. He is a roguish sort of a fellow who is constantly overreaching himself and guilty of endless sharp practice. But despite it all, he is a likeable chap of a most amusing character.
Harry Johnston has already assured us, that the vestiges of such words, etc., to be found to-day in Jamaica, as can be traced back to African sources, are almost invariably of Ashanti origin. Let me cite just a few examples that came under my own observation while I was in Jamaica.
Throughout the "bush" there is a peculiar type of fowl with ruffled feathers and half-naked neck as if they had been partially plucked. The "picnies"[1] call them peel-neck,
i.e. bald-neck, since peel-head means bald. These are technically known as senseh fowl. Now a writer in
Chambers's Journal for January 11, 1902, (39) suggests as an indication of obeah "a few senseh feathers; in one's soup-plate," and mentions in connexion with a particular case of obeah that among the ingredients required were "two white senseh fowls." (40) Moreover, May Robinson, in a contribution to the
Folk-Lore Quarterly in 1893 further associates the senseh fowl with the working of obeah especially in the process of "duppy catching" as a cure. (41) Now this Jamaica senseh fowl which is thus closely connected with obeah is identical with the
asense fowl of Ashanti,
[1. Sir Hans Sloane who came to Jamaica in 1687 as Physician to the Governor, Christopher, Duke of Albemarle, in his Voyage to the Islands, London, 1707, Vol. 1, Introduction, p. lii, gives Pequenos Ninnos (little tots) as the origin of piganinnies. This in turn has been transformed into piccaninnies or as we have it in the "bush" picknies. The word however is not of Jamaica origin. Ligon shows that it was in common use in Barbados before the seizure of Jamaica by the English. It was probably brought to the island by the Barbadians who accompanied the army of invasion in 1655.]
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whence, as we shall see later, the Jamaica obeah was derived. (42)
As it is peculiar to the Ashanti to use as a sobriquet of the Supreme Being or Creator
Ananse kokroko, the Great Spider, (43) it is significant to find Isabel Cranstoun Maclean in her Children of Jamaica (44) making the complaint: "Most of their beliefs are very depressing, and very degrading. It could not, for instance, help the children to grow into good men and women when they are told the Creator of man was a spider." Both in Jamaica and Ashanti the utterance is connected with fables illustrative of wisdom, and nothing else.
The Jamaica peasant habitually makes use of words that are to him simply meaningless, and yet they are not only pure Ashanti but their signification has been faithfully preserved during the century and a quarter since the importation of slaves was stopped. Thus the staple food of the Ashanti is
fufu which consists of mashed yam or plantain, (45) while in Jamaica mashed yam retains the same identical name, fufu. This word
fufu is itself the reduplicated form of the Ashanti
fu, meaning white, and in the Jamaica "bush" a very superior species of white yam is called fufu yam. While none of the peasants apparently know the origin of the term, this particular usage is clearly distinguished from that already mentioned where it signified yam that had been mashed. Again, the name of the common yellow yam in Jamaica is afu which is presumably a simplified form of
nkamfo, the Ashanti name for
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the same yellow yam. So too, in Jamaica, a yam that has developed spherically, and not in the usual elongated form, is known as
pumpun yam, a reduplicated form of the Ashanti word
pun, primarily meaning to become swelled or distended.
The fabulous duckano or dumpling-tree which is so frequently met with in Jamaica Anansi stories is derived directly from the Ashanti word
dokono, boiled maize-bread.
The Ashanti name of
odum for the silk-cotton tree perseveres in Jamaica both as regards its name and its characteristic association in popular superstition with duppies or ghosts who are supposed to make the odum tree their usual abode. The Ashanti word for owl,
patu, is still preserved in Jamaica and the Ashanti
apakyi, a broad calabash and
apakyim, a small calabash recur in the Jamaica name for a small calabash, packy. So too, the Ashanti
bonkara, a travelling basket, is the Jamaica bonkra, or as it is sometimes spelt bankra, just as the Ashanti
kotokuwo, a small bag or sack, is the Jamaica cutacoo, which is associated with the obeah-man.
The Ashanti
nyam, to move quickly, has the reduplicated form
nyinnyam, agony pangs of death, and the derivative
gyam, to be in the agonies or pangs of death. This is seemingly the origin of the Jamaica nyam, to eat greedily or devour, as we find it in the proverb "darg nyam darg," or as we would express it, "dog eat dog."..
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I wonder if most of these youths who use these terms over here have an inkling of where it originates..
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22-01-07, 01:50 AM
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, but I do concur with much of her findings. 
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